The Perspectivist Conception of Science

Abstract

In being based on the Deductive Model, the Popperian and Empiricist views of science take scientific laws and theories to be statements of the form: for all x, if x has the property F,then x has the property G. The first step is conceptually to delineate a universe of x’s having property F,and then it is to be empirically determined whether such x’s also have property G. A number of these x’s are thus to be observed and found either to have or not to have this property. There is no middle way—on this view either the predicate G is applicable or it is not, and if not, the law or theory is considered false.