Development of the Perspectivist Conception in the Context of the Kinetic Theory of Gases

Abstract

The conception of science and scientific progress presented in the previous chapter may be further explicated with the help of an example taken from the physics of gases. Though the presentation of this example will for the most part follow the actual development of gas theory, it is not intended to constitute the basis of an historical analysis, but to be a coherent reconstruction capturing the essence of the conceptual moves in this development. As a first step in the presentation of the example, the sort of schematization provided by Table 1 (p. 94) is here given a more definite form as a table of particular parameters, or quantified categories; and the general remarks made in the context of Table 1 should also be applicable here.