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.
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The standardization required in order for this and the following table to be applicable to a development spanning more than two hundred years has been facilitated by the employment of notions of contemporary science: e.g. those of newton and degree Kelvin appearing in Table 3 below. Also, following standard notation, quotation marks are not being used in referring to individual parameters. Nevertheless, parameters, as quantified categories, are not here conceived as existing in the world, but rather as being abstractions we employ in our attempts to understand it. Cf. footnote 18 to Chapter 8.
For a description in which parameters can take real number values see the text to footnote 10 below.
In its original formulation, Boyle’s law did not involve the parameter temperature. In subsequent developments however it was realized that the applicability of the law requires that temperature be held constant.
Bernoulli is generally recognized as being the first to suggest a model of the sort which is today called the ideal gas model. It may be noted however that in Bernoulli’s model there is to be an infinite number of molecules: cf. Partington (1961), p. 477.
This is the approach taken e.g. in Barton (1933), pp. 197–201. It seems however that the derivation should also be possible even assuming an infinite number of molecules, as in the case of Bernoulli’s model: cf. Partington (1961), p. 477.
For details see e.g. Mitton (1939), pp. 179–182.
In this regard cf. W. A. Wallace (1974), p. 263: “[I]n many situations where a novel modeling technique is employed to gain understanding of a phenomenon, a new way of looking at things is involved and a type of Gestalt switch may take place. In this sense Kuhn is quite correct in seeing scientific revolutions as involving such switches and changed viewpoints. In fact, his paradigm shifts can very frequently be seen as modeling shifts. ...”
The notion of reduction suggested here is essentially similar to the notion of correspondence treated e.g. in Krajewski (1977), Ch. 1: cf. esp. pp. 6 & 10. Note that the present notion is not intended to be the one employed when speaking in such contexts as that concerning e.g. the reduction of biology to physics. It might also be noted at this point that the ideal gas model and that of van der Waals, in being conceptually distinct, strictly speaking constitute the respective bases of independent theories, though both fall under the more general heading of the kinetic theory of gases.
Imagine, for example, Bernoulli’s model and the ideal gas model to give identical results: they would nevertheless be perspectivally incompatible due to the assumption of an infinite number of molecules in the former and a finite number in the latter.
Fürth (1969), p. 327; the whole of Fürth’s paper constitutes a valuable discussion of the role of models in physics. In the present regard, cf. also Poincaré (1903), p. 217, and Campbell (1920), Ch. II.
Cf. Campbell (1920), p. 153: “[W]hy do we call some laws “empirical” and associate with that term a slight element of distrust? Because such laws are not explained by any theory.” An empirical law is here taken as not necessarily involving measurements—we might call such a law as does a quantitative law; and an experimental law is simply to be one which applies in experimental situations.
This usage of the term differs from that of e.g. Carnap and Nagel, in which a theoretical law is necessarily to contain terms referring to unobservables. See e.g. Nagel (1961), p. 80, and Carnap (1966 a), p. 227. An interesting discussion of the issues raised in the present chapter may also be found in Hempel (1970). In these later writings, each of the above authors makes reference to Campbell, and their respective discussions are largely shaped by Campbell’s (1920). Hempel in fact goes so far as to suggest that Campbell, who emphasizes so strongly the notion of analogy, is a proponent of what Hempel calls the ‘standard conception’ of scientific theories. The fact is that Campbell’s view lies quite beyond the standard conception, if by this we understand Hempel to mean the logical empiricist conception, or anything closely resembling it. (Consider, e.g., Campbell’s saying: “Of course the province and power of logic have been very greatly extended in recent years, but some of its essential features ... have remained unchanged; and any process of thought which does not show those features is still illogical. But illogical is not synonymous with erroneous. I believe that all important scientific thought is illogical, and that we shall be led into nothing but error if we try to force scientific reasoning into the forms prescribed by logical canons.” (1920), p. 52.) What the above authors are actually doing in the works cited here is not so much providing elaborations of the Empiricist conception of theories as affording relatively neutral descriptions of the way theories’ function in science.
Campbell (1920), p. 119; cf. also pp. 129–132.
This quotation and the next are taken from Duhem (1906), p. 56.
Duhem (1906), p. 70.
Nowak (1979), pp. 284–285.
In this regard see also Hesse (1966), pp. 34f.
Cf. Krajewski (1977), Ch. 2. For the present author’s view on idealization, as expressed elsewhere, see Dilworth (1979), and Dilworth/Bunge (1979), p. 420.
For a discussion of dispositional properties which is in keeping with the view of the present study, see Agazzi (1976), pp. 149ff.
With regard to the relation between the performing of operations and intersubjec-tivity in science, see Agazzi (1977 a), pp. 162ff., and (1978), pp. 100ff.
Cf. e.g. Bridgman (1936), Chs. II & IV.
For a lucid critique which is of relevance to this and other points raised in the present chapter, see Spector (1965). Concerning the present point, see also Kuhn (1974), pp. 465–466.
Hempel (1970), p. 144. See also e.g. Nagel (1961), pp. 93–94.
In this regard cf. Boltzmann (1896), p. 26, where he says: “In describing the theory of gases as a mechanical analogy, we have already indicated, by the choice of this word, how far removed we are from that viewpoint which would see in visible matter the true properties of the smallest particles of the body.”
We would thus have an instance of what Campbell calls ‘explanation by greater familiarity’ where he suggests that “The theory of gases explains Boyle’s Law, not only because it shows that it can be regarded as a consequence of the same general principle as Gay-Lussac’s Law, but also because it associates both laws with the more familiar ideas of the motion of elastic particles.” (1920), p. 146. With regard to the idea of models characterizing the essence of phenomena, and thereby causally explaining them, see also Nowak (1980), pp. 128–129.
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Dilworth, G. (1986). Development of the Perspectivist Conception in the Context of the Kinetic Theory of Gases. In: Scientific Progress. Synthese Library, vol 153. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2966-6_11
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