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Scientific Explanation, Space & Time

Volume 3: Minnesota Studies in Philosophy of Science

Table of Contents

Synopsis…vii

The Ontological Status of Theoretical Entities …3
Grover Maxwell, University of Minnesota

  1. The Problem…4
  2. The Observational-Theoretical Dichotomy…7
  3. What If We COULD Eliminate Theoretical Terms?…15
  4. "Criteria" of Reality and Instrumentalism…20
  5. The Ontological Status of Entities-Theoretical and Otherwise…22

Explanation, Reduction, and Empiricism …28
P. K. Feyerabend, University of California

  1. Two Assumptions of Contemporary Empiricism…32
  2. Criticism of Reduction or Explanation by Derivation…43
  3. The First Example…46
  4. Reasons for the Failure of (5) and (3)…48
  5. Second Example: The Problem of Motion…52
  6. Methodological Considerations…62
  7. Criticism of the Assumphon of Meaning Invariance…74
  8. Summary and Conclusion…91
  9. References…95

Deductive-Nomological vs. Statistical Explanation …98
Carl G. Hempel, Princeton University

  1. 1. Objectives of This Essay…98
    PART 1. DEDUCTIVE-NOMOLOGICAL SYSTEMATIZATION…99
  2. The Covering-Law Model of Explanation…99
  3. Truth and Confirmation of Deductive Explanations…101
  4. Causal Explanation and the Covering-Law Model…103
  5. Covering Laws: Premises or Rules?…110
  6. Explanation, Prediction, Retrodiction, and Deductive Systematizationóa Puzzle about About…113
    PART 11. STATISTICAL SYSTEMATIZATION…121
  7. Laws of Strictly General and Statistical Form…121
  8. The Ambiguity of Statistical Systematization…125
  9. The Theoretical Concept of Statistical Probability and the Problem of Ambiguity…128
  10. The Inductive Character of Statistical Systematization and the Requirement of Total Evidence…133
  11. The Logical Form of Simple Statistical Systematizations: A Rough Criterion of Evidential Adequacy…141
  12. On Criteria of Rational Credibility…149
  13. The Nonconjunctiveness of Statistical Systematization…163
  14. Concluding Remarks…166
  15. References…167

Explanations, Predictions, and Laws …170
Michael Scriven, Indiana University

  1. Preface…170
  2. Outline…172
  3. Preliminary Issues…172
  4. Fundamental Issues…196
  5. The Alternative Analysis…224
  6. Comments on Hempel's Account of Statistical Explanation…226

Explanation, Prediction, and "Imperfect" Knowledge …231
May Brodbeck, University Of Minnesota

  1. The Attack on the Deductive Model…231
  2. Common-Sense Facts vs. Philosophical Claims…233
  3. The Appeal to Ordinary Usage and to "Understanding "…234
  4. Language as Communication vs. Language as Description…236
  5. Why Explanation Must Be Deductive…238
  6. "Perfect" Knowledge and Deductive Explanation…241
  7. "Certainty" of Premises vs. Deductive Validity…242
  8. "Imperfect" Knowledge and Deductive Explanation…245
  9. Explanation by 'Causes' vs. Explanation by Laws…249
  10. Explanation and Imperfect Knowledge of History and Society…252
  11. Inference Tickets and Enthymemes…254
  12. "Conceptual Analysis" and Rejection of Hypothetico-Deductive Theories…258
  13. Criticism of the Premises of the Deductive Model…262
  14. "Lawlike" Hypotheticals vs. Causal Laws…264
  15. Motives, Meaning, and a Science of Man…267
  16. Concluding Remarks…272

The Factual Content of Theoretical Concepts …273
William W. Rozeboom, Wesleyan University

The Analytic and the Synthetic …358
Hilary Putnam, Massachusetts Institute Of Technology

  1. Analytic and Nonanalytic Statements…368
  2. The Rationale of the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction…381
  3. The Analytic-Synthetic Distinction in Natural Language…389

The Necessary and the Contingent …358
Grover Maxwell, University of Minnesota

Geometry, Chronometry, and Empiricism …405
Adolf Grunbaum, University of Pittsburgh

  1. Introduction…405
  2. The Criteria of Rigidity and Isochronism: The Epistemological Status of Spatial and Temporal Congruence…408
    1. The Clash between Newton's and Riemann's Conceptions of Congruence and the Role of Conventions in Geochronometry…408
    2. Physical Congruence, Testability, and Operationism…428
    3. The Inadequacies of the Nongeometrical Portion of Riemann's Theory of Manifolds…430
  3. An Appraisal of R. Carnap's and H. Reichenbach's Philosophy of Geometry…432
    1. The Status of Reichenbach's 'Universal Forces,' and His 'Relativity of Geometry '…432
    2. Reichenbach's Theory of Equivalent Descriptions…446
    3. An Error in the Carnap-Reichenbach Account of the Definition of Congruence: The Non-Uniqueness of Any Definition of Congruence Furnished by Stipulating a ParticularMetric Geometry…447
  4. Some Chronometric Ramifications of the Conventionality of Congruence…453
    1. Newtonian Mechanics…453
    2. The General Theory of Relativity…463
    3. The Cosmology of E. A. Milne…465
  5. Critique of Some Major Objections to the Convenhonality of Spatio-Temporal Congruence…471
    1. The Russell-Poincare Controversy…471
    2. A. N. Whitehead's Unsuccessful Attempt to Ground an Intrinsic Metric of Physical Space and Time on the Deliverances of Sense…473
    3. A. S. Eddington's Specious Trivialization of the Riemann-Poincaré Conception of Congruence and the Elaboration of Eddington's Thesis by H. Putnam and P. K. Feyerabend…485
  6. The Bearing of Alternative Metrizability on the Interdependence of Geochronometry and Physics…493
    1. The Fundamental Difference between the Linguistic Interdependence of Geometry and Physics Affirmed by the Conventionalism of H. Poincare and Their Epistemological (Inductive) Interdependence in the Sense of P. Duhem…493
    2. Exegetical Excursus: Poincare's Philosophy of Geometry…505
  7. The Empirical Status of Physical Geometry…506
    1. Einstein's Duhemian Espousal of the Interdependence of Geometry and Physics…506
    2. Critique of Einstein's Duhemian Thesis…510
  8. Summary…521
  9. Bibliography…522

Time and the World Order …527
Wilfrid Sellars, Yale University

    I. FACTS,EPISODES,AND THINGS…528
  1. Truths about Other Times…578
  2. Do Past and Future Episodes Exist?…541
  3. Time and Temporal Relations in a World of Things…550
  4. Do Past and Future Things Exist?…556
  5. Relativity and the Objectivity of Becoming…567
  6. The Problem Recast: an Ontology of 'Events'?…577
  7. More on 'To Exist '…583
  8. Existence and Tense…588
  9. Things or Events ?…593
    10. II. DETERMINISM AND TRUTH…595
  10. Decidability and Truth: Toward a Three-Valued Logic?…595
  11. Decidability and Truth: A Radical View…604
  12. Decidability and Truth: Conclusion…612

Name Index…619

Subject Index…622

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