Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-31T23:19:03.405Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the Theoretical Dependence of Correspondence Postulates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

James Child
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The nature of the connection between theory and observation has been a major source of difficulty for philosophers of science. It is most vexing for those who would reduce the terms of a theory to those of an observation language, e.g. Carnap, Braithwaite, and Nagel. Carnap's work, particularly his treatment of physical theories as partially interpreted formalisms, forms the point of focus of this paper. Carnap attempted to make the connection between theory and observation through correspondence postulates. It is pointed out that such postulates depend in critical ways upon theoretical truths. This particular type of theoretical dependence produces serious trouble for Carnap's approach. For reasons given it may make it untenable. Furthermore, this problem when generalized creates difficulty for any similar reductionist program. Not only is this kind of theoretical dependence pointed out, but more important, the logical conditions which produce it are revealed. In this way light is shed upon the formal characteristics of the notion of theory dependence, especially upon the way in which observation terms depend upon theories for their meaning.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , June 1971 , pp. 170 - 177
Copyright
Copyright © 1971 by The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

I would like to thank Professors Robert Greenberg and Grover Maxwell for their very helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

References

REFERENCES

[1] Carnap, R., “Beobachtungssprache und Theoretische Sprache,” Dialècta, vol. 12, nos. 3,4.Google Scholar
[2] Carnap, R., “Foundations of Logic and Mathematics,” International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, vol. I, no. 3.Google Scholar
[3] Carnap, R., “Methodological Character of Theoretical Concepts,” Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science (eds. Feigl, H. and Scriven, M.), University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1956, vol. I.Google Scholar
[4] Carnap, R., “On the Use of Hilbert's ε-Operator in Scientific Theories,” Essays on the Foundations of Mathematics (ed. Bar-Hillel, et al.) Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1967.Google Scholar
[5] Carnap, R., “The Philosopher Replies,” The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap (ed. Schilpp, P. A.), Open Court, La Salle, 1963.Google Scholar
[6] Carnap, R., Philosophical Foundations of Physics (ed. Gardner, Martin), New York, Basic Books, 1966 (chapt. 28).Google Scholar
[7] Carnap, R., “Testability and Meaning,” Readings in the Philosophy of Science (eds. H. Feigl and M. Brodbeck), New York, 1953, pp. 55–56.Google Scholar
[8] Feyerabend, P. K., “Explanation, Reduction and Empiricism,” Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science (eds. H. Feigl and G. Maxwell), Minneapolis, 1962, vol. III.Google Scholar
[9] Feyerabend, P. K., “Problems of Empiricism,” Beyond the Edge of Certainty (ed. R. G. Colodny), Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1965.Google Scholar
[10] Hanson, N. R., Patterns of Discovery, Cambridge, 1958.Google Scholar
[11] Hempel, C., “Empiricist Criteria of Cognitive Significance: Problems and Changes,” Aspects of Scientific Explanation, New York, 1965.Google Scholar
[12] Sellars, W., “The Language of Theories,” Science, Perception and Reality, London, 1963.Google Scholar
[13] Sellars, W., “Theoretical Explanation,” Philosophy of Science The Delaware Seminar (ed. Bernard Baumrin), New York, 1963, vol. II.Google Scholar