This paper considers objections to Popper's views on scientific method. It is argued that criticism of Popper's views, developed by Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Lakatos, are not too damaging, although they do require that Popper's views be modified somewhat. It is argued that a much more serious criticism is that Popper has failed to provide us with any reason for holding that the methodological rules he advocates give us a better hope of realizing the aims of science than any other set of rules. Consequently, Popper cannot adequately explain why we should value scientific theories more than other sorts of theories; which in turn means that Popper fails to solve adequately his fundamental problem, namely the problem of demarcation. It is suggested that in order to get around this difficulty we need to take the search for explanations as a fundamental aim of science.

Three distinct things have been called “referential opacity,” causing some confusion. A noun position in a sentence may be opaque in three different ways: (1) substitutivity of identity may fail there, (2) quantifiers prefixed to the sentence may not be able to bind variables in that position, or (3) substitutivity of identity may fail when the singular nouns in question are read as having small scope. Some connections among these three types of opacity are examined.

This paper tries to extend Hintikka's inductive logic so that we can confirm a causally necessary statement. For this purpose, a joint system of inductive logic and logic of causal modalities is constructed. This system can offer a plausible explication of the distinction between nomic and accidental universality, as well as a good formulation of a causal law. And the transition from actuality to causal necessity is construed, in this system, as essentially probabilistic; i.e. no statements about actuality can entail a necessary statement, but certain statements about actuality can single out a most probable causal law.

Ordinary linguistic practices, as well as such extraordinary ones as are exemplified in scientific accounts, involve reporting, evaluating, and describing. This essay shows how a systematic account of these activities may help to illuminate the study of “ordinary language” and, ultimately, of technical linguistic practices.

A presentation showing how the statements which relate to microphysical objects as they are different from the statements of classical mechanics is made. The determinism of classical and of quantum-mechanical theories is qualified. A (crucial) distinction between causality and determinism is given. Detailed analyses of diffraction as a result of single and double-slit demonstrations point to paradoxes arising from the use of particle or wave models, respectively, for photons and electrons. The compromising wave-packet model is underscored. The meanings for the Psi-function and for |ψ|2 are presented, with an explanation of the limitations that arise from giving an interpretation of |ψ|2 as a probability. The meaning of ψ-waves is analyzed. A case is made for the ψ-function's describing a well-ordered list of betting odds, based on previous statistical experiences, for the different results of specific experiments of a microscopic object of study with macroscopic apparatus. The Schrödinger wave equation is evaluated for meaning and judged as a deterministic expression.

This paper develops and draws the consequences of an etiological analysis of goal-directedness modeled on one that functions centrally in Charles Taylor's work on action. The author first presents, criticizes, and modifies Taylor's formulation, and then shows his modified formulation accounts easily for much of the fine-structure of teleological concepts and conceptualizations. Throughout, the author is at pains to show that teleological explanations are orthodox from an empiricist's point of view: they require nothing novel methodologically.

Independently of any eighteenth century work on the geometry of parallels, Thomas Reid discovered the non-euclidean “geometry of visibles” in 1764. Reid's construction uses an idealized eye, incapable of making distance discriminations, to specify operationally a two dimensional visible space and a set of objects, the visibles. Reid offers sample theorems for his doubly elliptical geometry and proposes a natural model, the surface of the sphere. His construction draws on eighteenth century theory of vision for some of its technical features and is motivated by Reid's desire to defend realism against Berkeley's idealist treatment of visual space.