Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T17:50:38.206Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Laws and Meaning Postulates in van Fraassen's View of Theories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Linda Wessels*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Extract

In several recent papers ([7], [8]) Bas van Fraassen has suggested that the structure of a scientific theory might be more appropriately represented by his “semantic view of theories” than by the traditional “syntactic view.” Under the syntactic view, to characterize a theory one provides “a finite list of sentences given to count as axioms, plus a finite set of syntactic transformations, of an effective character, given to generate the set of all theorems from these axioms.” ([8], p. 305) The set of all such theorems is identified with the theory, and contains the set of all claims made by the theory about physical systems. Under the semantic approach, however, one “does not view a physical theory as… a kind of Principia Mathematica cum nonlogical postulates.” ([7], p. 337) Rather, “all the resources of mathematical English” are used to construct a theoretical framework, and “the theoretical reasoning of the physicist is viewed as ordinary mathematical reasoning concerning this framework.”

Type
Contributed Papers: Session II
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland

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.)

References

Carnap, R.: 1923, ‘Über die Aufgabe der Physik und die Anwendung des Grundsatzes der Einfachstheit’, Kant-Studien 28, 90-107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carnap, R.: 1963, ‘Replies’, in Schilpp, P. A. (ed.), The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, Open Court, pp. 359-999.Google Scholar
Carnap, R.: 1966, in Gardner, M. (ed.), Philosophical Foundations of Physics, Basic Books.Google Scholar
Campbell, N. R.: 1920, Physics: The Elements, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, B.: 1967, ‘Meaning Relations among Predicates’, Nous 1, 161-179.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, B.: 1969, ‘Meaning Relations and Modalities’, Nous 3, 155-167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, B.: 1970, ‘On the Extension of Beth's Semantics of Physical Theories’, Philosophy of Science 37, 325-338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Fraassen, B.: 1972, ‘A Formal Approach to the Philosophy of Science’, in Colodny, R. C. (ed.), Paradigms and Paradoxes, University of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 303-367.Google Scholar
Winnie, J.: 1973, ‘Theoretical Analyticity’, in Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VIII, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, pp. 289-305.Google Scholar