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15Does the Claim that there are no Theories Imply that there is no History of Theories to be Written?(!)Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 1-20. forthcoming.InThere Are No Such Things As Theories(French 2020), the reification of theories is critically analysed and rejected. My aim here is to tease out some of the implications of this approach first of all, for how we, philosophers of science, should view the history of science; secondly, for how we should understand the devices that we use in our own philosophical practices; and thirdly, for how we might think about the relationship between the history of science and the philosophy of science.
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12Identity conditions, idealisations and isomorphisms: a defence of the Semantic ApproachSynthese 198 (Suppl 24): 5897-5917. 2017.In this paper I begin with a recent challenge to the Semantic Approach and identify an underlying assumption, namely that identity conditions for theories should be provided. Drawing on previous work, I suggest that this demand should be resisted and that the Semantic Approach should be seen as a philosophical device that we may use to represent certain features of scientific practice. Focussing on the partial structures variant of that approach, I then consider a further challenge that arises f…Read more
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12Evolutionary Biology: Causes, Consequences and Controversies (review)Metascience 16 (3): 437-445. 2007.
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12Partial Structures and the Logic of Azande DOI: 10.5007/1808-1711.2011v15n1p77Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 15 (1): 77-105. 2011.In Science and Partial Truth it was argued that inconsistencies in scientific reasoning may be accommodated by the combination of partial structures and quasi-truth, together with a notion of ‘representational belief’. In this paper I shall examine whether this framework can be extended to the reasonings and beliefs of other cultures, focusing in particular on the witchcraft beliefs of Azande. I shall argue that these beliefs are akin to the theoretical beliefs of Western science but that the mo…Read more
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10Understanding Scientific Theories: An Assessment of Developments, 1969–1998 (review)Philosophy of Science 67 (3). 2000.The positivistic Received View construed scientific theories syntactically as axiomatic calculi where theoretical terms were given a partial semantic interpretation via correspondence rules connecting them to observation statements. This paper assesses what, with hindsight, seem the most important defects in the Received View; surveys the main proposed successor analyses to the Received View—various Semantic Conception versions and the Structuralist Analysis; evaluates how well they avoid those …Read more
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10W. E. HERFEL, W. KRAJEWSKI,, I. NIINILUOTO, AND R. WÓJCICKI (Eds.), Theories and Models in Scientific Processes. Poznań Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities, Vol. 44, Amsterdam/Atlanta, Rodopi, 1995British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 47 (4): 658-662. 1996.
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9Scientific Realism and the Quantum (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2020.Quantum theory explains a hugely diverse array of phenomena in the history of science. But how can the world be the way quantum theory says it is? Fifteen expert scholars consider what the world is like according to quantum physics in this volume and offer illuminating new perspectives on fundamental debates that span physics and philosophy.
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9The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science | Vol 73, No 3British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (4): 1155-1156. 2020.
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8Review of BAS VAN FRAASSEN: Quantum Mechanics: An Empiricist Approach (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 46 (3): 436-439. 1995.
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8Representation and Realism: On Being a Structuralist All the Way (Up and) DownIn Claus Beisbart & Michael Frauchiger (eds.), Scientific Theories and Philosophical Stances: Themes from van Fraassen, De Gruyter. pp. 87-108. 2024.
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7Review of Martin H. Krieger: Constitutions of Matter: Mathematically Modeling the Most Everyday of Physical Phenomena (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 49 (2): 355-358. 1998.
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7Overstated or Understated: The Role of Regimes in Creating and Addressing Environmental Problems (review)Metascience 16 (3): 515-517. 2007.
Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |