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Observable/Unobservable Distinction in Philosophy of Science

Moazzenzadeh, Jahangir | 2017

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  1. Type of Document: Ph.D. Dissertation
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 49488 (42)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Philosophy of Science
  6. Advisor(s): Mousavi Karimi, Mirsaeid
  7. Abstract:
  8. In an official announcement during the inaugural speech in 2012, where Hempel Award presented on behalf of the Philosophy of Science Association to Bas van Fraassen for “a lifetime scholarly achievement in the philosophy of science”, it was said that, “van Fraassen advocates a semantic approach to scientific theories and, on that basis, urges skepticism regarding laws of nature, anti-realism regarding unobservables, and pragmatism regarding explanation” (Gonzalez 2014, 5). van Fraassen’s approach to unobservable entities has a crucial role in his philosophy of science and also in this dissertation. The aim here is to defend van Fraassen’s claim based upon the distinction he makes between epistemic observable/unobservable among world entities. Logical positivists believed that there is a triple ontological, epistemic, and semantic distinction between terms in language and entities in the world, where the terms refer to those entities. Having declined the approach of logical positivism and further rejecting the semantic observable/unobservable distinction, scientific realists claim there is also no epistemic distinction among world entities. They conclude that there is not any ontological distinction among the entities and unobservable entities such as electrons, which are introduced by scientific theories, exist in the world the same way as observable entities do. Antirealists such as van Fraassen, however, believe that the rejection of semantic observable/unobservable distinction does not mean that there is no ontological and epistemic distinction among world entities and so we are required to advocate scientific realism entirely. This dissertation attempts to classify the main claims of scientific realists in this field, and to defend van Fraassen's claim about epistemic distinction among world entities.To give a brief yet concise overview of the contents of this dissertation, the second chapter starts with the historical discussions of observable/unobservable distinction between realists and antirealists. In Chapters 3 and 4, Carnap is introduced in defense of empiricism as the most famous advocate of the “received view” approach followed by Maxwell and Putnam as critics of the “received view”. In Chapter 5, van Fraassen's responses to scientific realists are represented as he describes them in his “Constructive empiricism” approach. In Chapter 6, van Fraassen’s approach to semantic view about the structure of scientific theories is first introduced, and then his focus on changing his viewpoint about “empiricism” which he presented in his “stance empiricism” approach is discussed. In Chapter 7, the critiques of van Fraassen’s views are discussed. Finally, Chapter 8 concludes by arguing that although the realists’ reasoning against epistemic observable/unobservable distinction is not acceptable, van Fraassen’s argument still could not deny the “essence” and “existence” of unobservable entities at the same time. Therefore, one can accept the observable/unobservable distinction and obtain a kind of “existential realism” as well
  9. Keywords:
  10. Antirealism ; Observable ; Scientific Realism ; Constructive Empiricism ; Stance Empiricism ; Unobservable ; Science Aim

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