Halvorson, Hans (2015) Scientific Theories. [Preprint]
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Abstract
Since the beginning of the 20th century, philosophers of science have asked, "what kind of thing is a scientific theory?" The logical positivists answered: a scientific theory is a mathematical theory, plus an empirical interpretation of that theory. Moreover, they assumed that a mathematical theory is specified by a set of axioms in a formal language. Later 20th century philosophers questioned this account, arguing instead that a scientific theory need not include a mathematical component; or that the mathematical component need not be specified by a set of axioms in a formal language. We survey various accounts of scientific theories entertained in the 20th century -- removing some misconceptions, and clearing a path for future research.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
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| Additional Information: | Published version in The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Science | ||||||
| Keywords: | semantic view, syntactic view, received view, logical empiricism, Carnap, Suppes predicate, correspondence rules, partial interpretation, model theory, category theory | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science General Issues > Logical Positivism/Logical Empiricism General Issues > Structure of Theories General Issues > Theory/Observation |
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| Depositing User: | Hans Halvorson | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 01 Mar 2015 01:20 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 01 Mar 2015 01:20 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 11347 | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science General Issues > Logical Positivism/Logical Empiricism General Issues > Structure of Theories General Issues > Theory/Observation |
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| Date: | 27 February 2015 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/11347 |
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