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Article #813Re: Which theory before observation ?
From: Christopher Green
Date: Sat, 09 Jan 1993 16:18
Date: Sat, 09 Jan 1993 16:18
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>In article <schiller.726487694@hpas5> schiller@prl.philips.nl (schiller c) writes: >>My position as a scientist is that facts, i.e. the results of observation, >>are the basis of theories. There are no "well-known" flaws of this position. >> I'm afriad that this is simply ill-informed. The observation-theory distinction has long been a matter a controversy in philosophy of science. The best-known "flaws" are put forward in Putnam's "What theories are not." The position outlined there is a little technical, but the central example is that one cannot establish, through obsevation, that a thing is red unless one has a conceptual scheme for colors that includes red in advance. Other more controversial critiques have been put forward by Paul Feyerabend (as mentioned by another poster) and Rom Harre (take a look at his article on philosophy of science in the _Encyclopedia of Philosophy_). -- Christopher D. Green christo@psych.toronto.edu Psychology Department cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1
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Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!usc!rpi!utcsri!psych.toronto.edu!christo From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green) Subject: Re: Which theory before observation ? Message-ID: <1993Jan9.161851.28603@psych.toronto.edu> Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto References: <C0HLqI.LA@unx.sas.com> <schiller.726487694@hpas5> <C0Jw8r.838.1@cs.cmu.edu> Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 16:18:51 GMT Lines: 21