POLE, Nelson, 1941- THE MEANING OF TERMS EMPLOYED IN SCIENTIFIC LANGUAGES AND THE PROBLEM OF INDUCTION. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1971 Philosophy University Microfilms. A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED THE MEANING OF TERMS EMPLOYED IN SCIENTIFIC LANGUAGES AND THE PROBLEM OF INDUCTION DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Nelson Pole, B. Phil. ***** The Ohio State University 1971 Approved by Adviser Department of Philosophy PLEASE NOTE: Some pages have light and indistinct print. Film as received. UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A great debt is owed to my Professors at The Ohio State University but especially to my adviser Professor Charles F. Kielkopf. Their constant encouragement and good advice made my days as a graduate student both enjoyable and profitable. My gratitude is also owed to my colleagues in the Department of Philosophy at The Cleveland State University for reading parts of this work and especially for giving me the free time to complete it. Many thanks are due to the capable young ladies who typed the manuscript, Miss Linda Taus, Miss Cathy Stanley and Miss Naomi Cope. Finally, X can never fully express all that I owe to my wife for more things than I am able to mention here. Nelson Pole Cleveland, Ohio ii VITA October 13, 1941. Born— Detroit, Michigan 1963 B. Phil, Monteith College, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan 1964-1968 Teaching Assistant, Department of Philosophy, The Ohio State University 1968-1971 Instructor, Department of Philosophy The Cleveland State University PUBLICATIONS "'Self-Supporting* Inductive Arguments," Boston Studies in The Philosophy of Science, Volume VIII, (Boston: Boston University, 1971). FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Philosophy Studies in the History of Philosophy. Professors Marvin Fox and Robert Turnbull Studies in Metaphysics, Epistemology and Philosophy of Science. Professors Alan Hausman and Virgil Hinshaw Studies in Logic. Professors Charles Kielkopf and John Steltzer ill TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......................................... ii VITA ................................................. iii LIST OF TABLES .................................. vi INTRODUCTION ............................................ 1 Chapter I. SCIENTIFIC LAWS AND M O D E L S .................. 8 1.1 Scientific Laws and T h e o r i e s ........ 9 1.2 Self-Evidence and Conventions ........ 15 1.3 Models and Theories ................. 21 1.4 The Extensions of the Terms of Scientific Discourse .................. 35 1.5 Ontological Status of M o d e l s ......... 39 1.6 Peter Achinstein's Theory ........... 46 1.7 Opera ti o n a l i s m ........................ 55 1.8 Logical Positivism .................... 83 The Verifiability Criterion ........... 64 Reductionism ............ 65 Ultra Empiricism ...................... 66 Fictionallsm ........................... 67 1.9 Symbolic Language ...................... 69 1.10 S u m m a r y ................................. 72 II. COUNTERFACTUAL CONDITIONALS AND REFERENCE 74 2.1 The Problem of Counterfactuals .... 75 2.2 Truth Functionality .................... 78 2.3 Reference and Counterfactuals ........ 83 2.4 Nothing Wrong V i e w ................... 91 2.5 The Classical T h e o r y ................. 98 2.6 Extensional Logic ............. 104 III. THE PARADOX OF CONFIRMATION .................. 117 3.1 Paradox of Confirmation............... 117 3.2 The Paradox Dissolved ............... 121 3.3 Existential Import . ............. 130 3.4 Other Approaches .................... 142 3.5 Choosing A Language.................... 155 iv Chapter Page IV. THE PROBLEM OF INDUCTION AND ITS SOLUTION . 164 4.1 The Characterization of Induction . 165 4.2 Counter Examples to Induction .... 185 4.3 Inductive Support............... .. 202 4.4 Some Misconceptions Clarified.. 222 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................ 229 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1. The Incompatibility T a b l e ..................... Page 126 vi In Memorial William Pole 1904-1970 vii INTRODUCTION This is a work in the Philosophy of Science. It is about the central semantic problem in the Philosophy of Science: What is the extension of the terms employed in scientific discourse? The answer to this question is used to solve other important problems in the Philosophy of Science. Ultimately, the answer is used to attack the problem of induction. There are at least two main ways of doing the Philosophy of Science. The prescriptive approach to the subject matter lays out the ideal conditions under which science operates. The historical workings of the sciences are of no particular import to such an approach. If the actual workings of scientists do not reflect the findings of such a study, then so much the worse for the science. If procedure X is required for true science and actual science lacks procedure X, then actual science is not true science. For example, if the verifiability criterion was intended as a means of exorcising metaphysical entities from scientific theories, then it was an attempt, on the part of philosophers, to tell scientists how to do science.^- If actual science employed metaphysical entities and true science does not, then actual science is not true science. Prescriptive ^See A. J. Ayer, Language. Truth and Logic, 2nd ed., (New York: Dover, 1952), Introduction. 1 philosophy of science shall only be found in this work as the butt of criticism. Descriptive philosophy of science is an attempt to describe the actual working processes of the 2 scientist. Thomas Kuhn and others have pioneered this approach. It is not important to accept the judgements of scientists about what they are doing but it is important to refrain from telling them what to do. Scientists may be in the dark as to what they are doing; that is, they may make mistaken judgements about the importance of their activities or the nature of their activities. For example, in Chapter One some scientists will appear who claim to observe atomic particles. Philosophy of Science in the descriptive mode notes their claim but need only account for their making such judgements not for those judgements being true. The descriptivist may well disagree with the scientists who claim to observe atomic particles for the scientist in making such a judgement is being a philosopher of science. As a philosopher, the scientist has no special competency; his pronouncements are as challengeable as any other philosopher. The measure of descriptive philosophy of science is that the philosopher is always examining his findings to insure that the scientist can actually do science if the scientist follows the philosopher's findings. Since the only measure of what can be done is what is actually done, the ^See The Structure of Scientific Revelations.(Chicago: University of Chicago, 1962). 3 descriptivist always checks to see that his findings describe actual practice in the sciences. For him there is no difference between true science and actual science. The flavor of this work is descriptive. It will be an operating principle of analysis that any philosopher's view which has the consequence that science as practiced should not be done is to be rejected for that very reason. Further, any . scientific activity which seems to be necessary for the functioning of science shall be regarded with utmost seriousness for that very reason. Activities which have been important in science since the rise of contemporary science shall be considered central to the scientific enterprise. Philosophies of Science which discount historically important phenomena shall be themselves discounted here. For example, positivists, especially logical positivists, have always depreciated the role of models in the sciences. For them, the model is merely a heuristic device. But models have played a central role in the development of science by providing a stimulus to new research. Further, models seem to be needed for explanation to occur. Whatever logical problems there may be with models, they will have to be lived with since models have been so important for science and scientists show no sign of giving them up. The focus on models is the central innovation of this study. It is a study in what Kuhn has termed "normal" science, science during the period following a significant innovation, science principally concerned with getting the details straight after an intellectual revolution. Scientists attempt to discover laws which relate some properties of a system to other properties. In Newtonian Mechanics the properties related are acceleration, mass, distance, and force. Laws ignore most properties of the system. Hence there is a distinction, funda­ mental to science, between primary qualities and secondary qualities, between qualities necessary for the statement of laws and those which are analysed in terms of the properties mentioned in the laws. A model is a depiction of the world using only the primary qualities. Nevertheless, the model is no more a depiction of the real world than the world as phenomenally presented is real. Since the world can be under­ stood either through the model or through the phenomenal presentation of it, either way of understanding it is as good as the other. There is but one world, it may be described either scientifically or phenomenally, but it is the same world. The difficulty with constructing either description of the world