General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues Handbook of the Philosophy of Science General Editors Dov M. Gabbay Paul Thagard John Woods Picture left: Rudolf Carnap (from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). Picture right: Sir Karl Popper, photograph by Michael von Haugwitz (reprinted with permission). AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON • NEW YORK • OXFORD PARIS • SAN DIEGO • SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO North-Holland is an imprint of Elsevier General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues Edited by Theo A.F. Kuipers Department of Theoretical Philosophy University of Groningen Groningen, The Netherlands AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON • NEW YORK • OXFORD PARIS • SAN DIEGO • SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO North-Holland is an imprint of Elsevier North-Holland is an imprint of Elsevier Radarweg 29, PO Box 211, 1000 AE Amsterdam, The Netherlands Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP, UK First edition 2007 Copyright © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights Department in Oxford, UK: phone (+44) (0) 1865 843830; fax (+44) (0) 1865 853333; email:
[email protected] Alternatively you can submit your request online by visiting the Elsevier web site at http://elsevier.com/locate/permissions, and selecting Obtaining permission to use Elsevier material Notice No responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions or ideas contained in the material herein. Because of rapid advances in the medical sciences, in particular, independent verification of diagnoses and drug dosages should be made Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-0-444-51548-3 For information on all North-Holland publications visit our website at books.elsevier.com Printed and bound in The Netherlands 07 08 09 10 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 GENERAL PREFACE Dov Gabbay, Paul Thagard, and John Woods Whenever science operates at the cutting edge of what is known, it invariably runs into philosophical issues about the nature of knowledge and reality. Scientific controversies raise such questions as the relation of theory and experiment, the nature of explanation, and the extent to which science can approximate to the truth. Within particular sciences, special concerns arise about what exists and how it can be known, for example in physics about the nature of space and time, and in psychology about the nature of consciousness. Hence the philosophy of science is an essential part of the scientific investigation of the world. In recent decades, philosophy of science has become an increasingly central part of philosophy in general. Although there are still philosophers who think that theories of knowledge and reality can be developed by pure reflection, much current philosophical work finds it necessary and valuable to take into account relevant scientific findings. For example, the philosophy of mind is now closely tied to empirical psychology, and poli