Testing Scientific Theories (Volume 8) (Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science)

Testing Scientific Theories was first published in 1984. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Since much of a scientist's work consists of constructing arguments to show how experiments and observation bear on a particular theory, the methodologies of theory testing and their philosophical underpinnings are of vital concern to philosophers of science. Confirmation of scientific theories is the topic of Clark Glymour's important book Theory and Evidence ,published in 1980. His negative thesis is that the two most widely discussed accounts of the methodology of theory testing - hypothetico-deductivism and Bayesianism - are flawed. The issues Glymour raises and his alternative "bootstrapping" method provided the focus for a conference sponsored by the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science and for this book. As editor John Earman says in his preface, the papers presented in Testing Scientific Theories germinate so many new ideas that philosophers of science will reap the harvest for years to come. Topics covered include a discussion of Glymour's bootstrapping theory of confirmation, the Bayesian perspective and the problems of old evidence, evidence and explanation, historical case studies, alternative views on testing theories, and testing particular theories, including psychoanalytic hypotheses and hypotheses about the completeness of the fossil record. Contents......Page 8 I . Glymour's Bootstrapping Theory of Confirmation......Page 10 "On Testing and Evidence"......Page 12 "Theory Comparison and Relevant Evidence"......Page 36 "Bootstrapping without Bootstraps"......Page 52 "Explanations of Irrelevance"......Page 64 II. The Bayesian Perspective and the Problem of Old Evidence......Page 76 "Why Glymour Is a Bayesian"......Page 78 "Old Evidence and Logical Omniscience in Bayesian Confirmation Theory"......Page 108 "Bayesianism with a Human Face"......Page 142 "Three Ways to Give a Probability Assignment a Memory"......Page 166 III. Evidence and Explanation......Page 172 "Glymour on Evidence and Explanation"......Page 174 IV. Historical Case Studies......Page 186 "Newton's Demonstration of Universal Gravitation and Philosophical Theories of Confirmation"......Page 188 "Realism and Instrumentalism in Pre-Newtonian Astronomy"......Page 210 V. Some Alternative Views on Testing Theories......Page 276 "Testing Theoretical Hypotheses"......Page 278 "The Deductive Model: Does It Have Instances?"......Page 308 VI. Testing Particular Theories......Page 322 "Retrospective vs. Prospective Testing of Aetiological Hypotheses in Freudian Theory"......Page 324 "Subjectivity in Psychoanalytic Inference: The Nagging Persistence of Wilhelm Fliess's Achensee Question"......Page 358 "Consistency Tests in Estimating the Completeness of the Fossil Record: A Neo-Popperian Approach to Statistical Paleontology"......Page 422 F......Page 486 M......Page 487 V......Page 488 Z......Page 489 C......Page 490 I......Page 491 R......Page 492 V......Page 493