The Structuralist View of Theories : A Possible Analogue of the Bourbaki Programme in Physical Science

The present text originated with the intention of writing a brief reply to Feyerabend's detailed discussion of my book The Structure and Dynamics of Theories. For reasons explained in the Introduction this turned out to be an impossible undertaking. What resulted was a self-contained new approach to the structuralist view, combined with an attempt to bring it up to date by including a report on the latest developments. As matters stand it would have been unreasonable and unfair of me to ask the editors of The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science to publish this text which exceeds by far the size of an average essay. Thus, a separate publication seemed advisable. I am deeply indebted to Springer-Verlag for making this publication possible. Since the publication of the above-mentioned book I have learned a lot from the works, partly unpublished, of Professor Joseph D. Sneed, Professor Carlos­ Ulises Moulines, and Dr. Wolfgang Balzer. I should like to thank my co-workers Dr. Wolfgang Balzer and Dr. Matthias Varga von Kibed and my student Michael Heidelberger for many constructive, critical remarks on the first draft of the manuscript and, in addition, Dr. Balzer for collecting and orga­ nizing the material for the Formal Appendix. Last, but not least, I express my warm thanks to Mrs. Clara Seneca, Oldenburg, and Mr. Roberto Minio, Springer­ Verlag, for amending my English formulations. V Table of Contents Introduction ....................................... . The present text originated with the intention of writing a brief reply to Feyerabend's detailed discussion of my book The Structure and Dynamics of Theories. For reasons explained in the Introduction this turned out to be an impossible undertaking. What resulted was a self-contained new approach to the structuralist view, combined with an attempt to bring it up to date by including a report on the latest developments. As matters stand it would have been unreasonable and unfair of me to ask the editors of The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science to publish this text which exceeds by far the size of an average essay. Thus, a separate publication seemed advisable. I am deeply indebted to Springer-Verlag for making this publication possible. Since the publication of the above-mentioned book I have learned a lot from the works, partly unpublished, of Professor Joseph D. Sneed, Professor CarlosƯ Ulises Moulines, and Dr. Wolfgang Balzer. I should like to thank my co-workers Dr. Wolfgang Balzer and Dr. Matthias Varga von Kibed and my student Michael Heidelberger for many constructive, critical remarks on the first draft of the manuscript and, in addition, Dr. Balzer for collecting and orgaƯ nizing the material for the Formal Appendix. Last, but not least, I express my warm thanks to Mrs. Clara Seneca, Oldenburg, and Mr. Roberto Minio, SpringerƯ Verlag, for amending my English formulations. V Table of Contents Introduction .. Front Matter....Pages I-VII Introduction....Pages 1-2 The Origin of the Structuralist Approach: The Attempted Integration of Physical Science into the Bourbaki Programme by P. Suppes. Non-Statement View....Pages 3-7 Empiricism Liberalized, Informal Semantics and the Extended Bourbaki Programme (‘Sneedification’)....Pages 8-14 The Force of T -Theoreticity and the Ramsey-View Emended. Non-Statement View 2 and Non-Statement View 2,5 ....Pages 15-24 Theory-Nets Instead of Expanded Cores....Pages 25-28 Pragmatization. Theory-Evolution in Scientific Communities....Pages 29-32 Progress, Progress-Branching, Kuhn-Loss and Rationality in Science....Pages 33-40 On the Importance of the Distinction between General and Special Philosophy of Science. Non-Statement View 3 ....Pages 41-49 Kuhn-Interpretation and Withdrawal of Objections Against Kuhn....Pages 50-57 Holism, Underdetermination of Theories and Research Programmes: Remarks on W. V. Quine and I. Lakatos....Pages 58-62 Some Additional New Results....Pages 63-65 Incommensurabilities....Pages 66-82 Concluding Remarks....Pages 83-88 Back Matter....Pages 89-104