Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility' and 'The Rationality of Science'

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5 ideas

1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 1. Aims of Science

3859	We do not wish merely to predict, we also want to explain [Newton-Smith]
	Full Idea: We do not wish merely to predict, we also want to explain.
	From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], II.3)

3870	The real problem of science is how to choose between possible explanations [Newton-Smith]
	Full Idea: Once we move beyond investigating correlations between observables the question of what does or should guide our choice between alternative explanatory accounts becomes problematic.
	From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], IX.2)

3853	For science to be rational, we must explain scientific change rationally [Newton-Smith]
	Full Idea: We are only justified in regarding scientific practice as the very paradigm of rationality if we can justify the claim that scientific change is rationally explicable.
	From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], I.2)

1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 2. Positivism

3855	Critics attack positivist division between theory and observation [Newton-Smith]
	Full Idea: The critics of positivism attacked the conception of a dichotomy between theory and observation.
	From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], I.4)

3854	Positivists hold that theoretical terms change, but observation terms don't [Newton-Smith]
	Full Idea: For positivists it was taken that while theory change meant change in the meaning of theoretical terms, the meaning of observational terms was invariant under theory change.
	From: W.H. Newton-Smith (The Rationality of Science [1981], I.4)