FALSAFE-YE ELM (PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE)
Year:2012 | Volume:2 | Issue:1|Papers Count:8

According to Hilary Putnam, two different levels of empirical investigations regarding natural kinds are available: discovering essence and distinguishing genuine samples from fake ones. Recently, Joseph LaPorte has presented a dilemma in naming natural kinds. He showed that for any kind there are some vague samples which scientists cannot decide whether take them as an unknown variation of the kind or not to consider them as extensions of that kind. On the one hand, discovering the kind's essence is possible for scientists only when they recognize the range of differences between kind's variations, and on the other hand, they can distinguish different kind variations only when they know the kind's essence. Here, LaPorte has presented his own solution. According to him, the kind's essence is not discovered but stipulated. In this essay we shall try to present an alternative solution in which discovering an essence is possible.

There are four distinct analytical approaches to Hume's philosophy of causation: naturalist, epistemological, semantic, and ontologic. The naturalist approach, deals with the study and process review of the origin or source of things that have occupied our minds. This approach is concerned with questions such as: "What is the mental mechanism by which we infer effects from causes?" and "What is the origin of essential relationship concept"? The epistemological approach deals with topics that could be determined with certainty and that how could we justify causal claims and claims about the future. Semantic approach deals with the question that what is the purpose of statements such as "A causes B"? The ontological approach is concerned with essence of nature and of causality in world independent of our beliefs.The main concern of Hume, is primarily naturalist and then epistemological, while commentators disagree on the causal theory of Hume regarding semantics of cause and ontology of causation. Accordingly, Hume followed the structure and function of human mind to provide analysis based on human nature, and justify "causation". The elements he makes use of include: association, habit and belief where all of them are the features of human mind and are related to the human nature. This paper introduces and reviews the naturalist approach to the issue of causation.

This paper aims toward the formulation of unificationist approach in the development process of standard quantum mechanics (SQM) during the years 1913-1927, focusing on Bohr and Heisenberg as the two prominent founder scientists of ‘Copenhagen' quantum mechanics. In this investigation, we formulate various types of unificationist approaches involving reductionist, analogist, and holistic forms of unificationism, within Bohr's and Heisenberg's main works. Thus, one part of this paper is devoted to description and articulation of several kinds of unificationism from philosophical point of view. Another part is devoted to the conceptual and philosophical analysis of main works of Bohr (including atomic model, correspondence principle, and complementarily) and Heisenberg (Matrix mechanics and indeterminacy relations). This analysis includes origins, methods, contents, and consequences of their works on physics, in the specific period of SQM development.

Kuhn argues that while revival scientific paradigms are incommensurable claims they are incompatible as well. This brings about a problem: how two incommensurable theories could be incompatible? Incommensurability entails that two rival theories should have different cognitive domain and taxonomic structure, this expression then blocks the emergence of contradiction among statements. In this essay we intend to propose a semantic theory and distinct two kinds of incompatibility, sentential incompatibility and taxonomic structural incompatibility, and thereby attempt to defend incompatibility and incommensurability of paradigms.

The dilemma of induction is one of the most difficult philosophical problems that if solved many philosophical problems could be explained and many conclusions could scientifically be justifiable. Bertrand Russell, one of the greatest analyzer philosophers of the twentieth century, has tried to solve the problem of induction.From the Russell's point of view the dilemma of induction is a question of how to justify the general provisions, causal laws, and indirect knowledge. He appealed that the principle of uniformity of nature is not enough to solve this problem, and then he suggested the reception of induction as a principle. Based on the principle of induction, the more the number of concurrences of A and B the greater is the possibility of perpetual coincidence between them and when the number of concurrences is enough constant conjunction of A with B is almost certain.According to Russell, the principle of induction is neither rationally provable nor empirically verifiable, but the principle should be accepted because of its natural evidence and finally because of its consequences. According to Russell the metalogical principles cause the probability of generalization lean toward certainty. Finally he notes although induction can't provide us with theoretical certainty (logical and mathematical) but its near certainty probability is more than that of a metaphysical dogma.

Most of the literature about philosophy of science in the last decade is devoted to the scientific representation. In this paper, both non-cognitive and cognitive as the main two approaches to the scientific presenting will be reviewed. In the first part, the scientific representation of the elements involved in it, regardless of the two approaches, are introduced. The second part deals with the representation of the non-cognitive theories, theories that "resemble" the basis of representation are defined. This section is divided into three patterns: the continuation of the concept of similarity (identity component, uniformity, and uniformity in part), which is defined based on the representation process. The third section is devoted to criticism of the cognitive approach. According to these critics, the similarity is neither necessary nor sufficient condition of its representation. Definition of the relationship between cognitive representations is provided at the end of this section. Finally, the fourth section we will Gyyry Hybrid Theory, which attempts to accommodate both the similarities and cognitive aspects. We will argue that his definition of representation is circular.