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Towards a Theory of Theoretical Objects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

Gordon G. Brittan Jr.
Gordon G. Brittan Jr.*
Affiliation:
Montana State University
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Extract

Science is made possible by the introduction of theoretical objects. Why this should be so has never been made clear. Indeed, it has never been made clear how theoretical objects are rightly to be understood, or in what ways they differ from more ordinary sorts of physical objects. What follows is a sketch of a new theory. In my view, this theory becomes explicit on the so-called “Copenhagen interpretation” of quantum mechanics. But it has implicitly characterized scientific development since the revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries.

How are theoretical objects rightly to be understood? I say that they are objects whose existence is postulated by a theory is alright as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough. We also need to know what theories are.

Type
Part VI. General Philosophy of Science (B)
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1986 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1986 , 1986 , pp. 384 - 393
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1986

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Footnotes

1

This is a shortened version of a paper read at Memphis State University. I am not yet able to answer all of the questions raised there. My position has grown out of conversations over the years with James Allard, Bas van Fraassen, Karel Lambert, Ralf Meerbote, Carl Posy, and John Winnie. Happily, I found myself located between the robust realism of Lambert, Meerbote and Winnie, on the one hand and the subtle idealism of Allard, van Fraassen, and Posy, on the other.

References

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Mill, J.S. (1881). A System of Logic Ratiocinative and Inductive. 8th ed. New York: Harper and Brothers. (As reprinted in Philosophy of Scientific Method. New York: Hafner, 1950. Pages 1-358.)Google Scholar