The document summarizes three modern philosophies of science: romanticism, positivism, and pragmatism. It discusses their perspectives on the aim of science, discovery, criticism, and explanation. Romanticism focuses on interpretative understanding of human actions and motives. Positivism aims for objective explanations based on observation. Pragmatism sees theory and observation as defined by empirical testing, and evaluates theories through testing.

1. The
Modern
Philosophies

2. Introduction
• Modern philosophies:
– Romanticism.
• A philosophy of social and cultural sciences.
– Positivism.
• A philosophy of all sciences based on
natural science.
– Contemporary pragmatism.
• A philosophy of all empirical sciences.

3. • Functional topics:
–Aim of Science.
• The institutionalized aim of basic research.
–Discovery.
• Development of new theories.
–Criticism.
• Criteria for evaluating theories.
–Explanation.
• Scientific explanation - the final result.

4. Aim of
Science Discovery Criticism Explanation
Romanticism
Positivism
Pragmatism
• Relation of the three philosophies and
the four topics:

5. • Perspectives on language:
– Object Language
•Language describing
nonlinguistic reality
– Metalanguage
•Language describing language

6. Aim of
Science Discovery Criticism Explanation
Metalinguistic
terms
"theory"
"law"
"observation"
"scientific
explanation"
Romanticism
Positivism
Pragmatism
• Meanings of common metalinguistic
terms differ among the philosophies

7. Three
Modern
Philosophies

8. • Romanticism - Aim of Science:
–The aim of the social and cultural
sciences is “interpretative
understanding” of “human action”,
by which is meant description of the
culturally shared subjective ideas and
motives that guide the social
interactions of social members.

9. • Romanticism - Discovery:
– “Theory” is language describing
subjective mental states including notably
culturally shared ideas and motivations.
• The development of theory in social
science involves the social scientist’s
introspective reflection on his own
motivations, to understand by
imputation the subjective mental states
of the social members.

10. • Romanticism - Criticism:
–The criterion for criticism is
“interpretative understanding”,
because the subjective ideas and
motives described in social theory are
deemed to be the causal factors of
observed social behavior.

11. •Social theory will thus
“make sense” in the
particular investigator’s own
subjective personal or
vicarious experience.

12. • Romanticism - Explanation:
–Only theory describing subjective
motives can “explain” conscious
human action.
• Motives are the causal factors
identified in “theoretical”
explanations.

13. • Positivism - Aim of
Science:
–To produce explanations
having objectivity grounded
in observation language.

14. • Positivism - Discovery:
–Empirical laws are created by inductive
generalization based on repeated
observations.
–“Theories” referencing unobservable
entities or phenomena are developed by
the scientist’s creative imagination by
processes that are unexplained by
positivists.

15. • Positivism - Criticism:
–The criterion for criticism is publicly
accessible observation expressed in
observation language.
–Theories are indirectly and tentatively
warranted by empirical laws, when the
laws can be logically derived from the
theories.

16. • Positivism - Explanation:
– According to the “covering-law” thesis of
explanation, predictions of observable events
are derived deductively from observation-
language statements together with “covering”
universal empirical laws.
• This form has also been called the “deductive-
nomological model” of explanation.

17. • Pragmatism - Three fundamental theses
formulated in the 1920’s by the Nobel laureate
physicist Werner Heisenberg that anticipated
the contemporary pragmatism:
– Thesis I: Relativized semantics.
– Thesis II: Empirical under determination.
– Thesis III: Ontological relativity.

18. • Thesis I: Relativized semantics.
–In 1925 Einstein told Heisenberg that
“theory decides what the physicist can
observe”.
• Thus contrary to positivists
observational description is not
independent of theory.

19. • Thesis II: Empirical under determination.
– A plurality of alternative but empirically adequate
theories can be consistent with the same
observational description.
– Examples of empirical under determination:
• Vagueness, which can be reduced but never
completely eliminated.
• Measurement has error, which in nontrivial cases can
be reduced but never completely eliminated.

20. • Thesis III: Ontological relativity.
–The semantics of language accepted as
true describes ontology.
• Einstein construed his relativity theory as a
realistic description of physical reality.
• Heisenberg imitated Einstein by construing
his uncertainty relations in quantum theory
as a realistic description of physical reality.

21. • Pragmatism - Aim of Science:
–The aim of basic science is
explanation.
• Explanations contain laws from which
descriptions of concrete events are
logically derived.
• Laws are former theories that have been
tested and not falsified.

22. • Pragmatism - Discovery:
–“Theory” and “observation” language are
defined pragmatically instead of
semantically.
–The pragmatics of theory is empirical
testing.
• Theories are individuated semantically.

23. • Pragmatism - Criticism:
–Empirical testing is the only valid
decision criterion for theory evaluation.
• Theories can be logically schematized as
nontruth-functional hypothetical-conditional
statements.
• The modus tollens deductive logic is used
for empirical testing.

24. • Pragmatism - Explanation:
–Scientific laws can be logically
schematized as non truth-functional
hypothetical-conditional statements.
• The modus ponens deductive logic is
used for explanation.