Table Of ContentMETHODOLOGY,
EPISTEMOLOGY, AND
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Essays in Honour of Wolfgang Stegmuller
on the Occasion ofH is 60th Birthday,
June 3rd 1983
Edited by
CARL G. HEMPEL
University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
HILARY PUTNAM
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
and
WILHELM K. ESSLER
University ofF ran/ifurt, Frankfurt am Main
Reprinted from
Erkenntnis, VoI.19,Nos.l,2and3
Springer-Science+Business Media, B.Y.
ISBN 978-90-481-8389-0 ISBN 978-94-015-7676-5 (eBook)
DOl 10.1007/978-94-015-7676-5
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 1983 by Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by D. Reidel Publishing Company in 1983.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover I st edition 1983
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
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retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner
ERKENNTNIS I Volume 19 Nos. 1,2, and 3 May 1983
METHODOLOGY, EPISTEMOLOGY, AND
PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Essays in Honour of Wolfgang Stegmiiller on the Occasion
of His 60th Birthday, June 3rd 1983
Edited by
C. G. HEMPEL, H. PUTNAM, and W. K. ESSLER
Preface
W. BALZER I Theory and Measurement 3
U. BLAU I Vom Henker, vom Liigner und von ihrem Ende 27
RICHARD N. BOYD I On the Current Status of the Issue of Scientific
Realism 45
DAGFINN F/bLLESDAL I Situation Semantics and the "Slingshot"
Argument 91
NELSON GOODMAN I Notes on the Well-Made World 99
ADOLF GRUNBAUM I Logical Foundations of Psychoanalytic
Theory 109
RUDOLF HALLER I Friedlands Sterne oder Facta und Ficta 153
JOHN C. HARSANYI I Mathematics, the Empirical Facts, and Logical
Necessity 167
PETER HINST I Quines Ontologiekriterium 193
W. HOERING / Zufall und Notwendigkeit in Wittgensteins Tractatus 217
NORBER T HOERSTER I Moralbegriindung ohne Metaphysik 225
ANDREAS KAMLAH I Probability as a Quasi-Theoretical Concept -
J. V. Kries' Sophisticated Account after a Century 239
FRANZ VON KUTSCHERA I Valuations for Direct Propositional
Logic 253
GODEHARD LINK I Logical Semantics for Natural Language 261
C. ULISES MOULINES I On How the Distinction between History
and Philosophy of Science Should Not Be Drawn 285
HILARY PUTNAM I Vagueness and Alternative Logic 297
WOLFGANG ROD I The Rationalist Theory of Double Causality as
an Object of Hume's Criticism 315
EIKE V. SA VIG NY I A Modest Concept of Moral Sense Perception 331
JOSEPH D. SNEED I Structuralism and Scientific Realism 345
TABLE OF CONTENTS
WOLFGANG SPOHN / Deterministic and Probabilistic Reasons and
Causes 371
PATRICK SUPPES / The Meaning of Probability Statements 397
PAUL WEINGARTNER / Normative Principles of Rational Com-
munication 405
WILHELM K. ESSLER / Personliche Anmerkungen 417
PREFACE
Wolfgang Stegmuller was born on June 3rd, 1923, at Natters near Innsbruck.
He received his doctorates in economics and philosophy in 1945 and 1947
respectively, and his qualification (Habilitation) for lecturing in philosophy in
1949. He has been Professor of Philosophy, Logic, and Philosophy of Science
at the Ludwig Maximilian University at Munich since 1958. He reintroduced
analytic philosophy and philosophy of science in Germany by teaching and
by publishing both introductory texts and research work in these areas; the
present understanding of the term "Wissenschaftstheorie" is largely shaped
by his work. At the same time he has shown a remarkable ability to interpret
philosophical work in other areas of philosophy, even when that work is
shaped by different premises and proceeds by very different methods and
standards of clarity than his own. He is one of the very few philosophers in
the world to have succeeded in creating an important new line of research in
technical philosophy while keeping a synoptic view of what is transpiring in
philosophy as a whole.
Among Stegmuller's major publications are the books Hauptstromungen
der Gegenwartsphilosophie, Metaphysik, Wissenschaft, Skepsis, Probleme und
Resultate der Wissenschaftstheorie und Analytischen Philosophie, The Struc
turalist View of Theories, and Rationale Rekonstruktion von Wissenschaft
und ihrem Wandel (which contains an "Autobiographische Einleitung").
Some of these books have been translated into English and Spanish.
By dedicating the present collection of essays to Wolfgang Stegmuller on
the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, the contributors to this volume and the
editors wish to honour this fruitful and extensive body of work, and even
more to honour Wolfgang Stegmuller himself, as an unsurpassed scholar,
friend, colleague and teacher. His devotion to the highest standards of clarity
and thought, as well as his position in the center of an international commu
nity of discussants, helped all of us to profit from his fertile reconstructions
of philosophical positions, his creative development of existing conceptions,
and his creation of new ideas and impressive philosophical tools.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. CARL G. HEMPEL
Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. HILARY PUTNAM
Frankfurt am Main, Germany, January 1983 WILHELM K. ESSLER
Erkenntnis 19 (1983) 1.
WOLFGANGSTEGMULLER
W. BALZER!
THEORY AND MEASUREMENT
Theorie und Erfahrung is the title of one of W. Stegmiiller's three compre
hensive volumes on analytic philosophy and philosophy of science.2 This
is a subject as old as philosophy itself, and different points of view have
opposed each other since the old days. No party in this everlasting dis
cussion has been able to convince the others, the only progress has con
sisted in adjustments of the respective ideas to recent developments of
science.
During the last hundred years, however, the issue has gained a new
dimension because of the rapid growth of empirical sciences on the one
hand (which provides a rich reservoir of "raw materials" for the philos
ophy of science), and because of the development of formal logic and
set-theory on the other hand (the tools for capturing large parts of the
complexity of scientific practice 3). These two developments have put phil
osophy of science in a better position than it has ever had before. I believe
the development from logical empiricism to present day thinking indicates
that there has been progress in the area of "theory and experience".
A good deal of this progress has to be attributed to W. Stegmiiller. As
the main promoter of the "structuralist view of theories" 4 he has contri
buted to and clarified important ideas as well as induced fruitful works
and discussions. So it seems to me that this Festschrift is the right place
to introduce some new conceptual possibilities for treating the connection
between theory and experience. "Experience" is a comprehensive notion,
and I will concentrate on one aspect only, namely that of measurement
which is certainly of central interest in the philosophy of science.
My first aim in this paper is to introduce some modifications of the
structuralist concepts of an empirical theory and its empirical claim (Sec
tions I and II). Secondly, on this basis I want to show how measurement
can be treated in structuralist terms (Section III). Third I will discuss two
subjects of a more philosophical nature which both profit from the con
ceptual frame developed before: confirmation (Section IV) and theoreticity
(Section V).
The result may be summarized as follows. There is a simple and elegant
way of investigating questions of measurement in the structuralist frame-
Erkenntnis 19 (1983) 3-25. 0165-0106/83/0191-0003 $02.30
Copyright © 1983 by D. Reidel Publishing Co .. Dordrecht. Holland, and Boston, U.S.A.
4 W. BALZER
work by means of "measuring models". They are very helpful in clarifying
the connection between theory and experience as captured by measure
ment. Such clarification has implications for general problems of the phil
osophy of science such as confirmation and theoreticity. Moreover, I think
it helps to achieve a better understanding of philosophical questions about
meaning, necessity, and reference. 5
I. THEORY-ELEMENTS
I will briefly recall the structuralist concept of an empirical theory or, more
precisely, the concept of a theory-element, a theory-element being the
smallest unit which can be used in order to formulate empirical claims,
and from which "real-life" theories are built Up.6 I have chosen a formal
set-up which on the one hand allows for an easy and lucid exposition, and
on the other hand can be generalized in various natural ways. My treat
ment contains two modifications - which I regard as emendation - of the
concepts introduced by Sneed and Stegmiiller.6 First, I will fix the "type"
of the "potential models", 7 and second, the "partial potential models" will
be introduced in a way independent of the distinction between theoretical
and non-theoretical terms.
DI (a) For kEN, 't is a k-type iff there exist p, q EN and i1, ••• , ip,
h, ... , jq such that
(I) r = <it, ... , ip; h, ... , jq);
(2) {it, ... , ip, j1, ... , jq} £; {I, ... , k}.
01
(b) Mp is a class potential models (for a theory) iff there exist
k, m, 'tt, ... , 't such that
m
(1) k,mE N;
(2) for all i ::;;; m: 'ti is a k-type;
(3) for all x: x E Mp iff x = <Dt, ... , Dk;ft, ..., 1m); and
(3.1) Dt, ... , Dk are non-empty sets;
(3.2) for all i ::;;; m: if'ti = <it, ... , ip; h, ... , jq) then
Ji: Dil x ... X Dip -+Djl x .. , x Djq.
A potential model is a "set-theoretic structure" x = <Db"" Dk; Ib ...,
1m) consisting of sets of "objects" Db ... , Dk and functionslb ... ,fm which
THEORY AND MEASUREMENT 5
take their arguments and values in Cartesian products of the sets D
1, ••. ,
Dk• "Proper" relations can be easily included by means of their charac
teristic functions. D1, ..• , Dk are called base-sets. Some of the base-sets
may be "mathematical spaces". More precisely: they may be "base-sets"
of some mathematical space the operations of which are not made explicit.
For instance, D1 may be the set of real numbers, D2 the set of integers.8
The k-types just indicate the order in which the base-sets have to be ar
ranged in order to form the domains and ranges of the functions f1' ... ,
fm. Note that p and q may be > k. For instance, for k = m = I, p = 2
and q = 1 a potential model has the form <D;f) with! D x D -t D.
Of course, if on occasion we can profit from syntactical considerations
(for instance when we want to investigate questions of Ramsey-elimina
bility) we can introduce some suitable language L such that the structures
for L correspond to the members of
Mp-9
We will say that the members of Mp are "potential <k, m, 't1, ... , 'tm)
models" in order to specify the numbers and types corresponding to Mp.
The following technical definition will be helpful.
D2 Let Mp be a class of potential <k, m, 't1. ... , 'tm)-models, i ~
m and 'ti = <ii, ... , ip; it, ... , }q).
(a) j;: = {/i/3 x E Mp (prk+i (x) = J;)} is called the i-th term of
Mp;
(b) for x = <Db"" Dk;fl, ... ,fm> E Mp
Dom (fi): = Di\ x ... X Dip is called the domain ofJ ; (in x);
(c) j; is called real-valued iff q = 1 and for all x E Mp: Dj\ = Iht
"Term" here is a techmcal concept and must not be confused with "con
cept". Intuitively, a term in the sense of D2 (a) is the class of all possible
extensions of some "linguistic term". Real-valued functions take real num
bers as function values. D2 (c) can be easily generalized to vector-spaces
over ordered fields.
Originally, Sneed introduced a class of "partial potential models" 10
Mpp
by cutting off the "theoretical components" from members of Mp. Thus
the definition of Mpp hinged on the distinction between theoretical and
non-theoretical terms. I will propose a more general definition of
Mpp
6 W. BALZER
which is not relativized to theoreticity and which yields a frame for precise
investigations of theoreticity. We will introduce partial potential models
as arbitrary "substructures" of potential models.
D3 (a) If x = <D1, ••• , Dk; fb ... , fm) E Mp then y is a substructure
of x (and x an extension of y, in symbols: y C x) iff
(1) y = <D~, ... , Die;f!> ... J',..);
(2) for all i ~ k: Di <;; Di;
(3) for allj ~ m: if'tj = <ii, ... , ip;h, ... ,jq) then
fj <;; jj n (Dil X ... X Dip X Dj1 X ... x Djq)'
(b) Mpp: = {y/ 3 x E Mp (y C x)} is called the class of
partial potential models for Mpo
(c) If x = <D1, ... , Dk;fl, ... ,fm) E Mpp and y E Mpp then y is
a substructure of x (y C x) iff D3(a)--{1 )-{3) are satisfied.
A substructure is obtained from a potential model by restriction of the
base-sets (D3-a-2) and by restricting the functions jj to these "smaller"
base-sets or evenfurther D3(a)-(3). Because of the latter feature our notion
of substructure is slightly more general than the usual one. D3( c) extends
11
C to a relation among substructures.
Obviously not every substructure again is a potential model. Note also
that in a substructure the base-sets as well as the functions (or some of
them) may be empty. This yields a formally simple way to treat "omission
of components" without changing the "type" of potential models: instead
of omitting some function!; from x E Mp we just consider the substructure
arising from x by substituting the empty set 0 for /; in x. It is easy to verify
that Mpp together with C (as defined in D3(c) is a complete lattice with
least element <0, ... , 0; 0, ... , 0).
There are several reasons for working with substructures instead of the
original "non-theoretical" structures two of which already have been in
dicated. First, the class Mpp of D3 is much more general than Sneed's
original one. More precisely, each Sneedian non-theoretical structure y
uniquely corresponds to some substructure if in y we fill in empty sets for
all theoretical components which have been omitted in the process during
