Table Of ContentObservation and Experiment in the Natural and Social Sciences
BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Editors
ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University
JÜRGEN RENN, Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science
KOSTAS GAVROGLU, University of Athens
Editorial Advisory Board
THOMAS F. GLICK, Boston University
ADOLF GRÜNBAUM, University of Pittsburgh
SYLVAN S. SCHWEBER, Brandeis University
JOHN J. STACHEL, Boston University
MARX W. WARTOFSKY†, (Editor 1960–1997)
VOLUME 232
OBSERVATION AND
EXPERIMENT IN THE
NATURAL AND SOCIAL
SCIENCES
Editedby
MARIA CARLA GALAVOTTI
University of Bologna, Italy
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK,BOSTON, DORDRECHT, LONDON, MOSCOW
eBookISBN: 0-306-48123-5
Print ISBN: 1-4020-1251-9
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
MARIA CARLA GALAVOTTI /Foreword vii
PATRICK SUPPES / From Theory to Experiment and Back Again 1
PAOLO LEGRENZI / Naïve Probability 43
LÀSZLÓ SZABÓ / From Theory to Experiments and Back Again ...
and Back Again ... Comments on Patrick Suppes 57
REINHARD SELTEN / Emergence and Future of Experimental
Economics 63
WENCESLAOGONZALEZ / Rationality in Experimental
Economics:An Analysis of Reinhard Selten’s Approach 71
ROBERTO SCAZZIERI / Experiments, Heuristics and Social
Diversity: A Comment on Reinhard Selten 85
GERD GIGERENZER / Where Do New Ideas Come From?
A Heuristics of Discovery in the Cognitive Sciences 99
DAVIDPAPINEAU / Comments on Gerd Gigerenzer 141
JEANNEPEIJNENBURG / On the Concept of Discovery.
Commentson Gerd Gigerenzer 153
URSULAKLEIN / Styles of Experimentation 159
ARISTIDESBALTAS / On French Concepts and Objects.
Comments on Ursula Klein 187
DONALD GILLIES / Some Comments on “Styles of
Experimentation”by Ursula Klein 199
GÜROL IRZIK / Improving “Styles of Experimentation”.
A Comment on Ursula Klein 203
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
DAVID ATKINSON / Experiments and Thought Experiments in
Natural Science 209
DANIEL ANDLER / The Advantage of Theft over Honest Toil.
Comments on David Atkinson 227
MIKLÓS RÉDEI / Thinking About Thought Experiments in
Physics. Comment on “Experiments and Thought Experiments
in Natural Science” 237
MICHAEL STÖLTZNER / The Dynamics of Thought Experiments.
A Commenton DavidAtkinson 243
GIORA HON / An Attempt at a Philosophy of Experiment 259
RAFFAELLA CAMPANER / An Attempt at a Philosophy of
Experimental Error. A Comment on Giora Hon 285
GEREON WOLTERS / O Happy Error. A Comment on Giora Hon 295
COLIN HOWSON / Bayesian Evidence 301
IGOR DOUVEN / On Bayesian Logic. Comments on Colin Howson 321
PAOLO GARBOLINO / On Bayesian Induction (and Pythagoric
Arithmetic) 327
ILKKA NIINILUOTO / Probability and Logic. Comments on
Colin Howson 333
Index of Names 339
FOREWORD
According to a long tradition in philosophy of science, a clear cut
distinction can be traced between a context of discovery and a context of
justification. This tradition dates back to the birth of the discipline in
connection with the Circles of Vienna and Berlin, in the twenties and
thirties of last century. Convicted that only the context ofjustification is
pertinent to philosophy of science, logical empiricists identified its goal
with the “rational reconstruction” of scientific knowledge, taken as the
clarification of the logical structure of science, through an analysis of its
language and methods. Stressing justification as the proper field of
application of philosophy of science, logical empiricists intended to leave
discovery out of its remit. The context of discovery was then discarded
fromphilosophy ofscienceand lefttosociology, psychology and history.
The distinction between context of discovery and context of
justification goes hand in hand with the tenet that the theoretical side of
science can – and should – be kept separate from its observational and
experimental components. Further, the final, abstract formulation of
theories shouldbeanalysedapartfromtheprocess behind it, resultingfrom
a tangle of context-dependent factors. This conviction is reflected by the
distinction between theoretical and observational sentences underpinning
the Hempelian view of theories as nets, whose knots represent theoretical
terms, floating on the plane of observation, to which it is anchored by rules
of interpretation. This view assigns to philosophy of science the task of
clarifying the relationship between theoretical and observational terms,
whiletakingtheplaneofobservationas “given”.
The view of theories upheld by logical empiricists, together with the
distinction between context of discovery and context ofjustification, has
been criticized in many ways, and has gradually been abandoned in favour
ofamore flexible viewpointaccordingto whichtheory and observation are
not separate but strictly intertwined. Once it was admitted that the context
of justification forms a continuum with the context of discovery, interest in
the latter spread rapidly, and a whole array of new problems has been
addressed in this connection. Observation and experimentation have
become an important field of inquiry. The present volume is meant as a
contributiontothe ongoingdebateonthistopic.
vii
M.C. Galavotti (ed.), Observation and Experiment in the Natural and Social Sciences, vii-x
© 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
viii FOREWORD
The first paper is by Patrick Suppes, a forerunner of a constructive kind
of epistemology that regards scientific theories as sets of models, ranging
from empirical models describing experimental data, to mathematical
models characterizing the abstract core of the theory. According to this
perspective, scientific knowledge has to be analysed with reference to the
logical as well as empirical structures characterizing its models, and
philosophy of science is concerned as much with formal logic and set
theory, as with probability and statistical inference. In his paper, Suppes
argues that theory and experiment are engaged in a continuous interplay,
substantiating this claim by two examples, taken respectively from the
study of the brain and quantum physics.
Reinhard Selten focuses on experimental economics, a field to which he
has contributed pioneering work. The beginnings of this discipline, which
is now considered an important branch of economics, are recollected,
together with its first developments in Germany and the USA. Selten then
describes the standards of experimental economics, to be met by acceptable
research in the discipline. Fully convinced of the utility of experimenting in
economics, Selten predicts a growth surge in the future, as a complement
of field research. Selten identifies the specific contribution of experimental
economics with its capacity to test major assumptions of economic
behaviour and to come up with facts that can lead to theories of limited
application, which will hopefully converge towards a comprehensive
theory of economic behaviour.
The paper by Gerd Gigerenzer claims the distinction between discovery
and justification is “artificial”, and argues for a heuristics grounded on the
idea that the methods of justification adopted by scientists provide tools for
the discovery of new theories. Inferential statistics and the digital computer
are the examples discussed by Gigerenzer to illustrate his heuristics “from
tools to theories”, which originates in connection with cognitive science,
but can be extended to other fields as well. Gigerenzer’s analysis calls
attention to the role of scientists’ practice within scientific investigation
and theory construction, a role widely overlooked by epistemologists.
Ursula Klein deals with experimentation in chemistry, through a careful
examination of two case studies: the study of plant tissues by means of
chemical operations in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and
organic chemistry in Europe from the late 1820s onward. The discussion of
these examples leads Klein to a distinction between “experimental
analysis” and “experimental culture”, meant to shed light on the
multifarious and dynamic relationship between theory and experiment.
The paper by David Atkinson addresses the issue of thought
experiments and theirusefulness for the investigation of nature. Atkinson’s
analysis of three quite different cases, namely Galileo’s, the EPR
FOREWORD ix
argument, and string theory, suggests insightful considerations on the
relationship between real and thought experiments.
Giora Hon focuses on error, in the conviction that the theory of
experiment can profit from a careful consideration and classification of the
possible errors that can occur within an experimental setting. Such an
analysis of empirical knowledge from the “negative” perspective of
possible faults deepens its roots in the philosophy of Francis Bacon, to
whom Hon refers to propose a slightly modified classification of
experimental errors.
Colin Howson’s paper addresses the assessment of probability
evaluations in the face of empirical evidence. According to Bayesianism,
the process of conditioning probability judgments upon the available
evidence is subject to a consistency requirement, which a long tradition
interprets as a rationality constraint having a direct bearing upon
behaviour. Unlike this tradition, Howson puts forward a purely logical
approach to personal probability, quite apart from the notions ofutility or
preference, usually associated with Bayesianism.
On the whole, the papers collected here span a wide range of problems
related to experimentation, and the comments following them broaden the
field even further, while adding considerably to the significance of the
ensemble. Most of the main papers and comments ground epistemological
considerations on historical remarks or case studies, according to a typical
tendency of the European approach to epistemology, to combine ideas
belonging to the history and the philosophy of science into a unique
perspective.
In the year 2000, the European Science Foundation launched a
Scientific Network on “Historical and contemporary perspectives of
philosophy of science in Europe”, intended to strengthen the European
tradition and consolidate distinctive European perspectives in the field.
During its three years of activity, the Network’s coordinating committee,
including Maria Carla Galavotti (Italy, chairperson), Aristides Baltas
(Greece), Donald Gillies (United Kingdom), Theo Kuipers (Holland), Ilkka
Niiniluoto (Finland), Michel Paty (France), Miklos Redei (Hungary),
Friedrich Stadler (Austria) and Gereon Wolters (Germany), agreed to
organize three workshops centred on the major themes under discussion
within the discipline. This book collects the papers presented at the first
workshop, held at the Bertinoro Conference Centre of the University of
Bologna, from 30th September to 2nd October, 2001. The topic of the
workshop: “Observation and experiment in the natural and social sciences”
was chosen not only in view of its centrality in the ongoing debate in
philosophy ofscience, but also as an ideal starting point for an appraisal of
x FOREWORD
recent research in the field. To encourage a fruitful exchange of ideas
between philosophers and scientists, both the main speakers and
commentators were picked from among researchers with different
backgrounds, such as physics, psychology, economics, chemistry, as well
as philosophy ofscience.
The workshop was funded by the European Science Foundation, and
received support from the “Federigo Enriques” Interdisciplinary Research
Centre for Epistemology and History of Science and the Department of
Philosophy of the University of Bologna. The publication of the
proceedings benefited from a generous grant ofthe Alma Mater Studiorum
– University ofBologna. As local organizer ofthe conference and editorof
the proceedings, I wish to thank Raffaella Campaner for her help, and for
extensive editorial work in preparing this volume for publication. On
behalf of the other members of the coordinating committee of the ESF
Scientific Network, I express deep gratitude to William Shea, President of
the Standing Committee for the Humanities of the European Science
Foundation, forsupportingourwork in somany ways.
MARIA CARLA GALAVOTTI
Department of Philosophy,
University of Bologna,
Bologna, Italy
