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|Authors List=Hakob Barseghyan,
|Formulated Year=2015
|Prehistory=At the level of ontology, the philosophy of science begins noteworthy progress with the logical positivists. While the positivists individually had varying views, we can summarize their ontology by generalizing from any existing overlap between authors. The logical positivist ontology consisted of a scientific community which stipulated theories and determined whether those theories were worthy of pursuit based on their empirical probability. A theory’s given empirical probability is determined by observational proof in favor of it. The positivists did not recognize a multitude of methods and so the only epistemic elements in their ontology were theories (it should be noted that given the singular nature of methods it was assumed all science would adhere to one perfect method). Furthermore, the logical positivists did not share the belief that theories can be outright rejected. Instead, they believed theories are simply pursued on a basis of instances of confirmation.[[CiteRef::Schlick (1931)|pp.140145-165162]]
Proceeding the positivists, Karl Popper proposed his ontology of scientific change in his book Conjectures and Refutations. This ontology included the same entities and agents as the logical positivists. However, Popper introduced the notion of acceptance as an epistemic stance by suggesting the rejection of theories which faced any refutation.[[CiteRef::Popper (1963)|pp. 62-63]] The contrast of terms suggested scientists could do more than simply pursue theories.

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