Science and the Constitutive A Priori: Ian Hacking's Philosophy of Scientific Practice in the History of Philosophy of Science (2001)
Davis, Todd Newman (Author)
Duke University
Brandon, Robert N.
Edition Details: Advisor: Brandon, Robert N.
Physical Details: 198 pp.
Language: English
In this dissertation, I consider the relations between the broadly Kantian idea of the constitutive {italic}a priori{/italic}, understood as the conditions of the possibility for scientific judgement, and the appeal to actual scientific practice in recent history and philosophy of science. Philosophies of scientific practice, particularly Ian Hacking's, are critical of philosophy of science as the analysis of scientific theories. Using a reading of Hacking's philosophical interpretation of scientific practice to motivate the construction of a conceptual genealogy of the epistemological and logico-semantic concept of "theory", I present a broad historical analysis of two important preconditions for the rise of such a conception. Both were related to the appropriation and criticism of Kant's theory of {italic}a priori{/italic} knowledge. One was the rise of philosopher-scientists such as Helmholtz, Mach, and Hertz, and their interests in the nature of science as representation. Another was the development of a new conception of the role of the {italic} a priori{/italic} in scientific knowledge (specifically that of constitutive but revisable formal structures). I argue that it is from the latter that the relevant conceptions of philosophical analysis and "theory" developed. I also argue that Hacking's incorporation of the constitutive {italic} a priori{/italic} in his idea of "styles of reasoning" demonstrates that a concern with the constitutive {italic}a priori{/italic} does not yield, by itself, theorocentrism. I present a detailed interpretation of "styles of reasoning" in the context of the history of the constitutive {italic} a priori{/italic} and argue that it presents one of the most interesting ways to appropriate that very powerful philosophical idea.
...MoreDescription Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 62 (2002): 3421. UMI order no. 3030229.
Similar Citations
Article
George Borg;
(2020)
On 'the application of science to science itself:' Chemistry, instruments, and the scientific labor process
(/isis/citation/CBB166777080/)
Book
Steel, Daniel;
Guala, Francesco;
(2011)
The Philosophy of Social Science Reader
(/isis/citation/CBB001450891/)
Article
Sharrock, Wes;
Leudar, Ivan;
(2002)
Indeterminacy in the Past?
(/isis/citation/CBB000202402/)
Article
Galina Weinstein;
(2021)
Coincidence and reproducibility in the EHT black hole experiment
(/isis/citation/CBB050506389/)
Article
Kusch, Martin;
(2010)
Hacking's Historical Epistemology: A Critique of Styles of Reasoning
(/isis/citation/CBB001021667/)
Book
Giovanni Vailati;
Claudia Arrighi;
Paola Cantù;
Mauro De Zan;
Patrick Suppes;
(2010)
Logic and Pragmatism: Selected Essays by Giovanni Vailati
(/isis/citation/CBB877530276/)
Book
Stephen Budiansky;
(2021)
Journey to the Edge of Reason: The Life of Kurt Gödel
(/isis/citation/CBB142778671/)
Chapter
Heck, Richard;
(2010)
Frege and Semantics
(/isis/citation/CBB001211655/)
Book
Rudolf Carnap;
Christian Damböck;
(2022)
Rudolf Carnap, Tagebücher. Band 2. 1920-1935, 2022 (B)
(/isis/citation/CBB699801168/)
Chapter
Silvio Bozzi;
(2000)
Vailati e la logica
(/isis/citation/CBB852479099/)
Book
Schumann, Andrew;
(2013)
Logic in Central and Eastern Europe: History, Science, and Discourse
(/isis/citation/CBB001213928/)
Article
Nasim, Omar W.;
(2012)
The Spaces of Knowledge: Bertrand Russell, Logical Construction, and the Classification of the Sciences
(/isis/citation/CBB001211016/)
Article
Luca Sciortino;
(2021)
The emergence of objectivity: Fleck, Foucault, Kuhn and Hacking
(/isis/citation/CBB779990178/)
Article
Cooper, Rachel;
(2004)
Why Hacking Is Wrong about Human Kinds
(/isis/citation/CBB000410747/)
Book
Juliet Floyd;
Alisa Bokulich;
(2017)
Philosophical Explorations of the Legacy of Alan Turing: Turing 100
(/isis/citation/CBB407987120/)
Book
Maurice Clavelin;
(2016)
Galilée, cosmologie et science du mouvement: Suivi de Regards sur l'empirisme au XXe siècle
(/isis/citation/CBB515633832/)
Essay Review
Bock, Walter J.;
(2000)
Towards a New Metaphysics: The Need for an Enlarged Philosophy of Science
(/isis/citation/CBB000110319/)
Chapter
Lara Piersanti;
(2000)
Vailati e Russell
(/isis/citation/CBB615477680/)
Thesis
Ongley, John C.;
(2000)
On the idea that there is no logic of discovery: A history
(/isis/citation/CBB001560522/)
Chapter
Christian Thiel;
(2013)
Dubislav and Classical Monadic Quantificational Logic
(/isis/citation/CBB499589599/)
Be the first to comment!