Reconstructing Scientific Theory Change by Means of Frames
This paper has two aims. The first is to show the usefulness and intuitiveness of frame theory in reconstructing scientific classification systems. The second is to employ such reconstructions in order to make headway in the scientific realism debate and,
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Reconstructing Scientific Theory Change by Means of Frames Gerhard Schurz and Ioannis Votsis
Abstract This paper has two aims. The first is to show the usefulness and intuitiveness of frame theory in reconstructing scientific classification systems. The second is to employ such reconstructions in order to make headway in the scientific realism debate and, more specifically, in the question concerning scientific theory change. Two case studies are utilised with the second aim in mind. The first concerns the transition from the phlogiston theory to the oxygen theory of combustion, while the second concerns the transition from the caloric theory to the kinetic theory of heat. Frame-theoretic reconstructions of these theories reveal substantial structural continuities across theory change. This outcome supports a structural realist view of science, according to which successful scientific theories reveal only structural features of the unobservable world. Keywords Frames • Scientific classification system • Structural realism • Theory change
4.1 Introduction This paper has two aims. The first is to show the usefulness and intuitiveness of frame theory in reconstructing scientific classification systems. The second is to employ such reconstructions in order to make headway in the scientific realism debate and, more specifically, in the question concerning scientific theory change. Two case studies are utilised with the second aim in mind. The first concerns the transition from the phlogiston theory to the oxygen theory of combustion, while the second concerns the transition from the caloric theory to the kinetic theory of G. Schurz () • I. Votsis Department of Philosophy, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Universitätsstraße 1, Düsseldorf 40225, Germany e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] T. Gamerschlag et al. (eds.), Frames and Concept Types: Applications in Language and Philosophy, Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy 94, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-01541-5__4, © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014
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G. Schurz and I. Votsis
heat. Frame-theoretic reconstructions of these theories reveal substantial structural continuities across theory change. This outcome supports a structural realist view of science, according to which successful scientific theories reveal only structural features of the unobservable world.
4.2 Frames and Scientific Classification A frame represents a super-ordinate category (henceforth: ‘super-category’) and therefore its corresponding concept by a recursive system of functional attributes. Systems are recursive because attributes and even the values of attributes are themselves concepts and may therefore be analysed into further frames. We call collections of such nested frames ‘nets’. It should be obvious that frames and nets of frames define systems of classification for the objects of the underlying categories. This makes frames an excellent tool for the investigation of the conceptual systems of scientific theories and their r
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