Theories and Shifting Domains
In both realist and non-realist conception of (scientific) theories, the standard view is that theories are identified by the objects they are about; it is just that the non-realist withholds reality for those objects. It is argued in this chapter that th
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Theories and Shifting Domains
But there is nothing in the real world corresponding to language. In fact, it could very well turn out that there is no intelligible notion of language. Noam Chomsky
Suppose we agree that some restricted notion of truth and reality are sometimes available in human theoretical enterprise in terms of the Galilean style. It is still unclear what notion of scientific realism is actually upheld in such theories; how much and which aspects of the world are disclosed in that enterprise?
4.1
Basic Objects
For the non-specialist looking at the scientific enterprise from the outside, the message is that different scientific disciplines carve out different class of objects— or aspects of objects—and events surrounding them in the world; a specific discipline gives an account of this part of the world in terms of the theories of the discipline. Thus, physics describes the physical aspects, chemistry the chemical aspects, linguistics describes human language, and so on. Since these disciplines carve out constituents of the world, we may identify the disciplines in terms of what they carve out. For the purpose of exposition, let us call them basic objects. Philosophers sometimes try to downplay the idea of disciplines. For example, Willard Quine once remarked that disciplines are for the deans. Nonetheless, as we will see, the notion of a discipline is non-trivial; it plays explanatory role in a variety of human inquiry. We discuss them as occasions arise. For a quick glimpse of what may be at issue, consider the notion of interdisciplinarity. It is obvious to me that interdisciplinary studies, like interracial marriages, presuppose prior existence of disciplines (and races).
This is a revised version of a paper published as Mukherji (2001). © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd 2017 N. Mukherji, Reflections on Human Inquiry, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-5364-1_4
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4 Theories and Shifting Domains
Apparently, the idea of basic objects marking a discipline is ambiguously related to another closely similar idea. The literature on scientific realism sometimes suggests that some strong version of realism can still be upheld if scientific theories are viewed as unearthing some fundamental aspects of the world in terms of the entities postulated by a theory: entity realism. Since the thesis comports with common sense, I will refrain from citing literature that promotes it. The point, albeit vague, is: what is the connection between theory-entities and basic objects of disciplines? The query seems significant since, if we identify basic objects with theory-entities, basic objects—and hence the discipline—changes as soon as theories of a discipline changes. Notwithstanding a variety of nudges in that direction from the Kuhnian literature, the suggested identification is uncomfortable because it casts a doubt on our commonsensical idea of the world: the world is what it is not because Paul Dirac made a comment about it. Despite the suggested distinction between theories and disciplines, the starting point can o
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