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Some Remarks on Problems and Methods in the Philosophy of Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Patrick Suppes
Patrick Suppes*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Extract

What sort of subject is the philosophy of science? It would be difficult to find any sort of agreement on the answer to this question. There are a large number of physicists who have promoted the idea that the subject is a kind of cosmic journalism: any new major discoveries in physics warrant an up-to-the-minute, catch-as-catch-can analysis of the boundaries of scientific knowledge. On the other hand, the Oxonian sirens of ordinary language tell us that any careful scrutiny of technical scientific matters is not proper philosophical activity. I want to argue that the philosopher of science need be neither a journalist of science nor merely an acute man of common sense eternally restricted to contemplating the general meaning of such notions as those of mind, free will, cause and determinism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , July 1954 , pp. 242 - 248
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1954

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Footnotes

1

I am grateful to Professor Donald Davidson and Mrs. Muriel Winet for several helpful suggestions. This paper was read at the 1053 meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association.

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