The nature of the connection between theory and observation has been a major source of difficulty for philosophers of science. It is most vexing for those who would reduce the terms of a theory to those of an observation language, e.g. Carnap, Braithwaite, and Nagel. Carnap's work, particularly his treatment of physical theories as partially interpreted formalisms, forms the point of focus of this paper. Carnap attempted to make the connection between theory and observation through correspondence postulates. It is pointed out that such postulates depend in critical ways upon theoretical truths. This particular type of theoretical dependence produces serious trouble for Carnap's approach. For reasons given it may make it untenable. Furthermore, this problem when generalized creates difficulty for any similar reductionist program. Not only is this kind of theoretical dependence pointed out, but more important, the logical conditions which produce it are revealed. In this way light is shed upon the formal characteristics of the notion of theory dependence, especially upon the way in which observation terms depend upon theories for their meaning.

Every month some one pronounces that science must be rejected if we are to preserve a belief in human freedom, or that only by a faith in freedom that flies in the face of logic and the principle of causality can democracy be justified. Equally often other authors insist that the increase of knowledge in the science of human behavior makes plain the irrelevance and sentimentality of pious talk about free and rational choice. What is the source of this dispute? Why is no resolution of it arrived at?

Although the ideological struggle between the East and the West has been carried into the natural sciences, the author contends that there is no connection between Marxism and physical theory, whether deterministic or indeterministic. Marxism, which concerns itself with social theory, deals with physical theory only in so far as it is used for specific class purposes instead of social needs. Marxism does not derive its social theory, as has been asserted, either from, or by analogy with, physical processes, nor does it read “social laws” of development into nature. The attempt to do so by way of “dialectical materialism” must be regarded as a Marxist aberration. The author deals with the history of this aberration and with the reasons for its persistency in Marxism-Leninism.

What is operations research? What is sufficiently new about it to constitute it a “new science”? And how is it related to philosophy?

1. What it is. MOR's definition, based on Kittel's, runs as follows:

Operations research is a scientific method of providing executive departments with a quantitative basis for decisions regarding the operations under their control (7: 1.)

Philosophers are often praised for their insight even if they are found wanting in their powers of analysis. The noble edifices of thought raised by the famous have been reduced to more or less noble ruins, if we consider what disintegrating, analytical time and tide have done to the weaker members of the structures. Some of the palaces of thought even seem to stand without any foundations. Yet they stand. They are admired no longer for their utility or for their massiveness, but for the beauty of their conception. Their conception is said to represent the insight of their authors.

Janet Kourany argues that philosophers of science should place more emphasis on the moral and political aspects of scientific research. As a possible site for philosophical intervention she discusses professional codes of ethics. James Brown describes various systemic problems in pharmaceutical research and proposes that socializing medical research is the best way to remedy the situation. I criticize each of their examples, but concur with many overall aspects of their expanded agenda for philosophy of science.

This paper approaches a theory relating authorship, meaning and purpose by semiformalized developments of two “presupposed theories”: of purposeful behavior and of sign-reading.

The theory of purposeful behavior is made to rest upon two undefined predicates. 'Wt(a,p,q)' abbreviates the claim that at time t, person a works at bringing it about that p in order to bring it about that q. 'Bt(a,p)' abbreviates the claim that at time t, person a brings it about that p. A number of definitions and laws are based upon these two predicates. One practical utility of the symbolism is a constraint to symbolize differently a purpose, according as what is intended is a purposing or a thing purposed.

The theory of sign-reading undertakes to assimilate sign-reading to inference. The theory proposes ‘Rt(a,p,q)‘ as a basic undefined predicate, abbreviating the claim that at time t, person a reads that p as a sign that q.

The theory of deliberate sign-production, and more particularly of authorship, is approached by permitting the two above sets of symbols to supply arguments one for the other. Specifically, making a deliberate or a candid sign is defined as bringing about a state of affairs in order that an addressee will read the bringing about by the sign-maker of that state of affairs as a sign that such and so.

The laws of the two first parts of the paper are then appealed to in order to show that when the sign-making is candid (defined in the paper), the such and so mentioned above must be a feigned or actual purpose of the author. The paper concludes with a brief consideration of what in this total signified purpose of the sign-making might be indentified by reference to the conventional sign-type (sentence) presented. Thus “meaning” of a sentence is thence viewed as an abstraction from the signified meaning (always a purpose) of the uttering.

Publication in this journal recently of a paper by A. Grünbaum has induced me to submit a treatment of the same subject. Like Grünbaum, I shall use the framework of special relativity, but my analysis will be different. Some of his arguments, I believe, are inadmissable. I shall pose the problem in a form different from his, but the solution to be described will be applicable to his case as well.

When the student of logic is first initiated into the problem of the relation of implication as expressed by the hypothetical proposition, he enters into a portion of logic which seems to him an impenetrable jungle. Elementary statements of the meaning of implication, as he is acquainted with them, are so meagre that they have failed to give any indication of the problems and paradoxes involved. Adequate discussions, on the other hand, are so abstruse that the initiate is lost in their incomprehensibility, for these are issues discussed by the technical logicians largely among themselves. When one considers the important bearings implicit in the interpretation of implication, such a state of affairs is greatly to be deplored. Through a simple but adequate presentation of the meaning of a hypothetical proposition one may be led not only to an understanding of a fundamental paradox of logic but to the whole question of modal logic and of the philosophy of logic. It is my purpose in what follows to present as simply as possible the various interpretations of the meaning of implication and to show their relations to modal logic. Having done this I believe it will be possible to state the case in favor of material implication in a new light.

In the preceding article, [3], Peter Machamer states three objections to my recent attempt to define ‘observation term’. While I believe that all Machamer's objections are mistaken, as I will try to show, his discussion does touch on two problems which have forced revisions. Both his first and second objections are that my definition is too restrictive because its second necessary condition for a term ‘O‘ being an observation term rules out too many terms which are obviously observation terms. The condition is :

An amended bootstrapping can avoid Christensen's counterexamples. Earman and Edidin argue that Christensen's examples to bootstrapping rely on his failure to analyze background knowledge. I add an additional condition to bootstrapping that is motivated by Glymour's remarks on variety of evidence. I argue that it avoids the problems that the examples raise. I defend the modification against the charge that it is holistic, and that it collapses into Bayesianism.

David Malament has recently responded to David Albert's argument that classical electrodynamics is not time-reversal invariant by introducing a novel conception of time reversal, which supports the conventional view that under time reversal the magnetic field changes sign but the electric field remains unchanged. I will argue here that Malament's transformation has both passive and active versions. I will claim that the passive version is not relevant to Albert's argument, and the active version does not lead to the conventional transformation.

Lately, an increased interest in formal devices has led to an attempt on the part of some mathematicians to do without those aspects of mathematics which require intuition. One consequence of this movement has been a new conception of pure mathematics as a science of axiomatic systems. According to this conception, there is no reality beyond an axiomatic system which the statements of mathematics are about; the fact that a statement is a theorem in the system is all that is of interest. This is a sort of nominalist position, since the contrary position seems to be committed to a belief in the existence of a domain of mathematical entities, which are just as suspect as the universale commonly discussed in metaphysical treatises. More often it is called formalism.

“A millennium has gone by since the idea of the relationship of all things, the chain of causes was born. A comparison of the meaning of what we call causes throughout the history of human thinking could give us, no doubt, a conclusive epistemology.” (Lenin, V. I., Unpublished Notes to Lasalle's Heraclite.)

Horwich argues that we should reject metaphysical realism, but that we can preserve semantic realism by adhering to a redundancy theory of truth and a confirmationist account of linguistic understanding. But the latter will give us semantic realism only if it allows that the truth-values of sentences may transcend our recognitional capacities, and this is possible only insofar as we covertly reintroduce metaphysical realism. In spite of its intuitive appeal, we should not endorse semantic realism, but this need not bear upon the tenability of scientific realism.