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Comments on Suppes’ Paper: The Essential but Implicit Role of Modal Concepts in Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Aldo Bressan
Aldo Bressan*
Affiliation:
Università di Padova
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Extract

In contrast to his views of some years ago Suppes in now convinced that modal concepts are essential to standard scientific talk. Yet he emphasizes two main points: (1) in a majority of cases the modal concepts remain implicit in that talk, and (2) this logic is scarcely used in either theoretical or experimental analysis of empirical phenomena. Furthermore, in dealing with probability and referring in particular to the sample space, he substantially says that modal concepts are left implicit to eliminate excess baggage.

In my opinion the situation emphasized by Suppes and described by him in detail, is quite natural and to be foreseen, up to details: Indeed, first, mathematization is the most important step in the qualitative development of science.

Type
Part VIII Symposium: Modality and the Analysis of Scientific Propositions
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1972 , 1972 , pp. 315 - 321
Copyright
Copyright © 1974 by D. Reidel Publishing Company

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Footnotes

*

This comments were prepared in the sphere of activity of the research group for mathematical physics of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, in 1972-73.

References

Bressan, A., A General Interpreted Modal Calculus, Yale University Press, New Haven, London, 1972.Google Scholar
Bressan, A., ‘On the Usefulness of Modal Logic in Axiomatizations of Physics’, these proceedings, p. 285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKinsey, J. C, Sugar, A. C, and Suppes, P., ‘Axiomatic Foundations of Classical Particle Mechanics’, Journ. of Rational Mech. and Anal. 2 (1953), 253.Google Scholar
Suppes, P., ‘The Essential but Implicit Role of Modal Concepts in Science’, these proceedings, p. 305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar