Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b6zl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-12T11:12:16.986Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Unintelligibility of “Observational Equivalence”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Michael R. Gardner
Michael R. Gardner*
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In his recent book Space, Time, and Spacetime, Lawrence Sklar has argued for a fundamental re-orientation in the philosophical study of the logical and epistemic status of the geometry of physical space. A very large part of the recent literature in this area, he notes (p. 109) has been concerned with the alleged bearing of the continuity of space on the question of whether geometry is the object of empirical knowledge, conventional stipulation, or utter ignorance. That continuity has been thought crucial is due, of course, largely to the enormous influence of the work of Adolf Gruhbaum (e.g., [9]). Sklar, however, argues (pp. 109-112) that the issue of continuity is in fact irrelevant to the logical and epistemic status of geometry, and that its pursuit leads one away from the fundamental questions involved. (See also Michael Friedman for a definitive critique of Grünbaum.)

Type
Part III. Philosophy of Physics
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1976 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1976 , 1976 , pp. 104 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

I wish to thank Lindley Darden, Clark Glymour, Dudley Shapere, Lawrence Sklar, and the PSA referee for comments on an earlier draft. I also wish to acknowledge financial support from the General Research Board of the University of Maryland.

Professor Glymour kindly called to my attention some of his own work [7] which criticizes Sklar's trilemma in a way quite different from mine — namely, by arguing that his classification of positions is based on the false assumption that two theories with the same observational consequences are necessarily equally well tested by given data.

References

Achinstein, Peter. “The Problem of Theoretical Terms.” American Philosophical Quarterly 2 (1965): 193-203.Google Scholar
Carnap, Rudolf. Foundations of Logic and Mathematics.Chicago: University of Chicago, 1939.Google Scholar
Friedman, Michael. Foundations of Space-Time Theories. Ph.D. thesis: Princeton, 1972. University Microfilm Number 73-18757.Google Scholar
Friedman, Michael. “Grlinbaum on the Conventionality of Geometry.” In Suppes [24]. Pages 217-233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glymour, Clark. “Theoretical Realism and Theoretical Equivalence.” In PSA 1970, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VIII. Edited by Buck, R. C. and Cohen, R. S.. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1971. Pages 275-288.Google Scholar
Glymour, Clark. “Topology, Cosmology, and Convention.” In Suppes [24], Pages 193-216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glymour, Clark. “Relevant Evidence.” Journal of Philosophy 72 (1975): 403-426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodman, Nelson. Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965.Google Scholar
Grünbaum, Adolf. Philosophical Problems of Space and Time. New York: Knopf, 1963. Second edition, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1973.Google Scholar
Grünbaum, Adolf. Geometry and Chronometry in Philosophical Perspective. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1968.Google Scholar
Hanson, Norwood R. “Contra-Equivalence: A Defense of the Originality of Copernicus.” Isis 55 (1964): 308-325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hempel, Carl. Aspects of Scientific Explanation. New York: Free Press, 1965.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. The Copernican Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard, 1957.Google Scholar
Maxwell, Grover. “The Ontological Status of Theoretical Entities.” In Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. III. Edited by Feigl, H. and Maxwell, G.. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1962. Pages 3-27.Google Scholar
Merzbacher, Eugen. Quantum Mechanics (Second Edition). New York: Wiley, 1970.Google Scholar
Price, Derek J. de S. “Contra-Copernicus: A Critical Re-estimation of the Mathematical Planetary Theory of Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Kepler.” In Critical Problems In the History of Science. Edited by Marshall, Clagett. Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1959. Pages 197-218.Google Scholar
Putnam, Hilary. “An Examination of Grllnbaum's Philosophy of Geometry.” In Philosophy of Science (The Delaware Seminar. Vol. 2). Edited by Baumrim, B.. New York: Interscience, 1963. Pages 205- 255.Google Scholar
Quine, Willard V.O. From a Logical Point of View. Cambridge: Harvard, 1953.Google Scholar
Quine, Willard V.O. Word and Object. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1960.Google Scholar
Reichenbach, Hans. Philosophy of Space and Time. Translated by Reichenbach, M. and Freund, J.. New York: Dover, 1958.Google Scholar
Shapere, Dudley. “Scientific Theories and Their Domains.” In The Structure of Scientific Theories. Edited by Suppe, Frederick. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1974. Pages 518-565.Google Scholar
Lawrence, Sklar. “The Conventionality of Geometry.” American Philosophical Quarterly, monograph III (1969): 42-60.Google Scholar
Sklar, Lawrence. Space, Time, and Spacetime. Berkeley: University of California, 1974.Google Scholar
Suppes, Patrick. Space, Time, and Geometry. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1973.Google Scholar