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The Essential but Implicit Role of Modal Concepts in Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Patrick Suppes
Patrick Suppes*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Extract

When J. C. C. McKinsey and I were working on the foundations of mechanics many years ago, we thought it important to give a rigorous axiomatization within standard set theory, and we therefore resisted any use of modal concepts or counterfactual conditionals in the formulation of the axioms of mechanics. I continue to think that the use of an extensional set-theoretical framework is appropriate and adequate for most, if not all, scientific discourse. As my interests have shifted more to the foundations of probability and the applications of probability concepts in the behavioral sciences, however, I have gradually come to the position that modal concepts, especially as expressed in the use of probability concepts, are essential to standard scientific talk. Yet, in a majority of cases the modal concepts remain implicit in that talk, and their logic is scarcely used in either theoretical or experimental analyses of empirical phenomena.

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. 305 - 314
Copyright
Copyright © 1974 by D. Reidel Publishing Company

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References

Krantz, D. H, Luce, R. D., Suppes, P., and Tversky, A., Foundations of Measurement, Vol. 1. Academic Press, New York, 1971.Google Scholar
Moler, N., and Suppes, P., ‘Quantifier-Free Axioms for Constructive Plane Geometry’, Compositio Mathematica 20 (1968) 143-152.Google Scholar
Tarski, A., ‘What is Elementary Geometry?’, in L. Henkin, Suppes, P. and Tarski, A. (eds.), The Axiomatic Method, North-Holland, Amsterdam 1959.Google Scholar
Weyl, H., Space-Time-Matter, 4th ed., Methuen, London 1922.Google Scholar