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From Logical Formalism to Control Structure: The Evolution of Methodological Understanding

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

C. A. Hooker
C. A. Hooker*
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle, Australia
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Extract

Over the past two centuries the character of science has changed markedly and crucially. When humans had relatively small amounts of information and energy available they perforce had no option but to attempt to describe objectively a world which behaved independently of them. The basic practical problem was to discover what the pattern of the world was so as to adapt themselves as best they may to it, a little in anticipation of events, but mostly in reaction to them. It is these circumstances which give most sense to the empiricist paradigm of objective knowledge.

But the more information and energy is available to us, the more we are able to ascend from merely correct description of what is to a grasp of what is possible. Newton's laws don't merely describe the paths of the actual projectiles that have fallen and will fall, they describe the paths of all possible projectiles.

Type
Part VII. History and Methodology
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1988 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1988 , 1988 , pp. 211 - 221
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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References

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