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Reflections on Empirical, External and Ideological Studies of Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Noretta Koertge
Noretta Koertge*
Affiliation:
Indiana University
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Extract

Baltas calls for an empirical theory of the structure and development of Physics—one which gives a unified ac count of both the internal and external aspects of the science. In this paper he proposes a tripartite structure for physical theory and describes the role of socially determined ideological “assumptions” upon that structure.

Since there is very little social consensus amongst philosophers today on many elements of his project, before discussing his proposal in detail it might be helpful to sort out some of the widely disparate enterprises which are associated with terms such as external or ideological when applied to the study of science. Baltas does not always use these terms in quite the ways I would expect.

Type
Part IV. Science Studies
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1986 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1986 , 1986 , pp. 152 - 159
Copyright
Copyright © 1987 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

I would like to acknowledge the help of Chiysafis Haitonas who kindly translated portions of Dr. Baltas’ paper, “Natural Sciences and Ideology”, from the original Greek. My colleagues Grant, Wessels, Westfall and Winnie kindly provided me with background information on the episodes from the history of physics. They are not, however, responsible for my interpretations of those discussions.

References

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