ACCTG 1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Normal Science, Stellar Nucleosynthesis, Jerry Fodor
Document Summary
Theory, experimemt and observation: relationship between theory, observation and experiment key questions: Yes: positivists: clear distinction btw observation statements/terms and theoretical statements/terms. Empiricists: unobservable entities (van fraassen) important epistemic distinction btw observable entities and. No: against positivism: no clear semantic distinction btw theoretical language and observational language. Against empiricism: no sharp distinction btw observable and unobservable entities; and at any rate: not epistemically interesting. Is all observation theory-laden? as different by different observers (kuhn) Without prior theory, there is no observation. Inductivists: scientific method proceeds from observation(s) to theory. Deductivists: scientific method proceeds from conjecture to (controlled) observation. With different prior theories, the same event/phenomenon will be observed. Many philosophical views (including empiricism, positivism, falsificationism ) seem. Observations are just given , independent of any theory. Against the idea of givenness: various claims about theory-ladenness of observation to presuppose that observation provides a kind of neutral test-ground for theories. (degrees):
