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- Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
- Path: sparky!uunet!usc!rpi!utcsri!psych.toronto.edu!christo
- From: christo@psych.toronto.edu (Christopher Green)
- Subject: Re: Which theory before observation ?
- Message-ID: <1993Jan9.161851.28603@psych.toronto.edu>
- Organization: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto
- References: <C0HLqI.LA@unx.sas.com> <schiller.726487694@hpas5> <C0Jw8r.838.1@cs.cmu.edu>
- Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 16:18:51 GMT
- Lines: 21
-
- >In article <schiller.726487694@hpas5> schiller@prl.philips.nl (schiller c) writes:
- >>My position as a scientist is that facts, i.e. the results of observation,
- >>are the basis of theories. There are no "well-known" flaws of this position.
- >>
- I'm afriad that this is simply ill-informed. The observation-theory distinction
- has long been a matter a controversy in philosophy of science. The best-known
- "flaws" are put forward in Putnam's "What theories are not." The position
- outlined there is a little technical, but the central example is that one
- cannot establish, through obsevation, that a thing is red unless one has
- a conceptual scheme for colors that includes red in advance.
-
- Other more controversial critiques have been put forward by Paul Feyerabend
- (as mentioned by another poster) and Rom Harre (take a look at his article on
- philosophy of science in the _Encyclopedia of Philosophy_).
-
-
- --
- Christopher D. Green christo@psych.toronto.edu
- Psychology Department cgreen@lake.scar.utoronto.ca
- University of Toronto
- Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A1
-