NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/sci/logic/1975

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-08 | 3.4 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Gary Merrill)
Newsgroups: sci.logic,sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Natural Kinds (was re: Are all crows black?)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 9 Nov 92 18:09:33 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Robert Vienneau) writes:

|> Gary, your response disappoints me. I'd seriously like reading
|> suggestions. Who would you suggest is of comparable status? (By limiting
|> yourself to the last 20 years, you provide yourself with a problem even
|> more than I do by limiting myself to the 20th century. It's extremely
|> hard to say whose work will age well, or even if current arguments will
|> not seem pointless and too narrowly focused in another 100 years.)

I mentioned the past 20 years because the people *you* mentioned were
writing largely in this period.  I'm not sure what you mean by "comparable
status", but I get the impression that you are familiar neither with
the positivists (and their successors) whom these guys are arguing
against nor with more recent developments since these guys stopped
publishing.  Even if you like the "flavor" of Kuhn and Lakatos, I'm
surprised that you don't even mention Larry Laudan -- which indicates
to me that your exploration of this area is even more severely dated
than my own participation.  Finding a reading list should be pretty
easy:  Go to Davis Library.  Hang a right to the current journals.
Look at such journals as:

        _Philosophy of Science_
        _British Journal for the Philosophy of Science_
        _Erkenntnis_  (Davis may not have this)
        _Synthese_  (May not have this either, but it *has*
                to be on campus somewhere)

Look at the bibliographies of the phil. of science papers in these.
Or get a recent book by van Fraassen and look at the bibliography.
He's usually pretty complete.

|> Your response also makes me wonder if you know what you are talking
|> about. How can you characterize the four I listed as being of a single
|> school? Granted they were all aware of each other's work and reacted

I ain't gonna fight this battle *again* here.  See the section entitled
"History and the Metaphilosophy of Science" in _PSA 1980_ (ed. by
Peter Asquith & Ron Giere):

    "Toward a Historical Meta-Method for Assessing Normative
     Methodologies:  Rationability, Serendipity, and
     the Robinson Crusoe Fallacy" by Stephen J. Wykstra

    "Moderate Historicism and the Empirical Sense of
     'Good Science'" by G. H. Merrill

    "History and the Norms of Science" by James Robert Brown

I would bet that UNC has this (though I have detected odd gaps in
their phil of science collection -- e.g., they don't seem to have
van Fraassen's recent books, or did not the last time I looked).
After you look at these, *then* you can wonder if I know what I
am talking about.

--
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / [phone]
[e-mail] ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm