Sebastian Lutz

On a Straw Man in the Philosophy of Science: A Defense of the Received View

The Received View on scientific theories as developed by Carnap, Hempel, and Feigl is now generally considered to have failed for a variety of reasons, bringing down a number of dependent philosophical analyses and contributing to the demise of logical empiricism. In a first step toward a rehabilitation of the Received View, I defend it against some major criticisms that are based on four misconceptions. First, I dispute the claim that the Received View demands axiomatizations of scientific theories in first-order logic and the further claim that the axiomatizations must include axioms for the mathematics used in the theories. Next, I contend that scientific models are important according to the Received View. Finally, I argue against the claim that the Received View is intended to make the concept of a theory more precise. Rather, it is meant as a generalizable framework for explicating specific theories.

Empirical Adequacy in the Received View

I show that the central notion of Constructive Empiricism, empirical adequacy, can be expressed syntactically and specifically in the Received View of the logical empiricists. The formalization shows that the Received View is superior to Constructive Empiricism in the treatment of theories involving constants or functions from observable to unobservable objects. It also suggests a formalization of ‘full empirical informativeness’ in Constructive Empiricism.

Carnap on empirical significance

Carnap’s search for a criterion of empirical significance is usually considered a failure. I argue that the results from two out of his three different approaches are at the very least problematic, but that one approach led to success. Carnap’s criterion of translatability into logical syntax is too vague to allow for definite results. His criteria for terms—introducibility by chains of reduction sentences and his criterion from “The Methodological Character of Theoretical Concepts”—are almost trivial and have no clear relation to the empirical significance of sentences. However, his criteria for sentences—translatability, verifiability, falsifiability, confirmability—are usable, and under the assumptions needed for the Carnap sentence approach, verifiability, falsifiability, and translatability become equivalent. As a result of the Carnap sentence approach, metaphysics is rendered analytic.

Generalizing Empirical Adequacy I: Multiplicity and Approximation

I provide an explicit formulation of empirical adequacy, the central concept of constructive empiricism, and point out a number of problems. Based on one of the inspirations for empirical adequacy, I generalize the notion of a theory to avoid implausible presumptions about the relation of theoretical concepts and observations, and generalize empirical adequacy with the help of approximation sets to allow for lack of knowledge, approximations, and successive gain of knowledge and precision. As a test case, I provide an application of these generalizations to a simple interference phenomenon.

Armchair Philosophy Naturalized

Carnap suggests that philosophy can be construed as being engaged solely in conceptual engineering. I argue that since many results of the sciences can be construed as stemming from conceptual engineering as well, Carnap’s account of philosophy can be methodologically naturalistic. This is also how he conceived of his account. That the sciences can be construed as relying heavily on conceptual engineering is supported by empirical investigations into scientific methodology, but also by a number of conceptual considerations. I present a new conceptual consideration that generalizes Carnap’s conditions of adequacy for analytic–synthetic distinctions and thus widens the realm in which conceptual engineering can be used to choose analytic sentences. I apply these generalized conditions of adequacy to a recent analysis of scientific theories and defend the relevance of the analytic–synthetic distinction against criticisms by Quine, Demopoulos, and Papineau.