John wrote:
"Note that Peirce did not use the word 'semantics'. That word
was introduced into analytic philosophy by Charles Morris's
misunderstanding of Peirce. Carnap loved that word because it
gave his nominalism a thin veneer of meaning. It enabled him
to define modality in terms of Gedanken worlds without having
to get his hands dirty by grubbing around in the real world."
I heartily agree. The same goes for the pair of concepts "epistemology"
and "ontology". Which are bourn and raised within a nominalistic view, a
nominalistic Gedanken universe.
Are generals real?, was the way Peirce put the key question in the
medieval dispute and rivalry between Thomists and Scotists.
Peirce solved the problem with making a distinction between existent
(facts and/or events) and what is real. The third element in this (for
CSP) are the abductive arguments for a regularity presntenting itself IN
THE LONG RUN.
The "long run" always involves a prospected future. It always, to CSP,
also involves possible change. - That is what probability is about.
Classical mechanics projected laws, which by now have been proven to
apply only within a certain kind of perspective on the world. - To
tangible physical object in relation to human individuals. - We have
hands which, in a broader spatial perspective are about the same size.
We have feet, and a body approximately the same size.
As Peirce proved (with his pendulum experiments( is that no measurement
is exact. there always is a residue. - Which may be taken as just an
error in measuring (which can be corrected by more exact measurin) , OR
it may ALSO be taken as something to taken into serious consideration. -
CSP took the latter road.
The presumed to be exact laws of classical mechanics were based on ideas
on what would always (and exatly) happen (in the long run, in the
future). - All this approximately will happen within the range of
humanely tangible objects.
The planets, for example, do not belong to this scale. Nor do subatomic
events.
I do not say quants or particles, because they are something inferred by
human made science by regularitied observed in a very long series
events, most exacty recorded and measured. - The existence of kinds of
individual entities is something inferred from certain regularities of
kinds of (recordable) events.
To Peirce, regularities are real. Sometimes presenting only tendencies,
with great variation, sometimes they appear as laws. But Peirce never
took the stand, that any exact law stand the testimony of the really
long term furute.
The problems with the very small and the very large have come to stay
into modern science.
They have not been solved by modern (nominalistic) science.
Kirsti
John F Sowa kirjoitti 14.12.2016 17:00:
On 12/13/2016 2:43 PM, Thomas903 wrote:
I wanted to comment on statements made last night about the meaning
of law-theory-hypothesis.
I wasn't attempting to state a definitive analysis of scientific
terminology. I was making the point that logicians use the word
'theory' in a formal sense that can be defined syntactically
(in terms of a proof that consists of symbol pushing).
There are a lot of scientists, so I won't claim that all agree with
a single definition. But when I see the term "law" being used by
scientists (e.g., Kepler's Law), it is normally used to describe
a physical-empirical regularity.
I agree.
Scientists have been using the words 'hypothesis', 'theory', and
'law' to express informal distinctions that are based on empirical
data about the world and processes in it. That involves Peirce's
logic of abduction: cycles of observation, induction, abduction,
deduction (AKA prediction), experiment (testing), and repeat.
It's true that logicians use the term 'entailment' instead
of 'deduction' as a kind of "semantics" because it uses model-
theoretic methods. But those models are Gedanken worlds,
whose elements and interactions are independent of observation,
experiment, or testing upon anything in the physical world.
Note that Peirce did not use the word 'semantics'. That word
was introduced into analytic philosophy by Charles Morris's
misunderstanding of Peirce. Carnap loved that word because it
gave his nominalism a thin veneer of meaning. It enabled him
to define modality in terms of Gedanken worlds without having
to get his hands dirty by grubbing around in the real world.
A [scientific] theory is the culmination of observation and
measurement, hypothesis construction, empirical testing, debate
and discussion. As such, a theory is an intellectual-capital
good developed over time. There is no logical activity known as
"deduction" without first developing a "theoretical model" that,
when combined with relevant premises, generates syllogisms
(predictions, explanations) relating to a class of phenomena.
Yes. That is consistent with Peirce's logic of abduction.
John
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