Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Edited by I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave. Pp. viii, 282. £3·50, paperback £1. 1970. (Cambridge University Press.)

The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science

Across the broad fields of educational theory and research, constructivism has become something akin to a secular religion. In her book Evolution as a Religion (1985), Mary Midgley wrote that the theory of evolution "is not just an inert piece of theoretical science. It is, and cannot help being, also a powerful folk-tale about human origins. Any such narrative must have symbolic force" (1985, p. 1). She might well have written the same about constructivism, which is, whatever else it may be, a "powerful folktale" about the origins of human knowledge. As in all living religions, constructivism has many sects-each of which harbors some distrust of its rivals. This descent into

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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Many Faces of Constructivism

Fundamental conceptual problems that arise from the macroscopic and microscopic aspects of the second law of thermodynamics are considered. It is shown that nonequilibrium may become a source of order and that irreversible processes may lead to a new type of dynamic states of matter called "dissipative structures." The thermodynamic theory of such structures is outlined. A microscopic definition of irreversible processes is given, and a transformation theory is developed that allows one to introduce nonunitary equations of motion that explicitly display irreversibility and approach to thermodynamic equilibrium. The work of the group at the University of Brussels in these fields is briefly reviewed. In this new development of theoretical chemistry and physics, it is likely that thermodynamic concepts will play an ever-increasing role.

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Time, structure, and fluctuations.

http://www.math.pitt.edu/~troy/vlad/cooper.pdf

Dynamical reduction models

This paper argues that the appraisal of theory is in important respects closer in structure to value-judgement than it is to the rule-governed inference that the classical tradition in philosophy of science took for granted.

Values in Science

From the beginning, the implications of quantum theory for our most general understanding of the world have been a matter of intense debate. Einstein argues that the theory had to be regarded as fundamentally incomplete. Its inability, for example, to predict the exact time of decay of a single radioactive atom had to be due to a failure of the theory and not due to a permanent inability on our part or a fundamental indeterminism in nature itself. In 1964, John Bell derived a theorem which showed that any deterministic theory which preserved "locality" (i.e., which rejected action at a distance) would have certain consequences for measurements performed at a distance from one another. An experimental check seems to show that these consequences are not, in fact, realized. The correlation between the sets of events is much stronger than any "local" deterministic theory could allow. What is more, this stronger correlation is precisely that which is predicted by quantum theory. The astonishing result is that local deterministic theories of the classical sort seem to be permanently excluded. Not only can the individual decay not be predicted, but no future theory can ever predict it. The contributors in this volume wrestle with this conclusion. Some welcome it; others leave open a return to at least some kind of deterministic world, one which must however allow something like action-at-a distance."

Philosophical Consequences of Quantum Theory Reflections on Bell's Theorem

In recent decades, it has been argued that the social dimensions of science are more nearly constitutive of science, both as activity and as product. The ten essays in this volume examine the historical origins of this new emphasis on the social dimensions of science, which has its roots in Thomas Kuhn's claim that "The choice between competing paradigms proves to be a choice between incompatible modes of community life". Sociologists of science have since carried the theme of science as social construction much further than Kuhn did, some of them claiming that the activities of scientists have at all times reflected the larger groupings - political, economic, sexual - to which scientists necessarily belong. For a deeper understanding of the history of science, they argue that one must push beyond the conventional emphasis on ideas and reasons to discern the variety of social interests that shape even the very content of the science itself. Here the contributors explore some suggestive case histories from recent science, such as the cold fusion claims of Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, and ask where the rather fundamental disagreements between different exponents of the "social turn" may lead. Taken together, these essays aim to give a good sense of the debates that may alter our image of what "science" is.

The Social Dimensions of Science

In his Aquinas Lecture 1992 at Marquette University, Ernan McMullin discusses whether there is a pattern of inference that particularly characterizes the sciences of nature. He pursues this theme both on a historical and a systematic level. There is a continuity of concern across the ages that separate the Greek inquiry into nature from our own vastly more complex scientific enterprise. But there is also discontinuity, the abandonment of earlier ideals as unworkable. The natural sciences involve many types of inference; three of these interlock in a special way to produce “retroductive inference,” the kind of complex inference that supports causal theory.

Ernan McMullin

Papers

Values in Science

Philosophical Consequences of Quantum Theory Reflections on Bell's Theorem

The Social Dimensions of Science

The inference that makes science

Newton on matter and activity