Inquiry as Inquiry: A Logic of Scientific Discovery

ISBN-13: 9789048151394 / Angielski / Miękka / 2010 / 290 str.

Jaakko Hintikka

Opis

Is a genuine logic of scientific discovery possible? In the essays collected here, Hintikka not only defends an affirmative answer; he also outlines such a logic. It is the logic of questions and answers. Thus inquiry in the sense of knowledge-seeking becomes inquiry in the sense of interrogation. Using this new logic, Hintikka establishes a result that will undoubtedly be considered the fundamental theorem of all epistemology, viz., the virtual identity of optimal strategies of pure discovery with optimal deductive strategies. Questions to Nature, of course, must include observations and experiments. Hintikka shows, in fact, how the logic of experimental inquiry can be understood from the interrogative vantage point. Other important topics examined include induction (in a forgotten sense that has nevertheless played a role in science), explanation, the incommensurability of theories, theory-ladenness of observations, and identifiability.

Spis treści

Introduction. 1. Is Logic the Key to All Good Reasoning? 2. The Role of Logic in Argumentation. 3. Interrogative Logic as a General Theory of Reasoning. 4. What is Abduction? The Fundamental Problem of Contemporary Epistemology. 5. True and False Logics of Scientific Discovery. 6. A Spectrum of Logic of Questioning. 7. What is the Logic of Experimental Inquiry? 8. The Concept of Induction in the Light of the Interrogative Approach to Inquiry. 9. Semantics and Pragmatics for Why-Questions. 10. The Varieties of Information and Scientific Explanation. 11. On the Incommensurability of Theories. 12. Theory-Ladenness of Observations as a Test Case of Kuhn's Approach to Scientific Inquiry. 13. Ramsey Sentences and the Meaning of Quantifiers. 14. Towards a General Theory of Identifiability.

O autorze

Jaakko Hintikka is the author or co-author of thirty volumes and of some 300 scholarly articles in mathematical and philosophical logic, epistemology, language theory, philosophy of science, history of ideas and history of philosophy, including Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Peirce, The Bloomsbury Group, Husserl and Wittgenstein. He has also been active in international scholarly organizations, most recently as the First Vice-President of FISP, Vice-President of IIP and Co-Chair of the American Organizing Committee of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy. He has been Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal Synthese and the Managing Editor of Synthese Library since 1965.