This book deals with some of the current issues in the philosophy, methodology and foundations of physics. Some such problems are: - Do mathematical formalisms interpret themselves or is it necessary to adjoin them interpretation assumptions, and if so how are these as- sumptions to be framed? - What are physical theories about: physical systems or laboratory operations or both or neither? - How are the basic concepts of a theory to be introduced: by ref- erence to measurements or by explicit definition or axiomatically? - What is the use ofaxiomatics in physics? - How are the various...

During Hallowe'en of 1970, the Department of Philosophy of the Univer- sity of Western Ontario held its annual fall colloquium at London, On- tario. The general topic of the sessions that year was conceptual change. The thirteen papers composing this volume stem more or less directly from those meetings; six of them are printed here virtually as delivered, while the remaining seven were subsequently written by invitation. The programme of the colloquium was to have consisted of major papers delivered by Professors Wilfrid Sellars, Stephan Korner, Paul Ziff and Hilary Putnam, with shorter...

The idea that prompted the conferenee for which many of these papers were written, and that inspired this book, is stated in the Editorial Introduction reprinted below from Volume 21 of Synthese. The present volume contains the artieles in Synthese 21, Numbers 3-4 and Synthese 22, Numbers 1-2. In addition, it ineludes new papers by Saul Kripke, James McCawley, John R. Ross, and Paul Ziff, and reprints 'Grammar and Philosophy' by P. F. Strawson. Strawson's artiele first appeared in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 70, and is reprinted with the kind permission of the author...

The aim of this monograph is to present some of the basic ideas and results in pure combinatory logic and their applications to some topics in proof theory, and also to present some work of my own. Some of the material in chapter 1 and 3 has already appeared in my notes Introduction to Combinatory Logic. It appears here in revised form since the presen tation in my notes is inaccurate in several respects. I would like to express my gratitude to Stig Kanger for his invalu able advice and encouragement and also for his assistance in a wide variety of matters concerned with my study in Uppsala....

The articles in this volume have been stimulated in two different ways. More than two years ago the editor of Synthese, laakko Hintikka, an- nounced a special issue devoted to space and time, and articles were solicited. Part of the reason for that announcement was also the second source of papers. Several years ago I gave a seminar on special relativity at Stanford, and the papers by Domotor, Harrison, Hudgin, Latzer and myself partially arose out of discussion in that seminar. All of the papers except those of Griinbaum, Fine, the second paper of Friedman, and the paper of Adams appeared in...

Everyone knows it is easy to lie with statistics. It is important then to be able to tell a statistical lie from a valid statistical inference. It is a relatively widely accepted commonplace that our scientific knowledge is not certain and incorrigible, but merely probable, subject to refinement, modifi cation, and even overthrow. The rankest beginner at a gambling table understands that his decisions must be based on mathematical ex pectations - that is, on utilities weighted by probabilities. It is widely held that the same principles apply almost all the time in the game of life. If we...

In this book I discuss the justification of scientific change and argue that it rests on different sorts of invariance. Against this background I con sider notions of observation, meaning, and regulative standards. My position is in opposition to some widely influential and current views. Revolutionary new ideas concerning the philosophy of science have recently been advanced by Feyerabend, Hanson, Kuhn, Toulmin, and others. There are differences among their views and each in some respect differs from the others. It is, however, not the differences, but rather the similarities that are of...

In 1973 a workshop was held at The University of Western Ontario on topics of common interest to philosophers and linguists. This volume con- tains most of the papers presented at the workshop. Also included are previously unpublished essays by R. Dougherty and H. Lasnik as well as a comment on G. Lakoff's paper by B. van Fraassen. K. Donnellan's paper was presented at the workshop and subsequently appeared in The Philosophical Review. We thank the editors of this journal for permission to publish the paper here. The papers by D. Lewis, R. Stalnaker, G. Lakoff, B. Partee and H. Herzberger...

During the academic years 1972-1973 and 1973-1974, an intensive sem inar on the foundations of quantum mechanics met at Stanford on a regular basis. The extensive exploration of ideas in the seminar led to the org ization of a double issue of Synthese concerned with the foundations of quantum mechanics, especially with the role of logic and probability in quantum meChanics. About half of the articles in the volume grew out of this seminar. The remaining articles have been so licited explicitly from individuals who are actively working in the foun dations of quantum mechanics. Seventeen of the...

This book has arisen out of lectures I gave in recent years at the Uni versities of Munich and Regensburg, and it is intended to serve as a textbook for courses in the Philosophy of Language. In my lectures I was able to presuppose that the students had taken an introductory course in logic. Some knowledge of logic will also be helpful in studying this book - as it is almost everywhere else in philosophy -, especially in Section 3. 2, but it is no prerequisite. I would like to give my sincere thanks to Prof. Terrell for his excellent translation of the book, which is based on the second,...