Scientific representation : paradoxes of perspective / Bas C. van Fraassen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Van Fraassen, Bas C., 1941-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Science--Philosophy.

Science.

Physical Description:

xiv, 408 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2008.

Summary:

Bas C. van Fraassen presents an original exploration of how we represent the world. Science represents natural phenomena by means of theories, as well as in many concrete ways by such means as pictures, graphs, table-top models, and computer simulations. Scientific Representation begins with an inquiry into the nature of representation in general, drawing on such diverse sources as Plato's dialogues, the development of perspectival drawing in the Renaissance, and the geometric styles of modelling in modern physics. Starting with Mach's and Poincare's analyses of measurement and the 'problem of coordination', van Fraassen then presents a view of measurement outcomes as representations. With respect to the theories of contemporary science he defends an empiricist structuralist version of the 'picture theory' of science, through an inquiry into the paradoxes that came to light in twentieth-century philosophies of science. Van Fraassen concludes with an analysis of the complex relationship between appearance and reality in the scientific world-picture.

Contents:

Introduction: the 'picture theory of science' 1

Part I Representation

1 Representation of, Representation As 11

The value of distortion 12

How does a representation represent? 15

What's in a photo? 20

What is a representation then? 22

Appearance to the intellect: illumination as embedding 29

2 Imaging, Picturing, and Scaling 33

Modes of representation 33

What distinguishes a picture? 36

Mathematical imagery, distortion through abstraction 39

Scale models and virtuous distortion 49

Conclusion about imaging and scaling 56

3 Pictorial Perspective and the Indexical 59

Pictorial perspective and the Art of Measuring 60

Perspective versus Descartes's frames of reference 66

Mapping and perspectival self-location 75

What is in a map? 82

Visual perspective and the metaphor 84

Concluding empiricist postscript 86

Part II Windows, Engines, and Measurement

4 A Window on the Invisible World (?) 93

Instrumentation's diversity of roles 94

Engines of creation: engendering new phenomena 100

The microscope's public hallucinations 101

Objections to this view of 'observation by instruments' 105

Experimentation's diversity of roles 111

5 The Problem of Coordination 115

Coordination: a historical context 116

The problem of coordination reconceived 121

Mach on the history of the thermometer 125

Poincare's analysis of time measurement 130

Observables coordinated: two morals 137

6 Measurement as Representation: 1. The Physical Correlate 141

Physical conditions of possibility for measurement 141

General theory of measurement 147

What is not measurement 156

7 Measurement as Representation: 2. Information 157

What is measurement-number-assigning? 158

The scale as logical space 164

Data models and surface models 166

The over-arching concept for measurement 172

What is a measurement outcome? 179

Relating the views 'from above' and 'from within' 184

Part III Structure and Perspective

8 From the Bildtheorie of Science to Paradox 191

The Bildtheorie controversy 191

Representation: the problem for structuralism 204

9 The Longest Journey: Bertrand Russell 213

Prolegomena to Russell's conversion to structuralism 213

Russell's structuralist turn 217

10 Carnap's Lost World and Putnam's Paradox 225

Carnap: Der Logische Aufbau der Welt 225

Putnam's Paradox 229

Staying with Putnam: the Paradox dissolved 232

11 An Empiricist Structuralism 237

What could be an empiricist structuralism? 237

The fundamental remaining problem for a structuralist view of science 239

The two main dangers for an empiricist 244

The problem in concrete setting revisited and dissolved 253

Return to our epistemological question 261

Part IV Appearance and Reality

12 Appearance vs. Reality in the Sciences 269

Appearance and reality: the real and unreal problem 270

Appearance versus reality at the birth of modern science 270

Three putative completeness criteria 276

Appearance vs. reality: A deeper Criterion 280

Phenomena versus appearances 283

Three-faceted representation 288

13 Rejecting the Appearance from Reality Criterion 291

The supervenience of mind challenge 292

The Great Leibnizian Escape move 296

The quantum mechanics challenge 297

Exploring the case of quantum mechanics 300

Supervenience? 304

An empiricist view 304

Appendix to CH 1 Models and theories as representations 309

Appendix to CH 6 Quantum peculiarities: fuzzy observables 312

Appendix to CH 7 Surface models and their embeddings 315

Appendix to CH 13 Retreat (?) from The Scientific Image 317.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [320]-397) and index.

ISBN:

9780199278220

0199278229

OCLC:

216938527