Realist Methodology and the Articulation of Modes of Production (ص 42)
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- Realist Methodology and the Articulation of Modes of Production (ص 42)
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hypothetical in form since they are incapable of complete
proof according to rigid empiricist criteria, i.e. it is not
possible to experience every case in the universe past,
present and future. Thus, scientific explanations are said to
be hypothetico-deductive. (63)
Most scientists would want to explain why it is that under
certain conditions fires go out and why. for instance, an
apple always falls to the ground, i.e. they will want to
explain the empirical laws themselves. This route is not open
to the positivist. If s/he wishes to explain why it is that
apples always fall to the ground then s/he would impute this
as a particular case of the Newtonian theory of gravity which
consists of empirical laws of a high degree of generality
which are applicable to all bodies which fall. From these
laws it is possible to deduce an enormous range of "lower"
level empirical laws about such objects as apples, billiard
balls, the movement of the planets, etc. These laws are all
deductively interconnected from the higher to the lower level
In a declining hierarchy of generality. (64) For the
positivist, a scientific theory is defined as just such 4
network of sets of laws.
Concomitant with this account of empirical laws, the
positivist arrogates a distinct historiography of science in
which scientific progress is seen as a developmental process
of extending and subsuming empirical laws, such that the
"known" empirical laws are continually subsumed under more
extensive laws of a higher-order of generality. This process
JF 28 - تاريخ
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- المنشئ
- Alex Pollock
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