Patchworks and operations

European Journal for Philosophy of Science 13 (1):1-21 (2023)
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Abstract

Recent work in the philosophy of scientific concepts has seen the simultaneous revival of operationalism and development of patchwork approaches to scientific concepts. We argue that these two approaches are natural allies. Both recognize an important role for measurement techniques in giving meaning to scientific terms. The association of multiple techniques with a single term, however, raises the threat of proliferating concepts (Hempel, 1966). While contemporary operationalists have developed some resources to address this challenge, these resources are inadequate to account for the full range of complex behaviors of scientific concepts. We adopt show how the patchwork approach’s repertoire of inter-patch relations can expand the resources available to the operationalist. We focus on one especially important type of inter-patch relation: sharing a general reasoning strategy. General reasoning strategies serve two important functions: (1) they bind together distinct patches of scientific concepts, and (2) they provide normative guidance for extending concepts to new domains.

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Author Profiles

Philipp Haueis
Bielefeld University
Rose Novick
University of Washington

Citations of this work

Theoretical concepts as goal-derived concepts.Matteo De Benedetto - 2024 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 107 (C):82-91.

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References found in this work

Philosophy of natural science.Carl Gustav Hempel - 1966 - Englewood Cliffs, N.J.,: Prentice-Hall.
Wandering Significance: An Essay on Conceptual Behavior.Mark Wilson - 2006 - Oxford, GB: Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Phylogenetic Systematics.Willi Hennig, D. Dwight Davis & Rainer Zangerl - 1980 - Philosophy of Science 47 (3):499-502.
A Generalized Patchwork Approach to Scientific Concepts.Philipp Haueis - 2024 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 75 (3):741-768.

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