Can Partial Structures Accommodate Inconsistent Science?

Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 13 (2):133-250 (2009)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The semantic approach to scientific representation is now long established as a favourite amongst philosophers of science. One of the foremost strains of this approach—the model-theoretic approach —is to represent scientific theories as families of models, all of which satisfy or ‘make true’ a given set of constraints. However some authors have criticised the approach on the grounds that certain scientific theories are logically inconsistent, and there can be no models of an inconsistent set of constraints. Thus it would seem that the MTA fails to represent inconsistent scientific theories at all, and this raises concerns about the way it represents in general. In a series of papers and a recent book da Costa and French have developed a variant of the MTA approach which they call ‘partial structures’, and which they claim can accommodate inconsistent theories. I assess this claim, looking to two theories which have been called ‘inconsistent’: Bohr’s theory of the atom and classical electrodynamics.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

    This entry is not archived by us. If you are the author and have permission from the publisher, we recommend that you archive it. Many publishers automatically grant permission to authors to archive pre-prints. By uploading a copy of your work, you will enable us to better index it, making it easier to find.

    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 104,556

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Inconsistency in classical electrodynamics.Mathias Frisch - 2004 - Philosophy of Science 71 (4):525-549.
Can good science be logically inconsistent?Kevin Davey - 2014 - Synthese 191 (13):3009-3026.
How Theories Represent.Otávio Bueno & Steven French - 2011 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 62 (4):857-894.
Models, Theories, and Structures: Thirty Years on.Steven French - 2000 - Philosophy of Science 67 (S1):S116 - S127.
Theories, models and structures: Thirty years on.S. R. D. French & N. da Costa - 2000 - Philosophy of Science 67 (Supple):S116 - S127.
Inconsistency, Paraconsistency and ω-Inconsistency.Bruno Da Ré - 2018 - Principia: An International Journal of Epistemology 22 (1):171-188.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-06-21

Downloads
179 (#139,735)

6 months
1 (#1,607,365)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Peter Vickers
Durham University

Citations of this work

The Structure of Scientific Theories.Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther - 2015 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
How Theories Represent.Otávio Bueno & Steven French - 2011 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 62 (4):857-894.
Representing the World with Inconsistent Mathematics.Colin McCullough-Benner - 2019 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (4):1331-1358.

View all 7 citations / Add more citations