The concept of intelligibility in modern physics (1948)

This is an English translation of Paul Feyerabend's earliest extant essay “Der Begriff der Verständlichkeit in der modernen Physik” (1948). In it, Feyerabend defends positivism as a progressive framework for scientific research in certain stages of scientific development. He argues that in physics visualizability (Anschaulichkeit) and intelligibility (Verständlichkeit) are time-conditioned concepts: what is deemed visualizable in the development of physical theories is relative to a specific historical context and changes over time. He concludes that from time to time the abandonment of visualizability is crucial for progress in physics, as it is conducive to major theory change, illustrating the point on the basis of advances in atomic theory.     

后实证主义的兴起对心理学理论建设的意义

后实证主义的兴起对实证主义统治下的心理学危局有一定的挽救意义,它超越了传统的二元论视野,扶正了理论建设在心理学中的地位,为心理学提供了元理论基础和新的评价标准。     

论波普尔的科学进步理论——从比较学角度看波普尔对逻辑实证主义的继承和超越

波普尔认为科学的精神应当是批判,科学是理性不断做出假说,而这种假说不断遭到批判,即被证伪。因此,波普尔提出科学与非科学的“划界标准”不是逻辑实证主义的“可证实性”原则,而应当是他的“可证伪性”原则。根据他的这一原则,波普尔表述了他的真理观,用逼真度取代“真理”作为对科学进步的量度。从证伪主义出发,波普尔最终建立了他的“猜想—反驳”方法论。     

Bird, Kuhn, and positivism

I challenge Alexander Bird’s contention that the divergence between Kuhn’s views and recent philosophy of science is a matter of Kuhn having taken a wrong turn. Bird is right to remind us of Kuhn’s naturalistic tendencies, but these are not clearly an asset, rather than a liability. Kuhn was right to steer clear of extreme referential conceptions of meaning, since these court an unacceptable semantic scepticism. Although he eschewed the concepts of truth and knowledge as philosophers of science have tended to understand them, this doesn’t mean that, as Bird claims, Kuhn was a sceptic about scientific knowledge. Bird’s claim that recent philosophical naturalism represents a rejection of positivism far more thorough than Kuhn’s is problematic since, from a different perspective, this kind of naturalism can be seen to have inherited some equally important positivistic themes. Finally, it’s not clear that Kuhn should have endorsed a computational approach to the philosophy of science, such as connectionism, since such approaches may be more behaviouristic, and thus unacceptably positivistic, than the original cognitive revolution promised.     

Mach and Hertz’s mechanics

The place of Heinrich Hertz’s The principles of mechanics in the history of the philosophy of science is disputed. Here I critically assess positivist interpretations, concluding that they are inadequate.There is a group of commentators who seek to align Hertz with positivism, or with specific positivists such as Ernst Mach, who were enormously influential at the time. Max Jammer is prominent among this group, the most recent member of which is Joseph Kockelmans. I begin by discussing what Hertz and Mach had to say about one another, and I specify certain respects in which their views are indeed similar. I then go on to detail their differences, looking at Hertz’s attitude to the atomic theory, to the mechanical world-view, to simplicity, to unobservables and metaphysics, and his objections to Newtonian forces. I conclude that the positivist interpretation of Hertz’s mechanics significantly overplays its similarities to Mach’s views.     

消解崇高与平民化趋向--论当下文艺的休闲娱乐功能

如今，传统文艺历经时代的变化，已从原有的生产本位，走向今天的消费本位。实用主义与实证主义思潮的盛行，使人们更关注现实的生活本身，关注人类自身的生存状况。于是，理想主义化的崇高被消解，平民化成为文坛的一种普遍倾向。这一现象使文艺的休闲娱乐功能空前高涨，成为一种消费时尚，其各种功能也正发生着异于以往的变化。     

"后实证主义"范式与案例研究法在管理学中的应用

实证主义把经验与逻辑分析作为“客观地”认识现实的基础。由于实证主义在方法论上的局限,管理学方法论从实证主义向多元化方向发展。它是当代西方管理理论发展过程中出现的一股强劲思潮。与实证主义相比,后实证主义范式具有不同的研究方法,其中最重要的当属案例法。本文对实证主义及案例法进行了分析。     

Renouvier and the method of hypothesis

Renouvier was among the first philosophers in France to break with the nineteenth-century inductivist tradition and defend the use of hypotheses in science. Earlier in the century, the humanistically-educated eclectic spiritualist philosophers who dominated French academic life had followed Reid in proscribing the use of hypotheses. Renouvier, who was educated in the sciences, took up the Comtean positivist alternative and developed it further. He began by defending hypotheses that anticipate laws governing the phenomena, but then eventually adopted a more liberal attitude towards hypotheses that postulate unobservable entities and processes as well. He also came to the realization that, from an epistemological point of view, all of empirical science is hypothetical. Renouvier used the tentative character of scientific knowledge as a premise from which to critique those who would claim scientific status for their social philosophies, and maintained a distinction between normative philosophical and empirical scientific inquiries.