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Neurath's Protocol Statements: A Naturalistic Theory of Data and Pragmatic Theory of Theory Acceptance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Thomas E. Uebel
Thomas E. Uebel*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, The London School of Economics and Political Science
*
‡Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, The London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, England.
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Abstract

Neurath's proposal for the form of protocol statements explicates the multiple embedding of a singular sentence as specifying different conditions for the acceptance of such a sentence as a bona fide scientific datum. Before theories are accepted or rejected in the light of such evidence, however, a further condition must be met which Neurath did not formalize. The different conditions are discussed and shown to constitute a naturalistic theory of scientific data and a pragmatic theory of theory acceptance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 60 , Issue 4 , December 1993 , pp. 587 - 607
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1993

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Footnotes

†

Work on this paper was supported by an Andrew Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh. Some of this material was presented to audiences at Stanford, Northwestern, Pittsburgh, Vienna and at the APA Eastern Division meeting 1991. I would like to thank Paul Moser who commented at the APA and the members of these audiences for their helpfully critical remarks and suggestions, particularly Nancy Cartwright and Peter Machamer, and an anonymous referee.

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