Observation and Experiment in the Natural and Social Sciences BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Editors ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University JÜRGEN RENN, Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science KOSTAS GAVROGLU, University of Athens Editorial Advisory Board THOMAS F. GLICK, Boston University ADOLF GRÜNBAUM, University of Pittsburgh SYLVAN S. SCHWEBER, Brandeis University JOHN J. STACHEL, Boston University MARX W. WARTOFSKY†, (Editor 1960–1997) VOLUME 232 OBSERVATION AND EXPERIMENT IN THE NATURAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES Editedby MARIA CARLA GALAVOTTI University of Bologna, Italy KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS NEW YORK,BOSTON, DORDRECHT, LONDON, MOSCOW eBookISBN: 0-306-48123-5 Print ISBN: 1-4020-1251-9 ©2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers NewYork, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow Print ©2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers Dordrecht All rights reserved No part of this eBook maybe reproducedor transmitted inanyform or byanymeans,electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without written consent from the Publisher Created in the United States of America Visit Kluwer Online at: http://kluweronline.com and Kluwer's eBookstoreat: http://ebooks.kluweronline.com TABLE OF CONTENTS MARIA CARLA GALAVOTTI /Foreword vii PATRICK SUPPES / From Theory to Experiment and Back Again 1 PAOLO LEGRENZI / Naïve Probability 43 LÀSZLÓ SZABÓ / From Theory to Experiments and Back Again ... and Back Again ... Comments on Patrick Suppes 57 REINHARD SELTEN / Emergence and Future of Experimental Economics 63 WENCESLAOGONZALEZ / Rationality in Experimental Economics:An Analysis of Reinhard Selten’s Approach 71 ROBERTO SCAZZIERI / Experiments, Heuristics and Social Diversity: A Comment on Reinhard Selten 85 GERD GIGERENZER / Where Do New Ideas Come From? A Heuristics of Discovery in the Cognitive Sciences 99 DAVIDPAPINEAU / Comments on Gerd Gigerenzer 141 JEANNEPEIJNENBURG / On the Concept of Discovery. Commentson Gerd Gigerenzer 153 URSULAKLEIN / Styles of Experimentation 159 ARISTIDESBALTAS / On French Concepts and Objects. Comments on Ursula Klein 187 DONALD GILLIES / Some Comments on “Styles of Experimentation”by Ursula Klein 199 GÜROL IRZIK / Improving “Styles of Experimentation”. A Comment on Ursula Klein 203 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS DAVID ATKINSON / Experiments and Thought Experiments in Natural Science 209 DANIEL ANDLER / The Advantage of Theft over Honest Toil. Comments on David Atkinson 227 MIKLÓS RÉDEI / Thinking About Thought Experiments in Physics. Comment on “Experiments and Thought Experiments in Natural Science” 237 MICHAEL STÖLTZNER / The Dynamics of Thought Experiments. A Commenton DavidAtkinson 243 GIORA HON / An Attempt at a Philosophy of Experiment 259 RAFFAELLA CAMPANER / An Attempt at a Philosophy of Experimental Error. A Comment on Giora Hon 285 GEREON WOLTERS / O Happy Error. A Comment on Giora Hon 295 COLIN HOWSON / Bayesian Evidence 301 IGOR DOUVEN / On Bayesian Logic. Comments on Colin Howson 321 PAOLO GARBOLINO / On Bayesian Induction (and Pythagoric Arithmetic) 327 ILKKA NIINILUOTO / Probability and Logic. Comments on Colin Howson 333 Index of Names 339 FOREWORD According to a long tradition in philosophy of science, a clear cut distinction can be traced between a context of discovery and a context of justification. This tradition dates back to the birth of the discipline in connection with the Circles of Vienna and Berlin, in the twenties and thirties of last century. Convicted that only the context ofjustification is pertinent to philosophy of science, logical empiricists identified its goal with the “rational reconstruction” of scientific knowledge, taken as the clarification of the logical structure of science, through an analysis of its language and methods. Stressing justification as the proper field of application of philosophy of science, logical empiricists intended to leave discovery out of its remit. The context of discovery was then discarded fromphilosophy ofscienceand lefttosociology, psychology and history. The distinction between context of discovery and context of justification goes hand in hand with the tenet that the theoretical side of science can – and should – be kept separate from its observational and experimental components. Further, the final, abstract formulation of theories shouldbeanalysedapartfromtheprocess behind it, resultingfrom a tangle of context-dependent factors. This conviction is reflected by the distinction between theoretical and observational sentences underpinning the Hempelian view of theories as nets, whose knots represent theoretical terms, floating on the plane of observation, to which it is anchored by rules of interpretation. This view assigns to philosophy of science the task of clarifying the relationship between theoretical and observational terms, whiletakingtheplaneofobservationas “given”. The view of theories upheld by logical empiricists, together with the distinction between context of discovery and context ofjustification, has been criticized in many ways, and has gradually been abandoned in favour ofamore flexible viewpointaccordingto whichtheory and observation are not separate but strictly intertwined. Once it was admitted that the context of justification forms a continuum with the context of discovery, interest in the latter spread rapidly, and a whole array of new problems has been addressed in this connection. Observation and experimentation have become an important field of inquiry. The present volume is meant as a contributiontothe ongoingdebateonthistopic. vii M.C. Galavotti (ed.), Observation and Experiment in the Natural and Social Sciences, vii-x © 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. viii FOREWORD The first paper is by Patrick Suppes, a forerunner of a constructive kind of epistemology that regards scientific theories as sets of models, ranging from empirical models describing experimental data, to mathematical models characterizing the abstract core of the theory. According to this perspective, scientific knowledge has to be analysed with reference to the logical as well as empirical structures characterizing its models, and philosophy of science is concerned as much with formal logic and set theory, as with probability and statistical inference. In his paper, Suppes argues that theory and experiment are engaged in a continuous interplay, substantiating this claim by two examples, taken respectively from the study of the brain and quantum physics. Reinhard Selten focuses on experimental economics, a field to which he has contributed pioneering work. The beginnings of this discipline, which is now considered an important branch of economics, are recollected, together with its first developments in Germany and the USA. Selten then describes the standards of experimental economics, to be met by acceptable research in the discipline. Fully convinced of the utility of experimenting in economics, Selten predicts a growth surge in the future, as a complement of field research. Selten identifies the specific contribution of experimental economics with its capacity to test major assumptions of economic behaviour and to come up with facts that can lead to theories of limited application, which will hopefully converge towards a comprehensive theory of economic behaviour. The paper by Gerd Gigerenzer claims the distinction between discovery and justification is “artificial”, and argues for a heuristics grounded on the idea that the methods of justification adopted by scientists provide tools for the discovery of new theories. Inferential statistics and the digital computer are the examples discussed by Gigerenzer to illustrate his heuristics “from tools to theories”, which originates in connection with cognitive science, but can be extended to other fields as well. Gigerenzer’s analysis calls attention to the role of scientists’ practice within scientific investigation and theory construction, a role widely overlooked by epistemologists. Ursula Klein deals with experimentation in chemistry, through a careful examination of two case studies: the study of plant tissues by means of chemical operations in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and organic chemistry in Europe from the late 1820s onward. The discussion of these examples leads Klein to a distinction between “experimental analysis” and “experimental culture”, meant to shed light on the multifarious and dynamic relationship between theory and experiment. The paper by David Atkinson addresses the issue of thought experiments and theirusefulness for the investigation of nature. Atkinson’s analysis of three quite different cases, namely Galileo’s, the EPR FOREWORD ix argument, and string theory, suggests insightful considerations on the relationship between real and thought experiments. Giora Hon focuses on error, in the conviction that the theory of experiment can profit from a careful consideration and classification of the possible errors that can occur within an experimental setting. Such an analysis of empirical knowledge from the “negative” perspective of possible faults deepens its roots in the philosophy of Francis Bacon, to whom Hon refers to propose a slightly modified classification of experimental errors. Colin Howson’s paper addresses the assessment of probability evaluations in the face of empirical evidence. According to Bayesianism, the process of conditioning probability judgments upon the available evidence is subject to a consistency requirement, which a long tradition interprets as a rationality constraint having a direct bearing upon behaviour. Unlike this tradition, Howson puts forward a purely logical approach to personal probability, quite apart from the notions ofutility or preference, usually associated with Bayesianism. On the whole, the papers collected here span a wide range of problems related to experimentation, and the comments following them broaden the field even further, while adding considerably to the significance of the ensemble. Most of the main papers and comments ground epistemological considerations on historical remarks or case studies, according to a typical tendency of the European approach to epistemology, to combine ideas belonging to the history and the philosophy of science into a unique perspective. In the year 2000, the European Science Foundation launched a Scientific Network on “Historical and contemporary perspectives of philosophy of science in Europe”, intended to strengthen the European tradition and consolidate distinctive European perspectives in the field. During its three years of activity, the Network’s coordinating committee, including Maria Carla Galavotti (Italy, chairperson), Aristides Baltas (Greece), Donald Gillies (United Kingdom), Theo Kuipers (Holland), Ilkka Niiniluoto (Finland), Michel Paty (France), Miklos Redei (Hungary), Friedrich Stadler (Austria) and Gereon Wolters (Germany), agreed to organize three workshops centred on the major themes under discussion within the discipline. This book collects the papers presented at the first workshop, held at the Bertinoro Conference Centre of the University of Bologna, from 30th September to 2nd October, 2001. The topic of the workshop: “Observation and experiment in the natural and social sciences” was chosen not only in view of its centrality in the ongoing debate in philosophy ofscience, but also as an ideal starting point for an appraisal of x FOREWORD recent research in the field. To encourage a fruitful exchange of ideas between philosophers and scientists, both the main speakers and commentators were picked from among researchers with different backgrounds, such as physics, psychology, economics, chemistry, as well as philosophy ofscience. The workshop was funded by the European Science Foundation, and received support from the “Federigo Enriques” Interdisciplinary Research Centre for Epistemology and History of Science and the Department of Philosophy of the University of Bologna. The publication of the proceedings benefited from a generous grant ofthe Alma Mater Studiorum – University ofBologna. As local organizer ofthe conference and editorof the proceedings, I wish to thank Raffaella Campaner for her help, and for extensive editorial work in preparing this volume for publication. On behalf of the other members of the coordinating committee of the ESF Scientific Network, I express deep gratitude to William Shea, President of the Standing Committee for the Humanities of the European Science Foundation, forsupportingourwork in somany ways. MARIA CARLA GALAVOTTI Department of Philosophy, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy