Works by Peter Achinstein
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- The nature of explanation.Peter Achinstein -1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.Offering a new approach to scientific explanation, this book focuses initially on the explaining act itself.
- The book of evidence.Peter Achinstein -2001 - New York: Oxford University Press.What is required for something to be evidence for a hypothesis? In this fascinating, elegantly written work, distinguished philosopher of science Peter Achinstein explores this question, rejecting typical philosophical and statistical theories of evidence. He claims these theories are much too weak to give scientists what they want--a good reason to believe--and, in some cases, they furnish concepts that mistakenly make all evidential claims a priori. Achinstein introduces four concepts of evidence, defines three of them by reference to "potential" evidence, (...) and characterizes the latter using a novel epistemic interpretation of probability. The resulting theory is then applied to philosophical and historical issues. Solutions are provided to the "grue," "ravens," "lottery," and "old-evidence" paradoxes, and to a series of questions. These include whether explanations or predictions furnish more evidential weight, whether individual hypotheses or entire theoretical systems can receive evidential support, what counts as a scientific discovery, and what sort of evidence is required for it. The historical questions include whether Jean Perrin had non-circular evidence for the existence of molecules, what type of evidence J. J. Thomson offered for the existence of the electron, and whether, as is usually supposed, he really discovered the electron. Achinstein proposes answers in terms of the concepts of evidence introduced. As the premier book in the fabulous new series Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science, this volume is essential for philosophers of science and historians of science, as well as for statisticians, scientists with philosophical interests, and anyone curious about scientific reasoning. (shrink)
- Evidence, explanation, and realism: essays in the philosophy of science.Peter Achinstein -2010 - New York: Oxford University Press.The essays in this volume address three fundamental questions in the philosophy of science: What is required for some fact to be evidence for a scientific ...
- Concepts of science.Peter Achinstein -1968 - Baltimore,: Johns Hopkins University Press.In this systematic study, Professor Achinstein analyzes such concepts as definitions, theories, and models, and contrasts his view with currently held positions that he finds inadequate.
- Concepts of Science.Peter Achinstein -1974 -Philosophy 49 (187):106-108.No categories
- Is There a Valid Experimental Argument for Scientific Realism?Peter Achinstein -2002 -Journal of Philosophy 99 (9):470.
- (1 other version)Concepts of evidence.Peter Achinstein -1978 -Mind 87 (345):22-45.
- The concept of evidence.Peter Achinstein (ed.) -1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.This anthology presents work on major topics surrounding the concept of evidence as employed in the empirical sciences. Focusing on the "classificatory" concept of evidence rather than the quantitative "degree of confirmation," the selections include Carl G. Hempel's satisfaction definition, R.B. Braithwaite's hypothetic-deductive view, N.R. Hanson's account of retroduction, Nelson Goodman's entrenchment theory, probability definitions discussed by Rudolf Carnap and Wesley Salmon, Clark Glymour's bootstrap theory, and a view of Achinstein's that combines probability and explanation.
- Hypotheses, probability, and waves.Peter Achinstein -1990 -British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 41 (1):73-102.
- Law and explanation: an essay in the philosophy of science.Peter Achinstein -1971 - London,: Oxford University Press.
- Particles and waves: historical essays in the philosophy of science.Peter Achinstein -1991 - New York: Oxford University Press.This volume brings together eleven essays by the distinguished philosopher of science, Peter Achinstein. The unifying theme is the nature of the philosophical problems surrounding the postulation of unobservable entities such as light waves, molecules, and electrons. How, if at all, is it possible to confirm scientific hypotheses about "unobservables"? Achinstein examines this question as it arose in actual scientific practice in three nineteenth-century episodes: the debate between particle and wave theorists of light, Maxwell's kinetic theory of gases, and J.J. (...) Thomson's discovery of the electron. The book contains three parts, each devoted to one of these topics, beginning with an essay presenting the historical background of the episode and an introduction to the philosophical issues. There is an illuminating evaluation of various scientific methodologies, including hypothetico-deductivism, inductivism, and the method of independent warrant which combines features of the first two. Achinstein assesses the philosophical validity of both nineteenth-century and modern answers to questions about unobservables, and presents and defends his own solutions. (shrink)
- Models, analogies, and theories.Peter Achinstein -1964 -Philosophy of Science 31 (4):328-350.Recent accounts of scientific method suggest that a model, or analogy, for an axiomatized theory is another theory, or postulate set, with an identical calculus. The present paper examines five central theses underlying this position. In the light of examples from physical science it seems necessary to distinguish between models and analogies and to recognize the need for important revisions in the position under study, especially in claims involving an emphasis on logical structure and similarity in form between theory and (...) analogy. While formal considerations are often relevant in the employment of an analogy they are neither as extensive as proponents of this viewpoint suggest, nor are they in most cases sufficient for allowing analogies to fulfill the roles imputed to them. Of major importance, and what these authors generally fail to consider, are physical similarities between analogue and theoretical object. Such similarities, which are characteristic in varying degrees of most analogies actually employed, play an important role in affording a better understanding of concepts in the theory and also in the development of the theoretical assumptions. (shrink)
- On the meaning of scientific terms.Peter Achinstein -1964 -Journal of Philosophy 61 (17):497-509.
- On the new Riddle of induction.S. F. Barker &Peter Achinstein -1960 -Philosophical Review 69 (4):511-522.
- Evidence and Method: Scientific Strategies of Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell.Peter Achinstein -2013 - New York, US: Oup Usa.In this book, Peter Achinstein proposes and defends several objective concepts of evidence. He then explores the question of whether a scientific method, such as that represented in the four "Rules for the Study of Natural Philosophy" that Isaac Newton invoked in proving his law of gravity, can be employed in demonstrating how the proposed definitions of evidence are to be applied to real scientific cases.
- The Identity of Properties.Peter Achinstein -1974 -American Philosophical Quarterly 11 (4):257 - 275.
- Theoretical models.Peter Achinstein -1965 -British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 16 (62):102-120.
- Function statements.Peter Achinstein -1977 -Philosophy of Science 44 (3):341-367.An examination of difficulties in three standard accounts of functions leads to the suggestion that sentences of the form "the function of x is to do y" are used to make a variety of different claims, all of which involve a means-end relationship and the idea of design, or use, or benefit. The analysis proposed enables us to see what is right and also wrong with accounts that analyze the meaning of function statements in terms of good consequences, goals, and (...) etiological explanation. It also enables us to show that function sentences can be used in providing various types of explanations, including, in certain cases, noncausal explanations of the presence of the item with the function. (shrink)
- The Pragmatic Character of Explanation.Peter Achinstein -1984 -PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1984:275 - 292.Theories of explanation are characterized as being either pragmatic or non-pragmatic, without a clear sense of what this is supposed to mean. The present paper offers a definition of a "pragmatic explanation-sentence", and in terms of this, of a "pragmatic theory of explanation". It is argued that van Fraassen's theory of explanation, despite claims to the contrary, is not genuinely pragmatic. By contrast, the author's own "illocutionary" theory is pragmatic. Attention is devoted particularly to sentences of the form "E is (...) a good explanation of q", which, it is urged, are pragmatic in a strong sense. In defense of this claim, and of the advantages of a pragmatic account generally, appeal is made to Rutherford's 1911 subatomic explanation of the results of his scattering experiments. Implications of a pragmatic theory are drawn for the debate between realists and anti-realists and absolutists and relativists. (shrink)
- Causation, Transparency, and Emphasis.Peter Achinstein -1975 -Canadian Journal of Philosophy 5 (1):1 - 23.It is often said that singular causal statements express a relationship between one event and another or between a fact and an event. This is a very strong view, which has the following simple corollary: singular causal statements whose cause-term purports to refer to an event and whose effect-term purports to refer to an event express a relationship between an event and an event.Thus, both Davidson and Kim would claim that the singular causal Statement Socrates’ drinking hemlock at dusk caused (...) his death expresses a relationship between two events, referred to, respectively, by the expressions “Socrates’ drinking hemlock at dusk” and “his death.” For Kim, but not for Davidson, an event is analyzable as a thing's having a property at or during a time. The event of Socrates’ drinking hemlock at dusk consists of Socrates’ at a certain time having the property of drinking hemlock at dusk. I shall not here try to choose between their respective theories of events but will only note that both theorists would say that expresses a relationship between events however the latter are to be construed. (shrink)
- The problem of theoretical terms.Peter Achinstein -1965 -American Philosophical Quarterly 2 (3):235-249.
- How to Defend a Theory Without Testing It: Niels Bohr and the "Logic of Pursuit".Peter Achinstein -1993 -Midwest Studies in Philosophy 18 (1):90-120.
- Why philosophical theories of evidence are (and ought to be) ignored by scientists.Peter Achinstein -2000 -Philosophy of Science 67 (3):180-192.There are two reasons, I claim, scientists do and should ignore standard philosophical theories of objective evidence: (1) Such theories propose concepts that are far too weak to give scientists what they want from evidence, viz., a good reason to believe a hypothesis; and (2) They provide concepts that make the evidential relationship a priori, whereas typically establishing an evidential claim requires empirical investigation.
- (1 other version)Inference to the best explanation: Or, who won the Mill-Whewell debate?Peter Achinstein -1992 -Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 23 (2):349-364.
- Critical notice.Peter Achinstein -1975 -Canadian Journal of Philosophy 4 (4):745-754.No categories
- Scientific discovery and Maxwell's kinetic theory.Peter Achinstein -1987 -Philosophy of Science 54 (3):409-434.By reference to Maxwell's kinetic theory, one feature of hypothetico-deductivism is defended. A scientist need make no inference to a hypothesis when he first proposes it. He may have no reason at all for thinking it is true. Yet it may be worth considering. In developing his kinetic theory there were central assumptions Maxwell made (for example, that molecules are spherical, that they exert contact forces, and that their motion is linear) that he had no reason to believe true. In (...) this paper I develop a position that explains why they were worth considering, and that rejects the retroductive position that a hypothesis is worth considering when, if true, it would explain the observed data. (shrink)
- Particles and Waves: Historical Essays in the Philosophy of Science.John F. Halpin &Peter Achinstein -1993 -Philosophical Review 102 (4):599.No categories
- The War on Induction: Whewell Takes On Newton and Mill (Norton Takes On Everyone).Peter Achinstein -2010 -Philosophy of Science 77 (5):728-739.I consider and reject William Whewell's attack on the inductivism of Isaac Newton and John Stuart Mill, as well as John Norton's attack on any universal system of inductive rules. I also explain how a system of inductive rules of the sort proposed by Newton and Mill should be understood.
- Discovery and rule-books.Peter Achinstein -1980 -Revue Internationale de Philosophie 34 (1):109.No categories
- The Legacy of Logical Positivism: Studies in the Philosophy of Science.Peter Achinstein &Stephen Francis Barker (eds.) -1969 - Baltimore,: Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Variety and analogy in confirmation theory.Peter Achinstein -1963 -Philosophy of Science 30 (3):207-221.Confirmation theorists seek to define a function that will take into account the various factors relevant in determining the degree to which an hypothesis is confirmed by its evidence. Among confirmation theorists, only Rudolf Carnap has constructed a system which purports to consider factors in addition to the number of instances, viz. the variety manifested by the instances and the amount of analogy between the instances. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the problem which these additional factors (...) raise for confirmation theory, and to prove that, despite Carnap's claim, no confirmation function satisfying the requirements he has specified can take account of variety and analogy. This result is first proved for a special case, and then, in a subsequent section, is generalized through the introduction of a theorem (the proof of which is given in Appendix I). In the final section of the paper it is shown that, contrary to a claim which Carnap has made, not even the concept of the "logical width" of a predicate will enable confirmation functions satisfying his requirements to take adequate account of analogies between instances. (shrink)
- 10. Selection, Drift, and the “Forces” of Evolution Selection, Drift, and the “Forces” of Evolution (pp. 550-570).Paul Teller,Stefano Gattei,Kent W. Staley,Eric Winsberg,James Hawthorne,Branden Fitelson,Patrick Maher,Peter Achinstein &Mathias Frisch -2004 -Philosophy of Science 71 (4).
- Theory and Meaning.Peter Achinstein -1982 -Philosophical Review 91 (3):493.
- What Is an Explanation?Peter Achinstein -1977 -American Philosophical Quarterly 14 (1):1 - 15.
- (1 other version)Theoretical terms and partial interpretation.Peter Achinstein -1963 -British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 14 (54):89-105.
- Are empirical evidence claims a priori?Peter Achinstein -1995 -British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 46 (4):447-473.An a priori thesis about evidence, defended by many, states that the only empirical fact that can affect the truth of an objective evidence claim of the form ‘e is evidence for h’ (or ‘e confirms h to degree r’) is the truth of e; all other considerations are a priori. By examining cases involving evidential flaws, I challange this claim and defend an empirical concept of evidence. In accordance with such a concept, whether, and the extent to which, e, (...) if true, confirms h is an empirical, not a priori, fact. (shrink)
- Scientific Evidence: Philosophical Theories & Applications.Peter Achinstein (ed.) -2005 - The Johns Hopkins University Press.Peter Achinstein has gathered some prominent philosophers and historians of science for critical and lively discussions of both general questions about the ...
- Speculation: Within and About Science.Peter Achinstein -2018 - New York, NY: Oup Usa.Newton deplored speculation in science, Einstein reveled in it. What exactly are scientific speculations? Are they ever legitimate? Are they subject to constraints? This book defends a pragmatic approach to these issues and applies it to speculations within science and to speculations about science.No categories
- What to Do if You Want to Defend a Theory You Cannot Prove.Peter Achinstein -2010 -Journal of Philosophy 107 (1):35-56.
- (1 other version)Explanation v. Prediction: Which Carries More Weight?Peter Achinstein -1994 -PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1994:156 - 164.Do predictions of novel facts provide stronger evidence for a theory than explanations of old ones? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Which obtains has nothing to do with whether the evidence is predicted or explained, but only with the selection procedure used to generate the evidence. This is demonstrated by reference to a series of hypothetical drug cases and to Heinrich Hertz's 1883 cathode ray experiments.
- A challenge to positive relevance theorists: Reply to Roush.Peter Achinstein -2004 -Philosophy of Science 71 (4):521-524.Recently in this journal Sherrilyn Roush (2004) defends positive relevance as a necessary (albeit not a sufficient) condition for evidence by rejecting two of the counterexamples from my earlier (2001) work. In this reply I argue that Roush's critique is not successful.
- Who Really Discovered the Electron?Peter Achinstein -2001 - In A. Warwick,Histories of the Electron: The Birth of Microphysics. MIT Press. pp. 403--24.
- Scientific speculation and evidential progress.Peter Achinstein -2022 - In Yafeng Shan,New Philosophical Perspectives on Scientific Progress. New York: Routledge.No categories
- The object of explanation.Peter Achinstein -1975 - In Stephan Kã¶Rner,Explanation. Blackwell. pp. 1--45.
- Confirmation theory, order, and periodicity.Peter Achinstein -1963 -Philosophy of Science 30 (1):17-35.This paper examines problems of order and periodicity which arise when the attempt is made to define a confirmation function for a language containing elementary number theory as applied to a universe in which the individuals are considered to be arranged in some fixed order. Certain plausible conditions of adequacy are stated for such a confirmation function. By the construction of certain types of predicates, it is proved, however, that these conditions of adequacy are violated by any confirmation function defined (...) for the type of language in question. Various possible solutions to these difficulties are explored and found to be inadequate. In particular, a proposal which stems from the suggestion to restrict a fundamental principle of confirmation to hypotheses containing only non-positional predicates is cited. This proposal, however, is shown to prevent confirmation functions from taking periodicities into account, and so is deemed unsatisfactory. A general theorem is proved to the effect that if non-positional predicates are taken to satisfy the conditions of adequacy which have been formulated, then no periodicity predicates whatsoever (i.e., predicates used in formulating hypotheses which foretell periodicities) can be subject to these conditions, on pain of contradiction. Yet it seems that periodicity predicates must be subject to these conditions of adequacy if a confirmation function is to recognize periodic occurrences. Thus, an impasse seems to be reached. In the final sections we consider the beginnings of one possible solution to these difficulties. Our proposal involves treating sets of individuals, rather than individuals themselves, as instances of an hypothesis which predicts a periodicity. On this basis we formulate new conditions of adequacy which are free from the previous difficulties and which will permit a confirmation function that satisfies them to take periodicities into account. (shrink)
- On evidence: A reply to bar-Hillel and Margalit.Peter Achinstein -1981 -Mind 90 (357):108-112.No categories
- Stronger evidence.Peter Achinstein -1994 -Philosophy of Science 61 (3):329-350.According to a standard account of evidence, one piece of information is stronger evidence for an hypothesis than is another iff the probability of the hypothesis on the one is greater than it is on the other. This condition, I argue, is neither necessary nor sufficient because various factors can strengthen the evidence for an hypothesis without increasing (and even decreasing) its probability. Contrary to what probabilists claim, I show that this obtains even if a probability function can take these (...) evidential factors into account in ways they suggest and yield a unique probability value. Nor will the problem be solved by appealing to second-order probabilities. (shrink)
- Atom's empirical eve: Methodological disputes and how to evaluate them.Peter Achinstein -2007 -Perspectives on Science 15 (3):359-390.: This paper examines the debate in the late 19th and early 20th centuries over the acceptability of atomic and molecular physics. It focuses on three prominent figures: Maxwell, who defended atomic physics, Ostwald, who initially rejected it but changed his mind as a result of experiments by Thomson and Perrin, and Duhem, who never accepted it. Each scientist defended the position he did in the light of strongly held methodological views concerning empirical evidence. The paper critically evaluates each of (...) these methodological positions. (shrink)
- The Circularity of a Self-Supporting Inductive Argument.Peter Achinstein -1962 -Analysis 22 (6):138-141.
- Unity of Science.Peter Achinstein -1981 -Noûs 15 (1):67-75.No categories
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David Bourget (Western Ontario)
David Chalmers (ANU, NYU)
Area Editors:
David Bourget
Gwen Bradford
Berit Brogaard
Margaret Cameron
David Chalmers
James Chase
Rafael De Clercq
Ezio Di Nucci
Esa Diaz-Leon
Barry Hallen
Hans Halvorson
Jonathan Ichikawa
Monte Johnson
Michelle Kosch
Øystein Linnebo
Paul Livingston
Brandon Look
Manolo Martínez
Matthew McGrath
Michiru Nagatsu
Susana Nuccetelli
Giuseppe Primiero
Jack Alan Reynolds
Darrell P. Rowbottom
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