内容

目次

Part 1 Inductivism and its critics: some historical background -inductivism, Russell and the Cambridge School, the Vienna circle andPopper; Popper's critique of inductivism; Duhem's critique ofinductivism. Part 2 Conventionalism and the Duhem-Quine thesis;Poincare's conventionalism of 1902; the Duhem thesis and the Quinethesis. Part 3 The nature of observation: observation statements - (a)the views of Carnap, Neurath, Popper and Duhem; observation statements- (b) some psychological findings. Part 4 The demarcation betweenscience and metaphysics: is metaphysics meaningless? Wittgenstein, theVienna circle and Popper's critique; metaphysics in relation to science- the views of Popper, Duhem and Quine; falsification in the light ofthe Duhem-Quine thesis.