Analyticity: Carnap, Quine, and the Structure of Science

“神创论科学”不断被原教旨主义者提出，他们声称在我们学校的生物学教学中，神创论科学应该与达尔文进化论站在一起。 事实上，在弗吉尼亚州最近的选举中，有人试图选出一个支持神创论科学教学的学校董事会。 然而，对于科学家来说，“神创论科学”这个词本身就是一个矛盾修饰法。 神创论是基于启示的宗教，而科学是经验支持或证明。 但这是什么意思，“经验支持”？ 如果我们不知道什么是经验证实，我们怎么能经验证实任何理论呢？ 而且，由于循环论证的痛苦，似乎证实理论本身必须独立于经验证据而建立起来。 否则，我们就会说，我们相信某个证实理论，仅仅是因为这个理论向我们保证，在当时的情况下，它本身值得相信。 此外，即使是最纯粹的实证主义学说似乎也预设了一些无法通过经验检验的东西（或者至少不能通过非循环检验），即观察是可信的。 支持信念的经典答案是直觉。 然而，直觉是一种对直接的形而上学洞察力的呼吁，是对独立事实的非观察性把握。 然而，这样的答案对于任何认真对待科学的人来说都是骇人听闻的，或者说，对于任何想要区分“神创论”和科学的人来说都是如此。 在这项资助下，理查德·克雷斯教授正在研究科学如何被证明是合理的，这是由过去五十年来科学哲学领域的两位最重要的领导人给出的相互竞争的答案：鲁道夫·卡尔纳普·W。V. O.奎因 这两位科学哲学家塑造了后世关于我们如何构想证明我们的科学信仰的过程的观点。 Creath教授将使用最近才能得到的文件，比迄今为止更全面地阐述卡尔纳普和奎因的替代科学哲学以及他们对彼此的批判。然后，他将依次扩展和发展这些批评，以便将卡尔纳普-奎因辩论的论点充分应用于科学哲学中的当前问题。 因此，这项研究有望在澄清一个基于经验论证的科学与一个源于神圣或接受来源的“科学”之间的区别方面走得很远。

"Creationist science" is continually being raised by fundamentalists who claim that it should have standing beside Darwinian evolutionary theory in the teaching of biology in our schools. In fact, in the recent elections in Virginia, attempts were made to elect a school board which would support the teaching of creationist science. Yet for scientists, the very words "creationist science" is an oxymoron. Creationism is based on revealed religion while science is empirically supported or justified. But what does this mean, "empirically supported"? How can we empirically confirm any theory unless we know what empirical confirmation is? And on pain of circularity it appears that that theory of confirmation must itself be established independently of the empirical evidence. Otherwise, we would be saying that we believe some theory of confirmation simply because that theory assures us that it itself is worth believing in the circumstances. Furthermore, even the barest empiricist doctrine seems to presuppose something that cannot be tested empirically (or at least not noncircularly so), namely that observation is to be trusted. The classical answer to support of beliefs is intuition. Intuition, however, is an appeal to a direct metaphysical insight, a non-observational grasp of independent matters of fact. Such an answer, though, answer is appalling to anyone who takes science seriously or, for that matter, anyone who wants to distinguish "creationism" from science. Under this grant, Professor Richard Creath is examining the competing answers to how science is justified which were given by two of the foremost leaders in the field of philosophy of science over the past fifty years: Rudolf Carnap W. V. O. Quine. These two philosophers of science have shaped the views of succeeding generations on how we are to conceive of the process of justifying our scientific beliefs. Using documents that have only recently become available, Professor Creath will articulate more fully than has been possible heretofore Carnap's and Quine's alternative philosophies of science and the searching criticisms that each made of the other. He will then extend and develop these criticisms in turn so as to bring the arguments of the Carnap-Quine debate fully to bear on current issues in the philosophy of science. This research thus promises to go a long way in clarifying the difference between a science that is based on empirical justification from a "science" that originates from divine or received sources.