Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T09:37:14.016Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Observing and What it Entails

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

James W. Cornman
James W. Cornman*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the preceding article, [3], Peter Machamer states three objections to my recent attempt to define ‘observation term’. While I believe that all Machamer's objections are mistaken, as I will try to show, his discussion does touch on two problems which have forced revisions. Both his first and second objections are that my definition is too restrictive because its second necessary condition for a term ‘O‘ being an observation term rules out too many terms which are obviously observation terms. The condition is :

For any term, 'P' if 'There is an O (O-thing)' entails the (contingent) statement, 'There is a P-thing', then ‘Under certain conditions, some P-thing would appear as P to any standard observer’ is true.

Type
Discussion
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , September 1971 , pp. 415 - 417
Copyright
Copyright © 1971 by The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

[1] Cornman, J. W., Materialism and Sensations, Yale University Press, (forthcoming).Google Scholar
[2] Cornman, J. W., “Sellars, Scientific Realism, and Sensa,” Review of Metaphysics, vol. 23, (1970), pp. 417–451.Google Scholar
[3] Machamer, P. K., “A Recent Drawing of the Theory/Observation Distinction,” Philosoph of Science, vol. 38, No. 3, (1971), pp. 413–414.10.1086/288381CrossRefGoogle Scholar
[4] Sellars, W., Science, Perception, and Reality, Humanities Press, 1963.Google Scholar