| Phi 272 Fall 2013 |
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Feigl both describes and defends the “orthodox” view he speaks about. Our main interest will be his description because the criticisms against which he defends it are presented very briefly, and most of them are ones we will discuss later in connection with Kuhn’s book.
• You can find Feigl’s description in two places, at the beginning of the article, p. 3 through the first paragraph of p. 8, and then towards the end, in his discussion of the “layer-cake” view on pp. 11-12.
• Of the criticisms he considers, the one of most immediate interest to us appears quite briefly, in the first paragraph of p. 9. His reference there to meaning that accrues to theories by use of analogy is associated with what came to be perhaps the most significant alternative to the “orthodox” view, one that regards theories as consisting primarily of models. We will be discussing one presentation of that sort of view on Wed.
Although I am not directing you to other lines of criticism Feigl considers, his discussions of them are generally good, so don’t hesitate to bring up points from them or questions about them in our discussion.