Models of Scientific Development and the Case of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance: (184 Synthese Library)

From the nineteen sixties onwards a branch of philosophy of science has come to development, called history-oriented philosophy of science. This development constitutes a reaction on the then prevailing logical empiricist conception of scientific knowledge. The latter was increasingly seen as suffering from insurmountable internal problems, like e. g. the problems with the particular "observational-theoretical distinction" on which it drew. In addition the logical empiricists' general approach was increasingly criticized for two external shortcomings. Firstly, the examples of scientific knowledge that the logical empiricists were focusing on were con­ sidered as too simplistic to be informative on the nature of real life science. Secondly, it was felt that the attention of these philosophers of science was restricted to the static aspects of scientific knowledge, while neglecting its developmental aspects. History-oriented philosophy of science has taken up the challenge implicit in the latter two criticisms, i. e. to develop accounts of science that would be more adequate for understanding the development 1 of real life science. One of the more successful products of this branch of philosophy of science is Lakatos's theory of scientific development, sometimes called the "methodology of scientific research programmes". This theory conceives science as consisting of so called research program­ mes developing in time, and competing with each other over the issue which one generates the best explan~tions of the phenomena that they address.

Table of Contents:
I. Research Programmes and Criteria for Cognitive Success: Some Views from Recent Philosophy of Science.- 1. Popper’s view on scientific progress.- 2. What counts as a proper prediction?.- 3. Lakatos’s view on scientific development: research programmes.- 4. Criteria for a successful research programme.- 5. Guide to the next chapters.- II. The Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Experiment: The Birth of a New Research Programme.- 1. The prehistory of the nmr experiment.- 2. The nmr experiment and its underlying theory.- 3. Global significance of the nmr experiment: the birth of a new research programme.- 4. Local significance of the first nmr experiments: disconfirming the prevailing theory of the nmr phenomenon.- 5. Gorter’s bad luck, or why he did not win a Nobel prize.- III. Lakatos’s Theory and the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Programme; The Conceptual Adequacy of Lakatos’s Theory.- 1. The descriptive claims connected with Lakatos’s theory of scientific development.- 2. The nmr programme and the conceptual adequacy of Lakatos’s theory.- 3. A first modification of Lakatos’s theory.- IV. The Development of the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Programme; The Explanatory Failure of Lakatos’s Theory.- 1. The BPP theory of nuclear magnetic relaxation; its Lakatosian merits; and some methodological problems encountered in establishing such merits.- 2. Line shapes in solids.- 3. Nmr phenomena in metals.- 4. The chemical shift.- 5. A shift in liquids due to paramagnetic ions.- 6. The hyper fine splitting.- 7. Remarks on later developments of the nmr programme.- 8. Conclusions.- V. Theories from the Nmr Programme as Theories of Measurement: Resolving the Anomaly.- 1. Nmr theories as theories of measurement.- 2. The phenomena being observed in applying theories of nmr belongto other domains.- 3. The dependence of the nmr programme on extrinsic success.- VI. The Structure of Theory Development: The Nmr Programme Seen from the Structuralist Perspective.- 1. The structuralist perspective on “normal science”.- 2. The theory net representing the nmr programme.- 3. The nature of the elaboration relation 190.- 4. Elucidation of the “conceptual” terms of Lakatos’s theory.- VII. Intrinsic Success and Extrinsic Success of Research Programmes; A Model of Scientific Development Unifying the Approaches of Lakatos and the Starnberg School.- 1. External influentiability according to the Starnberg school; two successive models.- 2. The limitations of Lakatos’s model and of the Starnberg finalization model.- 3. Intrinsic success and extrinsic success of research programmes.- 4. Links with the views of the physicists: Weisskopf, Casimir, Weinberg.- Notes.- Index of Names.