Phenomena, data and theories: a special issue of Synthese (original) (raw)

Relations between theory and observation

The relationship between observation and theory, in science in general, and in physics in particular, has always been a tricky one. If you visit a Physics Department, you will see it is divided between theoretical and experimental physicists, and despite the two groups may work in the same projects, each physicist (with few exceptions) considers himself as belonging to only one of the two groups. So it is a well stablished situation in physics, which is a unified body of knowledge, that it can be divided between theoretical and experimental (observational) classes, belonging each thing related with Physics (either researchers, the courses structure, or papers-writing) to either one or the other group, having a border line which is quite clear.

Science and the Phenomenal

Philosophy of Science, 1999

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Observational concepts

How is it that we are able to think about what we perceive? More specifically, how are we able to bring the resources of conceptualized thought to bear on the objects and events that are represented to us in perception? And how much of our capacity for conceptualized thought is undergirded by, or is an extension of, our capacities for perception and action? Addressing these questions requires disentangling some of the more tightly woven strands linking perception, thought, and action.