Philosophy of Science Commons^™

Emergence And Reduction In Science. A Case Study, Alexandru Manafu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The past decade or so has witnessed an increase in the number of philosophical discussions about emergence and reduction in science. However, many of these discussions (though not all) remain too abstract and theoretical, and are wanting with respect to concrete examples taken from the sciences. This dissertation studies the topics of reduction and emergence in the context of a case study. I focus on the case of chemistry and investigate how emergentism can help us secure the autonomy of this discipline in relation to the underlying microphysics. I develop an account of emergence (called functional emergence) that is, …

Meta-Heuristic Strategies In Scientific Judgment, Spencer P. Hey

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In the first half of this dissertation, I develop a heuristic methodology for analyzing scientific solutions to the problem of underdetermination. Heuristics are rough-and-ready procedures used by scientists to construct models, design experiments, interpret evidence, etc. But as powerful as they are, heuristics are also error-prone. Therefore, I argue that they key to prudently using a heuristic is the articulation of meta-heuristics---guidelines to the kinds of problems for which a heuristic is well- or ill-suited.

Given that heuristics will introduce certain errors into our scientific investigations, I emphasize the importance of a particular category of meta-heuristics involving the search for …