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The Periodic Table And The Model Of Emerging Truth, Mark Weinstein
The Periodic Table And The Model Of Emerging Truth, Mark Weinstein
Department of Educational Foundations Scholarship and Creative Works
The periodic table may be seen as the most successful example of inquiry in the history of science, both in terms of practical application and theoretic understanding. As such, it serves as a model for truth as it emerges from inquiry. This paper offers a sketch of a central moment in the history of chemistry that illustrates an intuitive metamathematical construction, a model of emerging truth (MET). The MET, reflecting the structure the surrounds the periodic table, attempts to capture the salient epistemological elements that warrant truth claims based on sets of models that are progressive in light of both …
Arguing Towards Truth: The Case Of The Periodic Table, Mark Weinstein
Arguing Towards Truth: The Case Of The Periodic Table, Mark Weinstein
Department of Educational Foundations Scholarship and Creative Works
Recently Erik Scerri has published an influential philosophical history of the development of the Periodic Table. Following Scerri's account, I will explore the main thread of the arguments responsible for the remarkable advancement of scientific understanding that the Periodic Table represents. I will argue that the history of disputation at crucial junctures in the debate shows sensitivity to the aspects of truth that are captured by my model of truth in inquiry. The availability of a clear and explicit model of truth in inquiry is of crucial importance as a response to post-modernist and other relativistic accounts of inquiry. It …