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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 …
Towards An Account Of Argumentation In Science, Mark Weinstein
Towards An Account Of Argumentation In Science, Mark Weinstein
Department of Educational Foundations Scholarship and Creative Works
In this article it is argued that a complex model that includes Toulmin's functional account of argument, the pragma-dialectical stage analysis of argumentation offered by the Amsterdam School, and criteria developed in critical thinking theory, can be used to account for the normativity and field-dependence of argumentation in science. A pragma-dialectical interpretation of the four main elements of Toulmin's model, and a revised account of the double role of warrants, illuminates the domain specificity of scientific argumentation and the restrictions to which the confrontation and opening stages of scientific critical discussions are subjected. In regard to the argumentation stage, examples …