فصلنامه ذهن
سال هشتم شماره 1 (پیاپی 29، بهار 1386)

In the present article, the author tries to study the notion of simplicity, and present some principles and rules relevant to it, such as a priori arguments of rationalists, arguments of empiricists and probabilistic-statistic arguments, as much as possible. He mentions applications of the principle of simplicity in various fields. Nevertheless, he notes that, like many other philosophical principles whose too wide-ranging scope and inclusiveness have led to ambiguity, here seems that many issues and approaches are categorized under a too general term (simplicity). And even sometimes, a single term cannot be applied to them. Yet, in an important part of the article, the author claims that one may always have too simple, but non-accurate and irrelevant to the empirical data, theories. Also, one may always have accurate theories, which costs excess complexity of the theory. Here a question arises: to what degree, should accuracy be forfeited for simplicity?

In the present article, the author tries to clarify non-propositional concept and find when it appeared in the philosophical and scientific circles and debates. Then, having shown the structure of classical particle mechanics, the author introduces Suppes-Sneed approach. In what follows, relying the view accepted in this article, the author mentions its deficiencies; and poses the question "How can comparability of scientific theories be made possible through redefining them?" Finally, the main structure of particle mechanics together with its associated models is introduced.

Incommensurability challenges popular idea of the scientists who claim that their theories may be compared with each other to choose the best from among them. Descriptively speaking, this thesis is supposed to explain that, during transitional periods, scientists are not able to deduce superiority of their own theories from a collection of observations and propositions of the main core of paradigm. Having assumed that, in general, descriptive attitude may be maintained, the author will show that the presence of incommensurability does not, necessarily, present its important and consequential role at a macro-level. As long as individual and mental processes during a transitional period are concerned, a description of paradigm shifts should be regarded as being correct. But, a long-term and macroscopic trend may be found in which theories are actually compared. Criteria according to which theories may be compared are their abilities to reproduce phenomena, or as they are called here "ability to reconstruction"

As a theory about science, scientific realism has taken various forms; according to one of the most popular from among them, this theory is, as a matter of fact, a claim concerning the goal of science. According to this approach, for the realist, the goal of science is truth; and the correct way to accept a theory is to believe in its truth. In this article, the author seeks to show that scientific realism comes to the conclusion that "acceptance of no theory is justified in science". And this cannot be accepted, in particular, if it is a conclusion of a theory which claims for closeness to conventional understanding; and as a result, this may be taken as a basis for an argument against scientific realism. To show that scientific realism comes to such a conclusion, one has to explore concepts such as "justification", "acceptance", and theory, in details; and to provide an understanding of them, which is, firstly, defendable and discussable in the philosophy of science; and secondly, consistent with scientific realism against which she/he is supposed to argue. Accordingly, a part of this article has been devoted to analyze such concepts, and in particular concepts of "justification" and "acceptance". In what follows, having introduced the concept of practical justification, the author proceeds to show that acceptance of theories is practically justified; and even, the necessary condition for each and any purposeful and rational act is to appeal to theories. It is evident, however, that in real situations, one has to select from among competitive theories; and to do so she/he needs some criteria. As criteria of selection, philosophers of science have proposed more and less similar advantages. In the last part of the article, a list of such advantages will be provided. It should be noted that this advantages, when recommend to not accept a theory, are in line with our epistemic tasks; when they recommend to accept a theory, however, they are only practically justified.

In the present article, the author, at first, mentions important and well-known movements in philosophy of science which have appeared through definition of their position toward, and relevance to, metaphysics, i.e. the movement negating metaphysics, the movement claiming for separation between science and metaphysics, and the movement which accepts independence of the two from each other, but regards relation between the two as well as remarkable capacities in both fields as being possible. The present article is to provide an actual pattern to prove the third approach; and through study of some ideas of Augustine, shows traces of scientific categories in his theological ideas.

In this article, the author seeks to find ideas about technology through analysis of instruments, while taking into account their causes. In this study which is based on analysis of the relation between final cause and formal cause in the technological instruments in their contemporary senses, the author tries to provide practical consequences of this study through finding facts about limitation of man’s will in his interaction with instruments. In a way other than typical tradition in the philosophy of technology, the author shows that in what sense technological instruments are oriented. The present article can provide a substratum to study the notion of technology’s autonomy.

In the present article, the author notes that the term "unity" in the philosophy of science is discussed sometimes under "explanation" and some other times, it is discussed independently as the goal of scientific activity. In the present article, of course, the author focuses on the notionof "unity" itself. In what follows, he says that what causes various sciences of an era to be categorized under a single and common term, "science", is the fact that they have a common paradigm, i.e. a common collection of values, goals, methodologies, and social organization. Then, taking the term "paradigm" as a basis, he discusses the popular idea of physicalism. Here, the author notes that, in this way, terms are reduced to particular physical terms, rules are reduced to physical rules, and explanations are reduced to Hemple D-N explanations. What is claimed in physicalism is introduced, in principle, in two ways: firstly, ontologically, which is a metaphysical claim; and secondly, logically and linguistically. In what follows, a question is discussed: "Has one to have a single science with its own rules and terms as the only way to unify sciences; or may he conceive of other kinds of unity? In addition to be discussed at the level of rules and terms, this question is discussed paradigmatically in the present article.

For any viable present discussion of the relations between theology and the sciences, it is essential to understand the profound changes in the theological scene that have occurred since the beginning of the nineteenth century. All too often in the contemporary discussion, both by scientists and by theologians, attention is focused sharply on the impact of new scientific views; the equally dramatic theological changes have been ignored or misunderstood. The author's concern here is, therefore, to direct attention to aspects of the nineteenth century story, though with a few suggestions of implications for the present.