期刊名称：Spontaneous Generations : A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science
印刷版ISSN：1913-0465
出版年度：2011
卷号：5
期号：1
页码：44-57
语种：English
出版社：University of Toronto
摘要：In his early work on the problem of coordination, Hans Reichenbach introduced axioms of coordination to describe the relationship between theory and observation. His insistence that these axioms are determinable a priori, however, causes him to ignore the normative dimensions of scientific inquiry and, in turn, generates a misleading interpretation of the theory-observation relationship. In response, I propose an alternative approach that describes this relationship through the framework of scientific practices. My argument will draw on two examples that have not been explored by the philosophical literature in the context of coordination problems: the clinical definition of death and Stanley Prusiner’s prion hypothesis.
