EVANDRO A G A Z Z I

COMMENSURABILITY, INCOMMENSURABILITY, AND

CUMULATIVITY IN SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

ABSTRACT. Until the middle of the present century it was a commonly accepted opinion
that theory change in science was the expression of cumulative progress consisting in the
acquisition of new truths and the elimination of old errors. Logical empiricists developed
this idea through a deductive model, saying that a theory 7" superseding a theory T must be
able logically to explain whatever T explained and something more as well. Popper too shared
this model, but stressed that 7" explains the old known facts in its own new way. The further
pursual of this line quickly led to the thesis of the non-comparability or incommensurability
of theories: if T and 7" are different, then the very concepts which have the same denomi-
nation in both actually have different meanings; in such a way any sentence whatever has
different meanings in T and in T" and cannot serve to compare them. Owing to this, the
deductive model was abandoned as a tool for understanding theory change and scientific
progress, and other models were proposed by people such as Lakatos, Kuhn, Feyerabend,
Sneed and Stegmiiller. The common feature of all these new positions may be seen in the
claim that no possibility exists of interpreting theory change in terms of the cumulative
acquisition of truth. It seems to us that the older and the newer positions are one-sided, and,
in order to eliminate their respective shortcomings, we propose to interpret theory change in
a new way.
The starting point consists in recognizing that every scientific discipline singles out its
specific domain of objects by selecting a few specific predicates for its discourse. Some of
these predicates must be operational (that is, directly bound to testing operations) and they
determine the objects of the theory concerned. In the case of a transition from T to T, we
must consider whether or not the operational predicates remain unchanged, in the sense of
being still related to the same operations. If they do not change in their relation to operations,
then T and 7" are comparable (and may sometimes appear as compatible, sometimes as
incompatible). If the operational predicates are not all identical in T a n d / ' , the two theories
show a rather high degree of incommensurability, and this happens because they do not refer
to the same objects. Theory change means in this case change of objects. But now we can see
that even incommensurability is compatible with progress conceived as the accumulation of
truth. Indeed, T and T remain true about their respective objects (7" does not disprove T),
and the global amount of truth acquired is increased.
In other words, scientific progress does not consist in a purely logical relationship between
theories, and moreover it is not linear. Yet it exists and may even be interpreted as an
accumulation of truth, provided we do not forget that every scientific theory is true only
about its own specific objects.
It may be pointed out that the solution advocated here relies upon a limitation of the
theory-ladeness of scientific concepts, which involves a reconsideration of their semantic
status and a new approach to the question of 'theoretical concepts'. First of all, the feature
of being theoretical is attributed to a concept not absolutely, but relatively, yet in a sense
different from Sneeds's: indeed every theory is basically characterized by its 'operational'
concepts, and the non-operati0nal are said to be 'theoretical', this distinction clearly de-
pending on every particular theory. For the operational concepts it happens that their mean-

Erkenntnis 22 (1985) 51-77. 0165-0106/85/0220-0051 $02.70

9 1985 by D. Reidel Publishing Company
52 EVANDRO A G A Z Z I

ing splits into two parts: one I call the 'referential' component and the other the 'contextual'
component. It is only this second which is actually theory-laden, while the first represents a
'stable core' of meaning, which may remain invariant within different theories and in such
a way allow theory comparison. Hence it is possible to admit that every scientific concept is
theory-laden, but at the same time to admit as well that this feature is only partial in the
case of the operational concepts. This amounts to claming that the 'sentential view' of scien-
title theories may be kept, but that the empirical side also preserves its full role and, in
particular, is essential in every question concerning theory change, theory comparison and
evaluation of scientific progress.
J

FROM A S T R U C T U R A L I S T TO A HISTORICIST CONSIDERATION OF

SCIENCE

It is certainly not difficult to recongnize that a very important and dis-

tinctive turn has occurred in the philosophy of science during the second
half of the present century. We might point out its main feature as a tran-
sition from a static to a dynamic way of considering the nature of science,
which finds its most typical expression in the fact that the attention of
philosophers of science has become more and more concentrated on the
problem of theory change. This trend may also be interpreted as a tran-
sition from a structuralist to a historicist approach to science, but this is
rather a second aspect of it, running parallel to the first. As a matter of
fact, one may say that the Popperian philosophy of science, by laying so
much stress on falsification, had already insisted on theory change. How-
ever it nevertheless remained very far from an historicist way of thinking,
as no truly 'historical' element was considered of relevance to understand-
ing the structure of scientific theories (which Popper interpreted in much
the same way as did the logical empiricists) or for understanding, let alone
for explaining, theory change. Even Lakatos, with his proposed' rational
reconstruction' of the history of science, was inclined towards a structur-
alist interpretation of history, rather than towards a historicization of
scientific structures. The same is also true, at least to a large extent, with
regard to Kuhn, who takes more a sociological, rather than a truly his-
torical outlook in the consideration of the dynamics of science. Of course,
this is completely true in the case of scholars such as Sneed and Stegmiiller,
whose special effort in recent years has been that of showing how theory
change, or theory dynamics, may be totally embedded in a 'structuralist'
view of theories. A historicist outlook, on the other hand, is to be found
explicitly in the works of people such as H/ibner, for whom the problem
 SCIENTIFIC K N O W L E D G E 53

of theory change is simply an aspect of the much wider dependence of

science on the whole of its historical context, which essentially affects the
cognitive features of the different scientific theories and systems and not
only their environmental and social surroundings. Perhaps the most con-
vincing evidence for the spreading of this historicist approach is given by
the current interplay between history of science and philosophy of science,
which is occurring throughout the world, and which entails in particular
an increasing estimation of the importance of history of science in doing
reliable philosophy of science.
A result of the development of the historicist trend, in both of its aspects,
has been the increasing attention that has been paid to the problem of
'progress' in science, which has resulted in a wide discussion where dif-
ferent positions emerge. Unfortunately this discussion has not produced
much clarification yet, owing not only to the complexity of the concept of
progress itself, but especially to the fact that several different planes are
interfering with one another. It would be useful to distinguish these planes
- not in order to keep them separated, but rather with a view to analyzing
them closely and with the appropriate methodological tools. Just to give
an idea of this complexity, let us mention some of he most important
among these planes, by listing a number of problems or questions to which
they correspond:
(a) What is science?
(b) What is a scientific theory?
(c) Why is a theory accepted?
(d) Why is a theory abandoned or dismissed?
(e) Can theory change be interpreted as progress, and how?
(f) What does progress mean in addition to simple change?
(g) To what extent does progress entail comparison?
(h) Can such a comparison be understood as theory comparison?
(i) If so, what are the criteria of comparison and what are their possible
limitations?
(j) Is progress necessarily cumulative or not?
(k) Is there a non-linear progress?
(1) What are the relations between the idea of progress and the notion
of truth?
(m) What, if any, are the ontological implications of progress in science?
As we said, this list is by no means complete, especially because there
54 EVANDRO AGAZZI

are many other questions, which may be considered either as subquestions

to the listed ones or even as independent questions of their own. For ex-
ample, question (c) has certainly important links with the following prob-
lems: that of the genesis of theories, that of their dependence on the his-
torical context, that of their philosophical presuppositions, question (1)
involves, among other things, the problems of the denotation and meaning
of concepts and sentences; question (m) gives rise to the debate on scientific
realism; the problem of observational and theoretical terms is involved in
more than one of the listed questions, and so on.
Our proposal here is certainly not that of analyzing all these items: we
shall confine ourselves to a short discussion of a problematic area spanning
more or less from question (e) to question (1) on our list, while other points
might enter our considerations only occasionally and mainly as auxiliary
remarks.

SOME R E S T R I C T I O N S OF O U R A N A L Y S I S

In this spirit we may begin by saying that we are of the opinion that
question (a) admits of a composite answer, according to which science is,
from a certain point of view, a human activity and, from another point of
view, a system of knowledge. The first aspect implies that science, like all
human activities, is 'performed' in view of many personal and social goals
(and this legitimates debates such as those on the 'neutrality' and re-
sponsibility of science, which also affect the notion of scientific 'progress'
and give it a very special meaning). On the other hand, it must be recog-
nized that the most specific of these goals is that of producing a body of
reliable knowledge in a great variety of fields, and this leads to the second
qualification of science we mentioned (science as a system of knowledge),
which is practically the one traditionally considered by the philosophy of
science (at least when professionally understood). Without underestimat-
ing the legitimacy and the importance of the first qualification, we want
to make clear that science will be considered here only under the second
viewpoint, as the title of this paper explicitly indicates. Yet this delimita-
tion is still too vague, as science does not include all kinds of knowledge,
but only those which meet the requirements of what we could call 'objec-
tivity' and 'rigour'. We shall here feel free from providing an exact speci-
fication of these two requirements of science (we have provided it else-
 SCIENTIFIC K N O W L E D G E 55

where) and we shall simply say that their fulfilment obtains at best in what
are usually called 'scientific theories'. For that reason we accept to adopt
a (conscious) limitation, i.e. to take into consideration scientific knowledge
only as far as it is expressed in scientific theories, in this way leaving aside
all those forms of accidental, scattered and unsystematic knowledge which
certainly deserve consideration when a comprehensive discourse on scien-
tific progress is made. A further limitation appears advisable for practical
reasons: we shall concentrate only on 'empirical theories', i.e. on those in
which sense data (of a very special kind) are considered to provide us with
substantial knowledge; and we shall ignore 'formal theories', not because
we are of the opinion that they do not contain knowledge, but because
they require quite a peculiar kind of study: the problem with which we are
concerned is already sufficiently complicated in the domain of empirical
theories, and its solution does not depend on its being treated together
with the question of 'formal knowledge'. It would be too optimistic and
perhaps naive to believe that after these important delimitations our field
of inquiry should be determined unambiguously and with total clarity.
Indeed the question: 'What is a scientific theory' is by no means a simple
and pacific one for, as is well known, the traditional 'statement view of
theories' has been stronly challenged in the past few years, but has not
been superseded by any other view which could be credited with a general
acceptance. This is, by the way, the reason why it would not really prove
profitable to explicitly discuss this question here, although some element
of this discussion will appear in our subsequent presentation.
The problems of why a theory is accepted or abandoned are among the
most frequently debated in the literature of recent years, but they are also
those in which it is possible to see how much confusion has been caused
by the interference and the uncontrolled exchange of different planes of
discussion. These problems may indeed be discussed on a factual plane;
they may been seen under a psychological or a sociological viewpoint; they
involve epistemic attitudes; they include logical aspects, and they have a
very important pragmatic component. Unfortunately, it too often happens
that different scholars lay stress on one single plane as if it were the only
which matters, trying to discredit the other approaches. What they are
actually able to do is to show the limitations of some of the other ap-
proaches (if this were to be taken as an all-explaining tool), but they are
not fair enough as to recognize the aspects of the problem which are rather
56 EVANDRO A G A Z Z I

well accounted for by the other approaches and, moreover, they seem
unaware of the shortcomings that their own approach shows, if it too is
taken as all-explanatory. An advantage of our further discussion will be
that we shall certainly consider the question of scientific progress in con-
nection (indeed in strict connection) with the question of theory change,
but without having to answer the question 'why' theory change has oc-
curred: it will be enough for our purposes to see 'that' it has occurred, and
to examine the situation which is determined within scientific knowledge
by virtue of this change.

THE N O T I O N OF PROGRESS

It has been typical of our Western culture to believe that the situation
emerging from this change always be the manifestation of 'progress', and
this concept has been endowed with a rich display of shades of meaning
the analysis of which we must leave to the historian of ideas. Indeed, owing
to the thematic delimitation we have introduced here, we shall simply be
concerned with the idea of progress as applied to scientific knowledge,
which means, as we have already said, to knowledge organized in the form
of scientific theories. Under this restriction the problem of scientific pro-
gress seems to become very simple, as everybody seems ready to accept
that scientific progress may perhaps be questionable if we consider all sides
of science, and especially those which concern its social impact, but its
cognitive side seems to be 'progressive' in a very patent and undeniable
sense.
This first impression has to be treated with caution: however when we
consider, as we have accepted to do, scientific knowledge as it is expressed
in scientific theories, what is really evident is that in every discipline there
is a succession of theories in time, that the new are 'different' from the old,
that a 'change' occurs, but this does not by itself imply 'progress'. In order
for change to be considered as progress, the factual ascertainment of its
having occurred must be accompanied by a value-judgment of some sort,
enabling us to claim that the new situation is 'better' than the previous
one. The difficulty lies precisely in the determination of this 'better'. Let
us note that this difficulty does not vanish when we enter the domain of
knowledge (which might seem to have dispensed with this kind of question,
being, as is usually said, 'value-free'). Indeed, it is precisely when we con-
 SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE 57

sider scientific knowledge that we are very naturally inclined to share the
opinion that we know 'more' and 'better' than people belonging to older
generations. Now even the exact determination of this 'more' is by no
means unproblematic, for under its seemingly purely quantitative cate-
gorization it actually conceals much more, i.e. the idea of a 'selective'
process, consisting at least in the elimination o f old errors and the continual
addition of new truths. The idea of the 'better' is then more or less vaguely
understood in terms of deeper insight or of better correlation between the
different truths, and its expression is perhaps given by the familiar image
of science as a great and complex building, to the erection of which every
single scientist contributes by adding his own brick, while every generation
of scientists contributes by adding something like a new floor with beau-
tiful rooms. Roughly speaking, there is some kind of common consensus
in the appreciation of the development of scientific knowledge not simply
as change, but rather as linear and cumulative progress.

THE D E D U C T I V E M O D E L OF S C I E N T I F I C P R O G R E S S

This commonsense idea became very naturally the tacit guideline for those
people who first elaborated the conception that scientific knowledge ac-
tually consists of scientific theories, and who gave a characterization of
scientific theory which has remained valid and 'classical' for quite a long
time. According to this view, which was mainly developed in the specu-
lations of the logical empiricist philosophy of science beginning with the
Vienna Circle and continuing in particular with the Anglo-Saxon analyti-
cal philosophy of our century, scientific theories are conceived of as being
systems of logically connected sentences having the task of providing an
explanation of observed facts. In order to reach this goal, sentences were
divided into two classes: those which were purely descriptive of observed
facts (the explananda), and those which were introduced as hypotheses
from which formal deductive chains could be started which would end with
the factual sentences. This very familiar picture may be classified as ex-
pressing at the same time the so-called 'sentential view' of theories and the
'deductive model' of scientific explanation. It is also quite understandable
that these two patterns should be adopted when the problem of theory
change came to be investigated within the said school, and that they should
also be used in order to show when and why theory change occurs, and
58 EVANDRO AGAZZI

how this may be interpreted as progress. However, these scholars remained

unaware of some subtle but effective differences which manifest themselves
when relations 'between' different theories are considered, rather than re-
lations 'within' a single theory. Indeed, if a theory is essentially conceived
as being a system of sentences (which, as we shall see, is by no means so
naive and old fashioned as many believe to-day), it seems very appropriate
to consider the relations between the sentences which make up a theory
as being logical in nature, as few other kinds of relations might be seen
between sentences, and they would certainly not be very significant from
the point of view of expressing knowledge. Furthermore, the most typical
and best known logical relations between sentences are surely the deductive
ones.
What is questionable, however, is whether a model which is suitable for
expressing the relationships 'within' a system of sentences can be correctly
extended so as to express the relationships among the whole systems of
sentences that are scientific theories, when globally understood. The logical
empiricists, and also several philosophers of science who cannot be classi-
fied among them, seem to have too hastily accepted the legitimacy of such
an extension. This has ultimately led to a serious impasse, the cause of
which has been seen by many to lie in the 'statement view' of theories, but
which, if better understood, is rather to be identified with the generaliz-
ation of the 'deductive model' to theories as wholes, rather than limiting
it simply to the expression of relations between sentences. Even if we
accept theories to be systems of sentences, we cannot claim either that
theories themselves are sentences, nor that their mutual relations may be
'reduced' to those existing between their sentences, although the consider-
ation of these relationships may be of interest in several respects.
Let us now briefly sketch how the deductive model has been typically
applied in order to account for theory change, and especially in order to
interpret it as 'progress': what we are going to say is so well known, that
we shall confine ourselves to very few indications. 1 According to the said
model, the transition from an existing theory T to a succeeding theory 7"
could be seen as legitimate and implying progress mainly in two ways. The
first was the possibility of considering the new theory T' as including the
old theory T as a subtheory (which means, in short, that the axioms or
the general laws of T may be proved as theorems of 7"). Even this minimal
condition of a syntactic nature, however, reveals itself as much too de-
 SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE 59

manding, for it further implies that the primitive notions of T be definable

in terms of the primitive notions of T' and the actual fulfilment of these
requirements shows that such a change, by which progress is seen as an
'embedding', actually occurs very seldom. Let us stress, however, that this
first idea was the most consistent application of the deductive model capa-
ble of preserving the global character of theories: in fact, one can say that
the underlying hope was that the old theory, as a whole, could become a
proper part of the new theory and that this would have been a real relation
between systems and not between their elements (as is the set-theoretic
relation of inclusion if compared with that of membership). The failure of
this hope was simply the indication that such an 'inclusion' can hardly be
interpreted as logical dependence or deducibility.
This kind of relation between theories being patently too optimistic, a
second less engaging one was proposed, which tries formally to express
the familiar and commonsense opinion according to which a new theory
7" has the right to supersede an old theory T if T' is able to explain all the
facts which T was able to explain as well as some facts that T was unable
to explain. This second version of the 'deductive model' is indeed rather
different from the first, as it no longer implies a kind of relation between
theories considered 'as a whole', but tries to compare theories simply by
considering their deductive power with regard to single sentences. If we
indicate by e any empirical sentence belonging to T and by e' any empirical
sentence belonging to 7", the two variants of the deductive model can be
presented as follows:
(A) 7"~- T
(B) Ve ( T b- e ~ 7-" ~ e) A 3e' ( T ~ e' A T b-/ e')
Let us remark that by writing T ~ e', i.e. by saying that e' is 'not de-
ducible' f r o m T, we actually include two different subcases: the one in
which the negation of e" would be deducible from T, and the one in which
neither e' nor its negation are deducible from T. It is because of this
double possibility that the variant (B) was also accepted by people such
as Popper, who could not accept an intertheoretic relation of the kind of
(A). Indeed, according to his view, a new theory 7" supersedes an old
theory T because it emerges from a falsification of T, which means that T'
is able to explain an empirical fact which goes against T (and which does
not simply lie outside T). In such a way T and 7" are seen as imcompatible,
60 EVANDRO AGAZZI

and this excludes any possibility of subtheory relation, but the variant (B)
may still be accepted in the sense of its first subcase, as we pointed out
above. However, owing to the incompatibility of T and 7,, it was necessary
to point out that 7" must be able to explain in its own new way and ac-
cording to its own new point o f view the explananda with respect to which
T was already successful, and in addition new explananda with respect to
which T was not successful and even falsified.
This general idea was further developed by Popper, who introduced
some criteria for measuring the 'truth content' of different theories, in
order to establish the progressive character of T" with respect to T, and
also proposed his theory of verisimilitude or approximation to truth. It lies
outside the scope of this paper to discuss these controversial theses of
Popper: we only want to note that Popper shared with the logical empir-
icist approach two essential tenets. The first is the conception of theories
as deductive systems intended to give an explanation of facts in the sense
described above; the second was that comparison between theories, and
thus the problem of justifying and interpreting theory change, was to be
approached according to a deductive model focused on the relation of
logical deducibility between the axioms of the theories and some single
sentences belonging to them.
It is exactly the deductive model which was later recognized as fully
inadequate to account for scientific progress, and its crisis was generally
interpreted as a refutation of the 'sentential view' of theories as such. We
are of the opinion that the question of the sentential view of theories re-
quires a different kind of discussion, but we shall postpone this point now.

THEORY-LADENNESS AND INCOMPARABILITY

The Popperian conception contained a delicate point which eventually led

to a complete revision of the entire question. Indeed, when Popper said
that 7" must be able to account for the explananda of T in its own new
way and according to its own new point of view, he was admitting by this
very fact that a change o f meaning occurs when we pass from T to 7". But
then scheme (B) above cannot be preserved any longer, for it would be a
logical mistake to overlook this change of meaning in a formal
deduction. In other words, it is a mistake to assume that T and 7" are able
to explain the same explanandum e, because e means two different things
 SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE 61

when it is considered as a sentence of T and when it is considered as a

sentence of 7-'. This is due to the fact that no concept in a theory has an
independent meaning, its meaning always being context-dependent (or
theory-laden, as it became customary to say sometime later). The conse-
quence is that two different theories cannot really be compared: they are
imcornmensurable, as Kuhn and Feyerabend in particular have so fre-
quently stressed. It is also well known that this incommensurability or
incomparability was almost automatically interpreted as an impossibility
of speaking of progress in science in any correct sense, for in order to
speak of progress, as something different from pure change, we need com-
parison.
It lies outside the scope of this paper to investigate how people such as
Lakatos, Kuhn and Feyerabend proposed alternative views for interpret-
ing theory change. We need only note that the consequence of their crit-
icism was a generalized dismissal of the deductive model presented above
and, more generally, the denial of the idea that inter-theoretic relations
may correctly be understood as logical relations at all. This is so whether
they be relations of logical consequence and compatibility or of logical
opposition and incompatibility, for both presuppose the condition of se-
mantical uniformity which does not hold, owing to the context-dependen-
ce of the meanings involved. A more general consequence of this crisis has
been the dismission of the conception that scientific theories are systems
of sentences or statements (because, after all, the relationships between
statements cannot help being of a logical character in the last analysis).
Along this line of thought a non-statement view of scientific theories
(which was able nevertheless to preserve all the features of the formal
rigour which are traditional in the professional philosophy of science) has
been developed especially by people such as Sneed and Stegrnfiller, who
have also proposed new ways for accounting for theory change. However
we are not going to discuss these conceptions here. 2
One main purpose of this brief historical account was to show the variety
of perspectives involved in this succession of approaches and models,
which undoubtedly leaves us with a feeling of uneasiness: indeed we cannot
help recognizing that the criticisms addressed to some older views are per-
tinent, but we also feel on the other hand that these views contained some
ligitimate claims which do not appear as sufficiently accounted for within
the new models, in spite of the conceptual advancement they entail in other
62 EVANDRO AGAZZI

respects. We may venture to say that the older and the newer conceptions
are all rather one-sided, in the sense that they correctly capture some fea-
ture of scientific theories and of scientific change, but emphasize them in
such a way as to disregard or at least underestimate other no less correct
and essential features.

THE O N E - S I D E D N E S S OF THE E X A M I N E D P O S I T I O N S

What we want to say can be illustrated by means of some simple examples.

Let us consider for instance the large discredit given to the statement view
of theories: this certainly appears as legitimate to the extent that it ex-
presses a reaction against that purely linguistic consideration of science
which was typical of the logical empiricist school, and in this sense it cor-
rectly stresses that scientific theories are not just systems of statements.
But this correct perception cannot prevent us from recognizing that scien-
tific theories are certainly also systems of statements, for scientific knowl-
edge cannot help beingformulated knowledge, and this necessarily implies
the use of sentences; also, as a matter of fact, we must be able to recognize
what a theory says in order to discuss it, to put it to test, to obtain from
it predictions, and so on. When we mentioned this question above we said
that the dismission of the statement view of theories had probably resulted
from the criticism addressed against the 'deductive model' of scientific
theories, and this might give the impression that the statement view could
perhaps be preserved, provided we dismiss only the deductive model. Yet
this conviction would be wrong, for we must recognize (unless we advocate
a purely instrumentalist view of science) that one of the most specific aims
of scientific theories is that of providing rational understanding and con-
sistent harmonization of what is factually known within a certain domain
of research. But this is rather satisfactorily expressed by the notion of
'scientific explanation' such as it has been codified, but certainly not in-
vented, by the logical empiricists; and this explanation is convincingly ex-
pressed in the form of a logical deduction. It follows that a complete dis-
mission of the deductive model would imply that the concept of scientific
explanation be dismissed as well, or at least that it be replaced by a really
adequate counterpart. However, after having recognized the great impor-
tance of the deductive aspect of scientific theories, which corresponds to
the great role that logic has to play in them, we must remain able to
 SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE 63

perceive that this role is not all-embracing and that experimental evidence
e.g. plays a no less important role in science. Then, however, we are im-
mediately confronted with the difficulties of the complex relations that
exist between these two sides of science, which in particular cannot be
separated by a clear-cut distinction. If this fact already suggests that we
not overemphasize deduction within theories, even more caution has to be
adopted when we take into consideration relations between different the-
ories; and we have already said above that the deductive model shows its
weakness especially here. Still it seems to us that the alternative approaches
which have been proposed have their own drawbacks.
In order to see this matter more clearly, some distinct aspects must be
analyzed.
(i) If two theories T and 7" exist as a matter of pure fact, the problem
of comparing them from a purely logical point of view is quite legitimate
and has even received considerable attention in mathematical logic, where
it has been shown when, how and to what extent such a comparison is
possible, if we understand it as something that should be expressed by
means of formal deductive tools or by means of model-theoretic ap-
proaches. Yet this problem has very little to do with the question of theory
change, and this for two distinct reasons: firstly because it is not said that
7" emerged as a kind of modification of dismission of T (they might well
be two rival theories existing at the same time, as has so often been the
case in the history of science). And secondly, because claiming that theory
change is essentially or primarily a question of logic means a transition to
quite a different problem. This problem is that of investigating the reasons
or the motives of the said change; and while it is perfectly correct to study
which deductive or, more generally, which logical relations exist between
two theories, it would be at least very debatable to maintain that the one
has replaced the other because of certain logical imperatives.
(ii) The second problem just mentioned might be characterized as the
question about when and why a theory change occurs, and here we have
many divergent answers. However it must be stressed that this variety of
answers and their discord are, at least to a great extent, the consequence
of two different attitudes which may be adopted, both of which are legit-
imate, provided they do not claim to be the only legitimate attitudes: we
would call them, respectively, the descriptive and the normative ap-
proaches. According to the descriptive approach, our question has to be
64 EVANDRO A G A Z Z I

answered by a careful historical investigation; and from this it certainly

appears that theory change has occurred in science in connection and be-
cause of a great variety of factors, among which logical rigour and respect
for empirical evidence often play a very marginal role. Kuhn, Feyerabend
and several other scholars who have placed great importance on the his-
torical aspect of science, have laid so much stress on this aspect that they
almost completely disclaimed the thesis that logical and empirical require-
ments have something to do with the evolution of science. On the other
hand, those scholars who adopt the 'normative' attitude are surely ready
to admit that the actual historical development of science shows many
examples of a kind of 'laxist' divergence from what 'ought to be' the cor-
rect 'scientific' behaviour in abandoning a theory and accepting a new one
at its place. But they claim that this fact should not prevent us from re-
cognizing that the authentic and legitimate ground for justifying and eval-
uating scientific change is and especially ought to be that provided by a
convergence of purely logical and empirical requirements. It would be a
waste of time trying to give reasons for the one or the other of these two
attitudes, simply because they are both right to a certain extent, but cannot
account for the phenomenon of scientific change in its entirety. Logical
and empirical requirements alone are surely not sufficient to determine
theory change, and this is not so because scientists are laxist is their actual
praxis, but because these requirements are never fully cogent, as has been
shown ad abundantiam in the discussions of recent years. On the other
hand, all the other factors, be they of socio-cultural, philosophical, meta-
physical or pragmatic nature, though being of great importance in 'prim-
ing' and also in orienting scientific change, are not sufficient to 'accom-
plish' it, unless logical and empirical requirements are satisfied at least in
the final stage of the process. We might even venture to say that the ex-
tralogical conditions are more relevant in the case of 'macrochanges' (in-
volving transitions between large and very general theories) while logical
and empirical considerations play a more important role in the case of
'microchanges' (involving restricted theories which remain within the
framework of the more general ones).
(iii) A third set of questions arises when we consider the situation after
the change has occured, and these are independent of the possible reasons
which eventually led to the change. Now we have two distinct theories T
and T', and our problem has at least three aspects: what are the relations
 SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE 65

between T and T'; do these relations provide a possibility of comparison;

and, does this comparison open the possibility of speaking of progress?
Unfortunately, most of the discussions of the past years suffer from a
confusion between these distinct questions, as is shown by the fact that
quite frequently the inability of some relations to provide criteria of com-
parison was taken as an impossibility of comparing theories at all, by the
fact that incompatibility of theories was often confused with incompara-
bility, that continuity was confused with cumulativity, and that the lack
of cumulativity was confused with lack of progress.

A NEW APPROACH TO T H E D I S T I N C T I O N BETWEEN OBSERVATIONAL

AND THEORETICAL CONCEPTS

Before trying to disentangle this skein, we want to point out a feature

which is responsible, in our opinion, for many difficulties occurring in the
evaluation of the role played by logic and experience in the analysis of
scientific change. This feature is particularly visible in the traditional prob-
lem concerning the relation between observational and theoretical con-
cepts in science. The accepted presupposition was at the beginning twofold:
the two classes of concepts are mutually independent; and the empirical
evidence is univocal, while the logical constructs which make up theories
are of very different kinds. The first presupposition was gradually de-
stroyed through the well known discussions which eventually led to the
admission that all concepts in science are theory-laden and that, in such
a way, no absolute separation may be drawn between observational and
theoretical terms. As a consequence it was claimed that the same variability
which characterizes the theoretical contexts also affects the empirical evi-
dence, so that this evidence could no longer be considered as an indepen-
dent basis for comparing theories. To our mind the real weak point was
the second assumption, in the sense that empirical evidence in science is
not at all univocal, but is already subject to a rich variability in itself and
quite independently of the theoretical framework. But this relativity of the
empirical evidence, precisely because it does not depend on the theoretical
context, gives us the possibility of restricting the impact of the theory-
ladenness thesis, and may grant the possibility of theory comparison. This
relativity of the empirical evidence is expressed by the fact that in every
scientific theory it is not the empirical evidence 'in general' which plays a
66 EVANDRO A G A Z Z I

role, but only a very restricted and specific empirical evidence, which re-
suits from standardized operational procedures of observation and mea-
surement. These procedures are certainly bound to some theoretical con-
text (the context which allowed the design of the instruments and of their
use), but this is not the theoretical context of the theory where these in-
struments are used as tools for providing the empirical evidence. For that
reason we abandon the terminology of 'observational' terms and adopt
instead the terminology of'operational' terms; and this is not just a matter
of words, as will be seen in the sequel. The consequence is that the dis-
tinction between operational and theoretical terms is not absolute, because
it is relative to the particular theory considered; however this relativity
does not imply that the distinction not be clear and unambiguous within
any single theory. In this way we reverse the well known thesis of Sneed,
according to which theoretical terms are simply T-theoretical (i.e. theo-
retical relative to a particular theory T, according to some criteria which
we need not mention here), while nothing is said regarding what is empir-
ical about the non-theoretical terms. According to our approach, opera-
tional terms are relative to the particular theory where they occur, and
they provide a foundation for the empirical claim of the theory, while the
theoretical terms are simply those which are non-operational (of course,
relative to the said theory). By stressing this we can avoid the total rela-
tivity in the meaning of all scientific concepts: it may be admitted that one
and the same concept changes its meaning at least to a certain extent
when passing from one theory to another, but this does not imply such a
radical modification as would prevent us from comparing theories. This
means that incommensurability is not a necessary consequence of the cor-
rectly stressed existence of a certain semantic relativity of scientific con-
cepts.
An important feature of this approach is that it enables us to recover
a great part of the 'sentential view of theories', without reducing it to a
purely logical feature. Indeed we shall consider the different scientific the-
ories as systems of sentences which are intended to speak truly about a
specific domain of objects. The problem is that of correctly understanding
how this domain of objects has to be conceived and determined and it is
here that operations play a decisive and central role. In this regard I allow
myself to refer to some previously published research, in order to avoid
too many details. 3 However, since most of these publications are in
 SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE 67

Italian, I feel obliged to give a brief account of these ideas by way of

introduction.

OPERATIONAL AND THEORETICAL PREDICATES

According to this approach, every scientific discipline is characterized by

its investigating reality from a selected specific point of view, which per-
forms a kind of 'cut' in the realm of reality, clipping out only certain
aspects of it and leaving the others out of consideration. Concretely speak-
ing, this happens by selecting a restricted set of specific predicates (or con-
cepts) to be used in the description of reality, in such a way that all the
sentences belonging to the particular discipline involved contain (at least
in principle) only such predicates. For example, classical mechanics is char-
acterized by speaking of reality only by means of predicates such as 'mass',
'length', 'time duration', and other concepts that may be obtained from
these by means of appropriate definitions. It is imperative for any empirical
science that at least some of these predicates be directly connected with
some operational testing procedures: we shall call these concepts basic
predicates, intending by that that they determine the domain of objects of
the given discipline. Additional predicates may then be introduced, but
always through a net of relations (be they of a general logical or of a
specific mathematical nature) which must enable one to reach sentences
entirely constituted of basic predicates by an explicit deduction, starting
from whatever other sentence of the theory. In view of this we may also
call operational predicates the basic predicates and theoretical predicates
the others, owing to the fact that these are introduced by means of logical
or mathematical relations which constitute the actual structure of the
'theory' involved. As is clear, no predicate is operational or theoretical as
such or in itself, but only with respect to the particular discipline under
consideration. On the other hand, the obligation imposed on the sentences
of the discipline to be explicitly linkable with sentences entirely constituted
of operational predicates corresponds to the obvious condition that every
sentence of the discipline must speak about the intended objects of the disci-
pline. According to this approach, the meaning of the predicates occurring
in a given scientific theory may be envisaged as follows: in the case of the
operational predicates there is a part of this meaning which is directly
bound with their definitory operations, and which may be called its 're-
68 EVANDRO AGAZZI

ferential part'; besides this there is another part which depends on the
context of the whole theory, and which comes from the net of logical
relationships that link the basic predicates reciprocally and with the other
theoretical predicates (we shall call this their 'contextual part'. In the case
of the theoretical predicates, their entire meaning depends on the context
of the theory, being influenced in particular by the logical relations existing
with the operational as well as with the other theoretical predicates. There-
fore they are endowed with a 'contextual meaning' only.
This remark is very important, as it enables us to see that in the case of
the operational or basic predicates there is a part of their meaning which
is not context-dependent (or 'theory-laden'). It follows that, if we can
consider sentences entirely constituted of operational predicates, we can
restrict our attention to that part of their meaning which only depends on
the operational meaning of their predicates, that is to say, which simply
express their 'referential meaning'. It is certainly easy to recognize that
'meaning' has been understood intensionally, in the above, but this is no
special feature of our discourse, as all talk about context--dependence or
theory-ladeness of the meaning of concepts necessarily refers to the inten-
sional aspect of this meaning. What we explicitly add to this feature is
emphasis on the fact that referring to reality by means of certain standard
operations belongs to the intension of some concepts, and represents a part
of this intension which is not sensitive to the rest of it. This claim seems
to us very well grounded in the concrete analysis of any operational con-
cept. On the other hand, it should be superfluous to remark that the fact
that measuring instruments and the standardized way of using them de-
pend, generally speaking, 'on theories' does no harm. Indeed, these are
'other' theories, and therefore do not affect the pure operational character
of the referential meaning within the theory involved, as we have already
remarked.

THEORY COMPARISON

With this premiss borne in mind, we can proceed to consider the possibility
of comparing theories. Let us assume that two theories contain exactly the
same operational predicates, defined by means of the same operations. In
this case the two theories speak about the same domain of objects, and we
can try to look for a totally operational sentence which e.g. is a logical
 SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE 69

consequence of the hypotheses admitted by the first theory, while being

rejected by the second theory. Being totally operational, this sentence may
be tested by means of the operational testing procedures equally admitted
by both theories, and the result of the test will enable a discriminating
judgment in favour of the one or the other. In this case we should say that
the two theories are comparable and prove to be incompatible. In case the
basic predicates are the same, and no operational sentence may be found
that supports one theory and disproves the other, we should say that, as
far as we were able to see, the two theories are comparable and compatible.
Let us now consider the case where two theories contain operational
predicates which are not completely identical: according to our approach
we shall simply say that they do not speak about the same objects, and
because of that that they are to be considered as non-comparable or in-
commensurable; but this situation, as we have seen, is not the only one
possible, contrary to what is maintained nowadays by so many philos-
ophers of science, and this is true because the meaning of the scientific
concepts if not always totally context-dependent. Moreover, we may also
say that incommensurability is in a way a matter of degree, for it may
happen that two theories, though being incommensurable in a very strict
sense, share a great many operational predicates, which might allow at
least some comparison of certain of their sentences.

THE I D E A OF S C I E N T I F I C T R U T H R E V I S I T E D

But let us now try better to understand what incommensurability really

means. Usually it is understood as a kind of evidence that no certitude
may be reached in science, because no theory can disprove another. But,
as we have seen, the deepest sense of this incommensurability is that the
two theories refer to different objects, and this may express a richness rather
than a poverty of science. Transition from one theory to another does not
mean a more or less arbitrary change of opinion or of taste, but rather the
focussing of our attention on new domains of objects. The most important
consequence of this fact is that we are entitled again to speak of truth in
science and even to speak of a preservation of truth under the changing
dynamics of theories.
When philosophers and scientists began to say that science is unable to
reach truth, they did so because they felt discouraged by the fact that even
70 EVANDRO AGAZZI

the best established scientific theories, such as for instance classical me-
chanics, had been found false and rejected by the introduction, say, of
relativity theory or quantum mechanics. This impression was wrong, as
these people forgot that a sentence or a system of sentences is never true
or false 'in itself', but always with regard to some domain of reference. In
particular, the sentences of a given scientific theory aim at being true not
'in general' or 'as such', but simply with regard to their intended objects.
Hence, the sentences of classical mechanics cannot be disproved by quan-
tum mechanics, because the transition from the first to the second means
a change of the domain of objects, as can be seen from the fact that some
predicates which are operational in the one are not operational in the
other, and also by the fact that those which may be operational in both
are actually related to different kinds of operations in the one and in the
other respectively (this is why, e.g., the problem of measurement has so
many complex implications in quantum physics, which it did not have in
classical physics). Therefore quantum mechanics cannot prove that classi-
cal mechanics is false about its (classical) objects. As a matter of fact, we
can claim that a theory which has successfully passed several severe tests,
which has given rise to a rich display of applications, which has been
confirmed by a great variety of independent indirect controls, etc. may be
considered, with 'practical certitude', as being true of its objects and re-
maining true for ever about them. In this sense we must say that classical
mechanics is still true and will remain true of its objects (this is why, by
the way, we still use classical mechanics in so many technological appli-
cations as well as in celestial mechanics, in astrophysics, etc.).

A L E G I T I M A T E SENSE OF C U M U L A T I V E S C I E N T I F I C P R O G R E S S

We are now in the position of understanding why it is legitimate to speak

of scientific progress even in some cumulative sense.
This happens because in the history of science there are several theories
which have established a rich set of true sentences about certain specific
domains of objects, and this truth is never destroyed by the fact that other
theories have proposed new systems of true sentences about new domains
of objects: quite the contrary, the new truths remain together with the old
ones and complement them. The result is that the global amount of human
knowledge is increased, in the sense that more and more aspects of reality
 SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE 71

become known as a result of this proliferation of viewpoints, leading to a

proliferation of domains of investigation.
It may be clear by now why this progress cannot be understood as a
purely logical fact. Indeed, we have seen that theory change very often
means the opening of a new domain of inquiry, that is the investigation
of a new domain of reference, and this is by no means a matter of pure
logic, as it necessarily involves on the one hand the invention of new per-
spectives, which are very seldom a kind of logical consequence, general-
ization, or particularization of already existing ideas. On the other hand,
these perspectives, in order to become effective, must be endowed with
appropriate operational support, and this again oversteps the bounds of
logic.
Why must we say that this progress is not necessarily linear? This hap-
pens because the different domains of objects are very seldom, so to speak,
'embedded' into one another: this may occur sometimes, when the basic
predicates of a certain discipline prove capable of totally expressing the
concepts of another discipline, which becomes in such a way a subtheory
of the first. But this is a very rare case indeed. The most general situation
is that the different domains of objects are essentially separated. However
this situation too must be seen cum grano salis. In several cases we can
see that the respective domains are not totally disconnected, that they
admit of a certain overlapping, that there are some borderline problems
which may be investigated by the tools of two disciplines. This was prob-
ably the case with classical and quantum mechanics: the problems which
led to the creation of quantum mechanics were at the beginning such that
a treatment of them in terms of classical mechanics was not completely
impossible, though at the price of several ad hoc adjustments. This was
the symptom that cassical mechanics had, so to speak, reached its bor-
derline, and that its capacity of mastering the class of new phenomena
which were being discovered was exhausted. The perception of this diffi-
culty led to the opening of new viewpoints, which ultimately developed
into the creation of a new theory, with new operational procedures and
hence with new objects of its own (micro-objects, as they are usually called,
as distinct from the macro-objects). We could also say that science admits
of both linear and non-linear progress. The first occurs within a given
theory when no change occurs in its domain of objects. The second occurs
when the adoption of a new theory also implies a transition to a new
72 EVANDRO AGAZZI

domain of objects. What is interesting here is that both forms of theory

change are compatible with scientific truth and with the idea that progress
in science also means some kind of cumulation of truth. In the first case
this cumulation concerns truth about the same domain of objects (as we
have said, classical mechanics is still a domain of research where new truths
are being discovered). In the second case the cumulation of truth means
the discovery of new truths inside new domains of objects. Once one has
understood that truth is relative (in the sense of being relative to the objects
investigated) one can understand theory change, be it continuous or dis-
continuous, or be it in terms of commensurability or of incommensura-
bility, as not compelling us to give up the idea of scientific truth. Instead
of discussing in detail all the different possibilities of combination between
comparability and incomparability, compatibility and incompatibility, lin-
ear, non-linear, and cumulative progress, we prefer to present a few dia-
grams in which the situation can be captured in a more articulated and
synoptic way.

DIAGRAMS

1. The meaning of the operational concepts in two different theories T and

T'

,. T T'

"~ Th~ Th. Th. 9 .n~ i. . . . . . . . Th L'-,-- ~----"fh'~

9~- ,'. | l ,~L /I ,,1 I / T6 I ,a

L__- ..... .......... .......... LL ___J

. Op I ..... Op_ ,, Op' ____ (Sp' 1

1 2 3 t,"" 1 2 3 /,"" n /
/
 SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE 73

Explications

(a) Thl, Th2, Tha, and Opt, Op2 are the theoretical and the operational
concepts in T.
Th'l, Th'2, Th'a, and Op'l, Op'2 are the theoretical and the operational
concepts in T'.
(b) The lines - - and -.-.- indicate the formal (i.e. mathematical or log-
ical) relations existing between the different concepts.
(c) The lines - - indicate the non-formal (i.e. referential) relations
existing between the operational concepts and their 'defining' concrete
operations.
(d) It is supposed that all concepts are indicated in Tand T' bythe same
name. Still their meaning is different at least because of their different for-
mal contexts in the two theories.

Comments

(a) The global meanings of Opl and Op2 are certainly different from
those of Op'~ and Op'2, owing to their different contexts. In particular,
though Op~ and Op'~ appear to be bound to Th~ and Th2 (Th'l and
Th'2) by the same formal relations f~ and f2, it happens that the meanings
of Thl and Th' 1, and of Th2 and Th'2 are different owing to their different
contextual definitions. In fact:
(i) Th~ is directly connected with Th2 by means of f5, and directly
connected with Th3 by means of t"4 (it is also indirectly connected with
Th3 by means of f5 and f6), while Th'l is directly connected with Th'2
by means of another function gl and it is indirectly connected with Th'3
according to two different patterns, i.e. via gl and t"6 and via gl and g2.
(ii) The referential meanings of Op2 and Op'2 are different, as they are
bound to two different operations 094 and o9,. But this difference in
meaning also affects Tha and Th'a by virtue of the functional relation
t"3, so that the meanings of Tha and Th'a are really quite different; and
this fact is certain to affect the whole theoretical context of T and T'.
(b) As to the referential meanings of Opl, Op2, Op'I, and Op'2, some
distinction has to be made:
(i) Opl and Op'l have the same referential meaning, as they are directly
related to the very same operations 091, o92, o93.
74 EVANDRO AGAZZI

(ii) Opz and Op'z have different referential meanings, as they are related
to two different operations co4 and 09,.
(c) If we now remember the strict relationship existing between the
operations and the objects of theories, it is easy to see that this has auto-
matic counterparts on the~referential meanings of their operational con-
cepts. The resulting possibilities are sketched in the following diagram.
2. Relationships between the domains of objects of two theories T and T'.

(a) inclusion [b) identity

(c) partial overlapping (d) total disjunction

Comments

(a) This case occurs when all the operational concepts of T also appear
with the same referential meaning in T' while T' contains other operational
concepts of its own. We shall call the two theories locally comparable..
(b) In this case all the operational concepts in T and T' have the same
referential meaning. Therefore T and T" deal with the same domain of
objects and are called fully comparable.
(c) Here T and T' have in common at least some operational concepts
with the same referential meaning, while other operational concepts (even
if they are labelled with the same name) have actually different referential
meanings. This is in particular the case presented in diagram 1. We shall
call the two theories partially comparable.
(d) In this case all the operational concepts have different referential
 SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE 75

meanings in T and T', which m e a n s that they deal with fully different
d o m a i n s o f objects. W e shall call them incomparable (or incommensurable).
As is clear, incommensurability is by no m e a n s the only possible case, but
just one a m o n g four possibilities.

3. Comparability and incomparability versus compatibility and incompati-

bility.
A. They are also compatible:
(a) Tand T' are (i) case (2a): T' is an extension of T
comparable (ii) case (2b): T and T' are complementary
(iii) case (2c): T and T' are partially compatible
(existence of some correspondenceprinciple)

B. They are incompatible:

(i) T' falsifies T and embeds the objects of T in a
broader, but not radically different, domain of
objects
(ii) T' falsifies T and keeps the same domain of
objects
(b) Tand T' are It (i) they are neither compatiblenor incompatible
imcomparable: follows (ii) T' does notfalsify T
(case (2d)) '(iii) T and T' are both simultaneously "true" about
their respectiveobjects.

4. Types of progress involved

(a) Case 3a Ai: T and T ' are c o m p a r a b l e , compatible, and T c T': con-
tinuous linear a n d cumulative progress.
(b) Case 3a Aii: T and T ' are comparable, compatible and c o m p l e m e n -
tary: continuous, non-linear, cumulative progress.
(c) Case 3a Aiii: T and T ' are partially c o m p a r a b l e and partially c o m -
patible: discontinuous, n o n - l i n e a r a n d cumulative progress.
(d) Case 3a B: T ' falsifies T and replaces it: discontinuous n o n - c u m u -
lative progress.
(e) Case 3b: T and T' are not c o m p a r a b l e and neither is falsified: dis-
continuous cumulative progress.

Comments

It m a y be said that the typical logical empiricist position was limited to

our case 4a; the P o p p e r i a n doctrine was limited to case 4d; the 'incom-
76 EVANDRO AGAZZI

mensurability' doctrine of Kuhn and Feyerabend was limited to case 4e,

but it failed to recognize here the possibility of progress owing to a lack
of distinction between incompatibility and incomparability.

FINAL REMARK

It is perhaps appropriate to conclude this paper by saying something more

about the problem of the 'sentential view' of scientific theories.
As can easily be seen from the whole of our considerations, we share
the opinion that scientific theories are fundamentally (althouth perhaps not
exclusively) systems of sentences, provided we do not forget that they are
also and necessarily systems of sentences about some domain of intended
objects. To disregard or to deny this fact seems to us a serious flaw, which
in particular makes it impossible to explain why, after all, scientific theories
and in general scientific knowledge is presented in papers and books, which
cannot help but be composed of sentences (and this independently of the
already considered major reason that scientific knowledge must be an ex-
plicitly formulated one, which again necessarily implies the use of sen-
tences).
But, on the other hand, this does not mean that we have to accept the
deductive model for understanding scientific change. The reason is that
such a model is limited to the consideration of the possible syntactical
relationships between theories, which actually play a rather negligible role
in scientific change. But if we concentrate our attention upon the semant-
ical (meaning change) and referential (change of objects) properties of
these systems of sentences, a quite satisfactory possibility for understand-
ing theory change is certainly obtained. As we have seen, this happens
because the possibility of standardizing access to the referents (thanks to
the scientific operational procedures) provides every science with a certain
'stability of meaning', at least as far as some of its concepts are
concerned. In this sense our approach may be seen as a vindication of the
'empiria of science' after many years in which the 'logic of science' has
been so dominant. This vindication of the empirical aspect of science, how-
ever, must not be confused with the old approach, according to which the
empirical burden was totally placed upon observations; this was too weak
a ground, as the long and largely sterile debate on the difference between
observational and theoretical terms has shown. Our choice in favour of
 SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE 77

operations (with its m e t h o d o l o g i c a l specifications which c o u l d n o t be fully

spelled o u t in this p a p e r ) enables us to t a k e fully into c o n s i d e r a t i o n , on
the one h a n d , t h a t experience is a l w a y s p e r f o r m e d f r o m some ' v i e w p o i n t ' ,
w i t h i n a certain ' G e s t a l t ' , b u t on the o t h e r h a n d t h a t it p r o v i d e s us, o w i n g
to its a n c h o r a g e in certain referents, with a ' s t a b l e c o r e ' o f m e a n i n g which,
a m o n g o t h e r things, allows us to s p e a k a g a i n o f 'scientific p r o g r e s s ' in a
c o n s c i o u s l y r e c o g n i z e d m u l t i p l i c i t y o f f o r m s a n d meanings.

NOTES

1 For a good account and discussion of this 'deductive model' see e.g., C. Dilworth, Scientific
Progress, Reidel, Dordrecht, 1981.
2 For a brief but rigorous account of this position, and of its relation to most of the other
positions mentioned here, see in particular W. Stegmiiller, The Structuralist View of Theories,
Springer, Berlin 1979.
3 A rather detailed presentation of these ideas may be found in several publications of mine
which have appeared in Italian, including the last chapter of my book, Temi e problemi di
filosofia della fisica. Milano, 1969, Abete, Roma 19742, the essay'L'epistemologiacontem-
poranea: il concetto attuale di scienza', in Scienza e filosofia oggi, Massimo, Milano 1980,
pp. 7-20, and 'Proposta di una nuova caratterizzazione dell' oggettivit~i scientifica', in Iti-
nerari (1979) nn. 1-2, pp. 113-143. In other languages, see my: 'Les critrres srmantiques pour
la constitution de l'objet scientifique', in La skmantique dans les sciences, Office International
de Librairie, Bruxelles 1978, pp. 13-29; 'The Concept of Empirical Data. Proposal for an
Intensional Semantics of Empirical Theories' in M. Przetecki et al. (eds), Formal Methods in
the Methodology of Empirical Sciences, Reidel, Dordrecht 1976, pp. 153-157; 'Subjectivity,
Objectivity, and Ontological Commitment in the Empirical Sciences', in R.E. Butts and J.
Hintikka (eds.), Historical and Philosophical Dimensions of Logic, Methodology and Philos-
ophy of Science, Reidel, Dordrecht 1977, pp. 159 171; 'Eine Deutung der wissenschaftlichen
Objektivit/it',in Allgemeine Zeitschriftfiir Philosophie' 3 (1978), 20-47; and 'Realism v Nauke
i Istoriceskaja Priroda Naukovo Posnanija', in Voprosi Filosofii 6 (1980), 136,144.

Received 24 April 1984

Philosophisches Seminar
Universit~it Fribourg
CH-1700 Fribourg
Switzerland