| title: | Constructivism in philosophy of science |
|---|---|
| reg no: | ETF5804 |
| project type: | Estonian Science Foundation research grant |
| subject: |
6.2. Philosophy |
| status: | accepted |
| institution: | TU Faculty of Philosophy |
| head of project: | Endla Lõhkivi |
| duration: | 01.01.2004 - 31.12.2007 |
| description: | The main goal of this research project is to gain a better understanding of the role and place of constructivist approaches in contemporary philosophy of science. By close examination of various constructivist accounts, we study the advantages and limitations of constructivism, and try to answer to the question whether constructivism provides us with a more adequate conception of science than more traditional approaches. In our own approach, theoretical analysis is combined with empirical case studies in the history of science and in contemporary sciences (the use of models in chemistry; the structure of physical theories; the development of Newton's ideas as influenced by his religious views; chemistry as a partially ¿-science and partially non- ¿-science). As result of the project, we attempt to propose answers to the following questions: a. Does constructivism explain the process of knowledge production in physics? b. What kind of problems are related to the attempts of incorporating constructivism in the empiricist and realist frameworks? d. Does the social causal explanation applied in social constructivism really explain scientific knowledge or does it just describe the context of the emergence of particular scientific ideas? e. Is criticism against social constructivism presented by social epistemology fully justified? f. What are the strengths and shortcomings of the activity theory approach in theory of science? g. What kind of problems in social constructivism are related to the assumed meaning finitism and how to solve them? h. Why is it important to investigate the boundary problems of science and philosophy in the framework of philosophy of science, and is constructivism suitable for this purpose? Methodologically, the project makes use of critical analysis of philosophical arguments, but also endorses interdisciplinarity as a new idea in philosophy - in addition to the analysis of the arguments, sociological, ethnographic, anthropological and other empirical methods of collecting and interpreting data will be applied if necessary. |
| project group | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| no | name | institution | position | |
| 1. | Urmas Ivask | Tartu Ülikool | doktorant | |
| 2. | Endla Lõhkivi | TU Faculty of Philosophy | lecturer | |
| 3. | Rein Vihalemm | Tartu Ülikool | professor | |