Building Theories

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Understanding Theory Building

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Building Theories: The Heuristic Way

      • Emiliano Ippoliti

      Pages 3-20

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   3. Building Theories: Strategies Not Blueprints

      • Margaret Morrison

      Pages 21-43

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   4. Richer Than Reduction

      • David Danks

      Pages 45-61

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   5. Theory Building as Problem Solving

      • Carlo Cellucci

      Pages 63-79

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3. Theory Building in Action

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 81-81

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   2. Discovering Cures in Medicine

      • Donald Gillies

      Pages 83-100

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   3. The Product Guides the Process: Discovering Disease Mechanisms

      • Lindley Darden, Lipika R. Pal, Kunal Kundu, John Moult

      Pages 101-117

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   4. “Take the Case of a Geometer…” Mathematical Analogies and Building Theories in Aristotle

      • Monica Ugaglia

      Pages 119-143

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   5. Activation of the Eddy Mental Schema, Multiple Analogies and Their Heuristic Cooperation in the Historical Development of Fluid Dynamics

      • A. Ulazia

      Pages 145-166

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4. New Models of Theory Building

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 167-167

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   2. TTT: A Fast Heuristic to New Theories?

      • Thomas Nickles

      Pages 169-189

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   3. Heuristic Logic. A Kernel

      • Emiliano Ippoliti

      Pages 191-211

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   4. The Noetic Account of Scientific Progress and the Factivity of Understanding

      • Fabio Sterpetti

      Pages 213-243

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   5. Rhythms, Retention and Protention: Philosophical Reflections on Geometrical Schemata for Biological Time

      • Giuseppe Longo, Nicole Perret

      Pages 245-259

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   6. How to Build New Hypotheses

      • Lorenzo Magnani

      Pages 261-284

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This book explores new findings on the long-neglected topic of theory construction and discovery, and challenges the orthodox, current division of scientific development into discrete stages: the stage of generation of new hypotheses; the stage of collection of relevant data; the stage of justification of possible theories; and the final stage of selection from among equally confirmed theories. The  chapters, written by leading researchers, offer an interdisciplinary perspective on various aspects of the processes by which theories rationally should, and descriptively are, built. They address issues such as the role of problem-solving and heuristic reasoning in theory-building; how inferences and models shape the pursuit of scientific knowledge; the relation between problem-solving and scientific discovery; the relative values of the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic view of theories in understanding theory construction; and the relation between ampliative inferences, heuristicreasoning, and models as a means for building new theories and knowledge. Through detailed arguments and examinations, the volume collectively challenges the orthodox view’s main tenets by characterizing the ways in which the different “stages” are logically, temporally, and psychologically intertwined. As a group, the chapters provide several attempts to answer long-standing questions about the possibility of a unified conceptual framework for building theories and formulating hypotheses.

• Scientific Theories
• Inferences in Science
• Scientific Discovery
• Models of Problem-solving
• Model-based Reasoning
• Scientific Realism
• Modeling and Inferring in Science
• Hypothesis Generation
• Ampliative Reasoning
• Abduction vs Deduction
• Rational Analysis
• Scientific Coherence
• Growth of Knowledge
• Realism in Cognitive Science

• Department of Philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA

  David Danks

• Dipartimento di Filosofia, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

  Emiliano Ippoliti

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