Unity of science and logical empiricism
a reply
pp. 15-30
in: John Symons, Olga Pombo, Juan M. Torres (eds), Otto Neurath and the unity of science, Berlin, Springer, 2011Abstract
Every scientific movement can be considered from many different points of view. For example one can characterize the works of various researchers with respect to scientific achievement without taking their chronological order into account, which does not even need to be known for this purpose. One can show to what extent Oresme"s writings on money as a means of exchange touches on Knapp"s theory, and how Grimaldi"s ideas on the inner polymorphy of light originated in his refraction and interference experiments, while Huygens moved the mathematical treatment of light into the foreground and neglected the colorfulness and blurring of certain phenomena of light, which others eventually treated mathematically. Alternatively one may connect theories chronologically and conceptually and thus trace the development toward a comprehensive set of doctrines.