Intervals in the Structure of Scientifi c Theories
Keywords:
limits of cognition, universum of a theory, structure of abstractions, intervality principle, abstraction interval, semantic completeness, measure of informational content, applicability of a theory, gnoseological scheme of science.Abstract
The question on the necessity of limits has been remaining the main question in the philosophy of science.
The intervality principle might solve the problem of blind-spots in the methodology of science, which concern the limits of cognition and applicability of scientifi c theories. The new understanding of theory as a structure of abstractions has required elaborating a new frame of notions. The key notion in this methodological trend has become the notion of abstraction interval as an expression of the semantic completeness of the notions and, at the same time, their “being closed in limits”. This is an attribute of every abstraction, which is included in the universum of a theory.
The intervality approach opens the possibility to explicitly represent a cluster of limits, which defi ne the applicability of a theory for explaining and predicting the phenomena of reality and the practical applications of this theory in artifacts. This will allow to start creating a new gnoseological scheme of scientifi c cognition.
