13 December 2019

Mary B Hesse - Collected Quotes

"A collection of observable concepts in a purely formal hypothesis suggesting no analogy with anything would consequently not suggest either any directions for its own development." (Mary B Hesse, "Operational Definition and Analogy in Physical Theories", British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 2 (8), 1952)

"[…] one of the main functions of an analogy or model is to suggest extensions of the theory by considering extensions of the analogy, since more is known about the analogy than is known about the subject matter of the theory itself [...]" (Mary B Hesse, "Operational Definition and Analogy in Physical Theories", British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 2 (8), 1952)

"A theory in its scientific context is not a static museum piece, but is always being extended and modified to account for new phenomena. […] Moreover, without a model, it will be impossible to use a theory for one of the essential purposes we demand of it, namely to make predictions in new domains of phenomena." (Mary B Hesse," Models and Analogies in Science", 1963)

"Certain properties are necessary or sufficient conditions for other properties, and the network of causal relations thus established will make the occurrence of one property at least tend, subject to the presence of other properties, to promote or inhibit the occurrence of another. Arguments from models involve those analogies which can be used to predict the occurrence of certain properties or events, and hence the relevant relations are causal, at least in the sense of implying a tendency to co-occur." (Mary B Hesse," Models and Analogies in Science", 1963)

"[…] there is an external world which can in principle be exhaustively described in scientific language. The scientist, as both observer and language-user, can capture the external facts of the world in propositions that are true if they correspond to the facts and false if they do not. Science is ideally a linguistic system in which true propositions are in one-to-one relation to facts, including facts that are not directly observed because they involve hidden entities or properties, or past events or far distant events. These hidden events are described in theories, and theories can be inferred from observation, that is, the hidden explanatory mechanism of the world can be discovered from what is open to observation. Man as scientist is regarded as standing apart from the world and able to experiment and theorize about it objectively and dispassionately." (Mary B Hesse, "Revolutions and Reconstructions in the Philosophy of Science", 1980)

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