Person:
Rivadulla Rodríguez, Andrés

First Name

Andrés

Last Name

Rivadulla Rodríguez

Affiliation

Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Faculty / Institute

Filosofía

Area

Lógica y Filosofía de la Ciencia

Identifiers

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Now showing 1 - 9 of 9

Unidades Físicas, de José Muñoz del Castillo, Primer Libro de Análisis Dimensional en la Historia
(Universidad de Málaga, 2017) Rivadulla Rodríguez, Andrés
“Ningún volumen se ha consagrado al análisis dimensional hasta 1922 –cien años después de la aparición del Traité de Fourier– cuando P. W. Bridgman publicó el curso que había impartido en la Universidad de Yale.” Así se expresa Monod-Herzen (1976, p. 25). Entre ambos libros, Fourier 1822 y Bridgman 1922, fue Maxwell quien abonó el terreno para la consolidación de esta disciplina, y su semilla no cayó en terreno baldío. En España, sin ir más lejos, la labor de Maxwell arraigó desde bien pronto. Hasta tal punto que la historia desmiente al epistemólogo francés. Pues sí que hay un libro sobre análisis dimensional entre Fourier y Bridgman. Se trata de Unidades Físicas del físico español José Muñoz del Castillo, que lo publica en 1890, o sea treinta y dos años antes de la publicación del libro de Bridgman. Así pues Unidades Físicas se convierte en el primer libro dedicado al análisis dimensional. Naturalmente no voy a cuestionar que sea el Dimensional Analysis de Bridgman el primer tratado completo de esta disciplina. Pero no es el primer libro en el que se recoge el conocimiento de la teoría de las dimensiones misma, como podía ser conocida en el siglo XIX, veinticuatro años antes de la propuesta de Buckingham 1914 de su famoso Teorema Pi . El objeto de este artículo es remarcar la aceptación y desarrollo del análisis dimensional en la España del XIX, una circunstancia hasta ahora no suficientemente apreciada por la historiografía especializada.
Archaeological researches on Popper’s philosophy of science
(2017) Rivadulla Rodríguez, Andrés
This article aims to investigate the origins Popper’s philosophy of science. The fundamental questions are: What did Popper know of the contemporaries European philosophers of science?, Where does Popper's anti-inductivism and falsificationism come from?,To what extent was Popper in his beginnings a realist philosopher?, How contributed Popper to the theory of scientific explanation?, What does contemporary scientific instrumentalism owe to Popper?.
Theoretical Innovation. A new look at creativity in the natural sciences
(UNED, 2018) Rivadulla Rodríguez, Andrés
Theoretical innovation is a form of creativity or scientific discovery. Therefore each innovation has to comply with the demands of novelty and theoretical value. Theoretical innovations, to the surprise of many philosophers of science, take place primarily at the intra-theoretical level, that is, in the context of a theory. The most common way to describe these innovations is as ‘predictions’, although there is a qualitative difference with the normal predictions that occur in the use of a particular theory. For the intra-theoretical innovations involve the incorporation into the theoretical stock of a novelty hitherto unknown. But the innovations or theoretical anticipations also occur at the inter-theoretical level making use of preductive reasoning. Revolutionary discoveries in the field of relativistic quantum mechanics, some of which I will present here briefly, are an excellent example of theoretical innovations via preductive reasoning in theoretical physics. There is also a common element to both types of theoretical innovation: intra-theoretical predictions and inter-theoretical preductions. Both are the result of the application of deductive reasoning to the context of creativity or scientific discovery. In this paper I defend the idea that science not only aims to account for the facts of experience but that it also pursues theoretical innovation, which is an equally important task. Contemporary science, particularly physics, in addition to explaining or saving phenomena, also anticipates innovative theoretical results, sometimes unexpected and always useful for cultural, scientific and human development.
Complementing Standard Abduction
(2015-06-25) Rivadulla Rodríguez, Andrés
Abduction, Bayesianism and Best Explanations in Physics
(2018) Rivadulla Rodríguez, Andrés
This article claims the validity of abductive reasoning, or inference to the best explanation, as a practice of discovery of explanatory scientific hypotheses. Along the way to achieve this objective I present here a series of arguments that question the feasibililty of Bayesianism as a theory of scientific confirmation. Having solved this issue, I resort to an episode of contemporary astrocosmology that I interpret as an eloquent example of the effectiveness of abductive methodology in contemporary theoretical physics.
Filosofía de la Ciencia en Español
(2011) Rivadulla Rodríguez, Andrés
Monografías y obras colectivas de filosofía de la ciencia en lengua española
Theoretical Entities and the Ontological Instability of Physics: The Impact on Scientific Realism
(2018-03-16) Rivadulla Rodríguez, Andrés
In this article the question arises as to whether the entities postulated by theoretical physics are ontologically stable, i.e. if their existence depends merely on the fact that at some point in scientific development they have been proposed, which would guarantee them indefinite durability, or whether entities exist in scientific language and practice, but which, for some time scientific development ends up condemning them to oblivion or to conclusive rejection. Here I will show that, in fact, in many cases, entities that at one time seemed to contribute to scientific success were eventually abandoned. But, above all, I will insist that this is a phenomenon that has happened repeatedly in the history of physics, and this raises doubts about whether we should believe in the real existence of the entities that physics postulate, i.e. if theoretical physics is ontologically stable. However, this question transcends the domain of ontology as it has a decisive impact on epistemology. Indeed, as we know, the philosophical position known as scientific realism maintains that mature scientific theories are at least approximately true and their theoretical terms refer empirically, that is, the entities that we name with scientific terms and concepts really exist. This has two very important consequences in order to form a correct or adequate image of science as a cultural product. The first is that science is, at least historically, ontologically unstable. The second, which follows from this, is that it does not seem reasonable to believe that science converges to the truth, for we can never know ‘for sure’ if the current ontology of science, i.e., the set of entities whose existence it postulates, is stable, or permanent and persevering. And this seriously questions the epistemological viability of scientific realism.
Scientific explanation and the troubles with causal explanations in physics
(Universidad Industrial de Santander, Bucaramanga, Colombia, 2016) Rivadulla Rodríguez, Andrés
Fifty years ago, Carl Gustav Hempel published his famous book Aspects of Scientific Explanation. Since then the number of publications on this subject has grown exponentially. An occasion like this deserves to be commemorated. In this article I offer a modest tribute to this great methodologist of science. This paper tackles the uses of explanation in theoretical sciences. In particular it is concerned with the possibility of causal explanations in physics. What I intend to do is to focus on the issue of whether the explanation of the empirical Kepler’s laws of the planetary motions can be a causal explanation. More specifically my point is: can the deductive subsumption of Kepler’s 3rd Law (also known as Kepler’s 1-2-3 law) under theoretical principles provide a causal explanation for the planetary motions? My answer is a definitive no. As a matter of fact, on occasion subsumptions occur under differing theoretical principles that are incompatible with one another. In such cases we would have incompatible scientific explanations. This is precisely the situation facing the scientific explanation of Kepler’s laws, in particular the third law. Since there exist incompatible gravitational theories, it is impossible for the scientific account of Kepler’s law to be a causal explanation of the planetary motions. This is just one example of the difficulties faced by causal explanations in sciences such as theoretical physics.
Salvar las apariencias, anticipar experiencias y la meta de la teorización científica
(2018-04-24) Rivadulla Rodríguez, Andrés
Mi objetivo es presentar la idea de que la ciencia no sólo da cuenta de los hechos de experiencia sino que también persigue la innovación teórica, una tarea tan importante como la otra. Aunque la primera labor encomendada históricamente a la ciencia es efectivamente la de dar cuenta de los hechos de la experiencia, después de dos milenios y medio, sigue siendo una cuestión candente del debate filosófico si ésta debe consistir en (i) explicar las observaciones, es decir, hacer explícitas las razones de las cosas, o (ii) salvar las apariencias, es decir, ajustar las observaciones a una teoría. Y en el primer caso, aún está en discusión si la explicación científica tiene que ser causal o no. En esta presentación, argumentaré que no lo es. Y vaya por delante que lo que me concierne es la posibilidad de explicaciones causales, no la de la causalidad misma. Pero cuestionar la existencia de explicaciones causales no significa renunciar a explicaciones en absoluto. La alternativa es la explicación teórica, es decir, la explicación por referencia a marcos teóricos, que presento como la tercera vía, y ayuda a aliviar la tensión entre los partidarios de la explicación causal y los de salvar los fenómenos. Hay además un componente principal de la actividad científica al que la filosofía contemporánea ni le ha hecho justicia ni le ha prestado la atención que merece. Lo llamo innovación teórica y consiste en idear propuestas novedosas, inesperadas, a veces sorprendentes y, en todo caso, útiles para el avance de la ciencia y la cultura.