The DOI matches its Crossref record.
Theories and Models
Abstract
Theories are among the main achievements of scientific inquiry and appear as the repositories of scientific knowledge. This chapter is devoted to an examination of the notion of theory as a unit of analysis for the study of scientific knowledge. Most of the analysis consists in presenting and criticizing two major proposals made by philosophers of science, the “received view,” commonly attributed to logical empiricism, and the “semantic view of theories,” which became the new orthodoxy in the 1960s. Both proposals aim at formal reconstructions of theories. The shared assumptions underlying this common project will be questioned. Alternative ways of construing scientific theorizing will be sketched, notably those which are more “agent-centered” and put forward the way scientists use and understand their theories in practice.
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“This generally involves translating a set of theoretical propositions or principles into a formal process theory that in turn generates predictions about target phenomena that may be subjected to empirical validation (Devezer & Buzbas, 2023; for a philosophical overview, see Vorms, 2018).”
From Integrated information and predictive processing theories of consciousness: An adversarial collaborative review (2026) · cites this paper as Vorms, 2018
Citations
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Corcoran, A. W., Haun, A. M., Dorman, R., Tononi, G., Friston, K. J., & Pennartz, C. M. A. (2026) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2026.106742 · Cited by 2
Metadata
- Authors
- Vorms, M.
- Corresponding author
- Vorms, Marion
- ORCID
- Vorms, Marion
- Venue
- The Philosophy of Science
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Published
- 2018-07-19
- OpenAlex
- W2883170433
- Cited by
- 3
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 2.88
- Type
- book chapter
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Oxford University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Philosophy of Biology and Scientific Explanation
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Logic and Philosophy of Science
- Social Sciences › Education › Science Education and Pedagogy
- Keywords
- scientific theories, logical positivism, scientific knowledge, scientific theorizing, philosophy of science
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
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