Biographical Memoirs Volume 65 (1994) / Chapter Skim
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13. Ernest Nagel
13. Ernest Nagel
Pages 256-273
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From page 257... ...
diect in New York City on September 20, 1985. After his arrival in New York City in 1911, Nagel spent his entire life there, although he and his family regularly spent the summer in Vermont for many years.
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From page 258... ...
He was properly skeptical of philosophical edifices built independent of cl etaile(1 scientific considerations. But he was equally critical of the writings of scientists who too blithely thought they could straighten out their colleagues on funciamental philosophical questions without proper knowledge of the many issues involved.
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Dewey's radical instrumentaTism. His closest colleague, personally and philosophically, was probably Sidney Hook, who also taught in New York City for many years, primarily at New York University.
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Here he elevated a chapter to patterns of scientific explanation with an analysis of four kinds of explanation offered in science: the cleductive model, the probabilistic model, the functional or teleological model, and the genetic model, where by "genetic" is meant the study of the historical roots of phenomena. Although he gave a very sympathetic exposition on various occasions of teleological explanations in biology, he favored the classical deductive moclel as providing the best examples of scientific explanation.
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had continuing interest in the theory of measurement. More than any other philosopher of his generation he built on the nineteenth century work of Helmholtz and Holder, as well as the earlier twentieth century work of the British physicist Norman Campbell.
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FOUNDATIONS OF PHYSICS As aIreacly inclicated, Nagel (revoted a substantial part of his critical energy to the fundamental philosophical issues raised by the development of relativity theory and quantum mechanics during the period spanned by his academic career. His concern to give a cletailed philosophical critique of the relation between geometry and physics was just men
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From page 263... ...
In various publications he was concerned to distinguish the sense in which quantum mechanics preserves causality as reflected in the deterministic solutions of the Schroeclinger equation for given initial conditions, anc! at the same time to analyze the many different senses in which quantum phenomena couIcI be said to be incleterministic.
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Hopf, and others, providing a detailed account of the ordinary physical mechanisms by which symmetric probabilities are proclucect in games of chance such as roulette, craps, anct so on. THEORIES OF INDUCTION Much more of Nagel's intellectual energy was clevoted to critical analyses of theories of induction put forth, especially by the philosophers Hans Reichenbach and Rudolf Carnap, who macle proposals sufficiently cletailecl to also attract the attention of statisticians interested in the founciations of statistical inference.
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From page 265... ...
With equal claim to generality but with a completely ctifferent interpretation of probability, namely what is usually termed a logical theory of probability, Rudolf Carnap proposed a general approach to the theory of confirmation of scientific theories. Nagel managed to find as many intuitive difficulties with Carnap's theory as with Reichenbach's.
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From page 266... ...
Nagel puts his criticism this way: "it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the assumption that we have, or some day shall have, a complete set of primitive predicates is thoroughly unrealistic, and that in consequence an inductive logic based on that assumption is a form of science fiction." SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION IN BIOLOGY Over a period of many years, Nagel published a number of articles on the character of scientific explanations in biology. He included in The Structure of Science a chapter on .
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From page 267... ...
An example that illustrates this view is the collection of mechanisms that act homeostatically to maintain the water content of the blooct at about ninety per cent. Nagel imposes the reasonable requirements that the process be plastic, that it be persistent, and that the relevant variables controlling it be for the normal range of their values independent.
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From page 268... ...
He proviclecl in this final chapter a particularly careful and detailec! analysis of three important problems: the problem presented by the selective character of historical inquiry for the achievement of historical objectivity; the scientific justification for assigning relative importance to causal factors, as for example, the relative weight of economic as opposed to political factors as causes of the American Civil War; and finally, the possibility of using effectively in history contrary-to-fact juclgments about the past, in order to evaluate the nature of various historical events.
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From page 269... ...
As legions of students will attest, a seminar or course with Ernest Nagel was a memorable experience, perhaps above all because his persistent criticisms were tempered by a rare gentleness of personality and spirit.
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From page 270... ...
1950 Dewey's theory of natural science. In John Dewey: Philosopher of Science and Freedom, ed.
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From page 271... ...
38-56. New York: New York University Press.
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From page 272... ...
73-84. New York: New York University Press.
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