On Theories

Demopoulos has crafted a thoughtful and interesting interpretation of quantum mechanics that completes his earlier work of the mid-’70s…A wonderful tribute to a very significant philosopher. -- Adrian Heathcote * Metascience * Demopoulos wrote ‘for the eye of God and the good of my soul,’ as he used to say. On Theories is a stunning achievement, a profound argument for a novel thesis about the nature of truth in scientific theories, ranging from case studies about our understanding of molecular reality to Bohr’s dispute with Einstein about quantum reality. -- Jeffrey Bub, University of Maryland On Theories, a painstaking analysis of the seemingly straightforward concept of theory, takes us on an exciting journey through twentieth-century science and philosophy of science. It critiques naïve dogmas such as the theory/observation dichotomy, replacing them with a nuanced account centered on the notion of ‘theory-mediated measurement.’ On the basis of this account, Demopoulos offers a novel interpretation of major breakthroughs in classical as well as quantum mechanics. Meticulous in its historical analysis and compelling in its philosophical argument, On Theories is a must for anyone interested in science and its method. -- Yemima Ben-Menahem, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem William Demopoulos was one of the leading philosophers of science of his generation. An accomplished logician whose mastery of the logicist tradition was unequaled, he was just as productive in contemporary philosophy of physics, especially philosophy of quantum physics. On Theories brings to a stunning close a line of research he actively pursued for the last two decades: the epistemology and ontology of physical theories. This is not only an important book but a rare landmark in the development of the discipline. -- Thomas Uebel, University of Manchester