Epistemic operations and formal epistemology.
Contribution to the study of epistemic operations in scientific theories.

Michel Paty (1)

1 REHSEIS (UMR_7596) - Recherches Epistémologiques et Historiques sur les Sciences Exactes et les Institutions Scientifiques

We ponder about the kind of problems and perspectives of a “formalized epistemology”, by considering the advantages than one can get from a concern with the “formal”, with its structural orientation, that would favour comprehensive, unifying and synthetic, intelligibility. We confront this perspective with that of the changes in knowledge, considering the relation between form and meaning for knowledge contents, and examine the notion of “epistemic operation” as instrumental for creating new forms, at the theoretical and meta-theoretical levels. Actually, the notions of form, of formal and of object are not independent of the problem of a subject that decides on conventions and choices. “Epistemic operations” might suggest a link with “algorithmic functions” for knowledge statements, that themselves entail the risk of reductionism in a naturalistic conception of representation.

Mots clés: Changes; Contents; Epistemology; Form; Meaning; Object; Operation

Domaines: Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

Michel Paty. Epistemic operations and formal epistemology.
Contribution to the study of epistemic operations in scientific theories.. Mugur-Schächter, Mioara and van der Merwe, Alwyn. Quantum mechanics, Mathematics, Cognition and Action. Proposals for a Formalized Epistemology, Kluwer Academic Publishers, p.37-71, 2002, Fundamental Theories of Physics. ⟨halshs-00185995⟩