ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with reviewing the conceptual frameworks employed by normal science. The preceding bare-bones outline of the ingredients of scientific theories has been simplified in at least two respects, for the time being. The first set pertains to what J. C. Graves calls the “levels hypothesis”. The second cluster of issues concerns the epistemological place or role of models in theories. From the point of view of “state process” theories, facts are considered to be logically equivalent to, and representable as, points or locations in some particular state space. “Determination” of significant fact then means measuring, observing, or otherwise acquiring “data.” All phenomena that are to be treated scientifically must be accommodated within this grand formal scheme. Two streams of critical analyses have arisen to cast severe doubts on the legitimacy of using state process pictures as representational vehicles in every scientific endeavor.
