Constructive empiricism

In defending his constructive empiricism against the no miracle argument for scientific realism, van Fraassen replies in a similar way (The Scientific Image, 39-40, esp. footnote 34). 

Harre f986, 70-71. The authra- claims that the vast majority of scientific theories are of type 2. A fact that lets the approach of constructive empiricism of Bas van Fraassen appear sympathetic, because to care for empirical adequacy is less ambitious than to change his or her belief whenevCT a theory develops or changes. Cf. van Fraassen 2001. 

Educational constructivism extended the realism-empiricism dichotomy into how individuals learn, and assumed two main forms (19) (i) personal constructivism, which is associated with Piaget (5) and (ii) social-cultural constructivism which is linked to Vygotsky. Piagetian constructivism is associated with an idealized person (the epistemic subject ). On die other hand, according to Vygotsky (20), the learner constructs actively his/her knowledge, but this process is greatly assisted by interactions with peers and with the teacher who acts at the students zone of proximal development. 

As yet, our discussion has focused on the attempt to construct energy functionals in which there is some level of empiricism that mimics to a greater or lesser extent the presumed exact results of a full quantum mechanics calculation. Our reason for shying away from the full quantum mechanical calculations themselves was founded upon the fact that these methods are computationally intensive, and hence must be undertaken with the foresight to insure that they are used only when really necessary. It is the purpose of the present section to sketch the way in which first-principles calculations are constructed. 

Most of the theories used in our foundation design tend to be those that have been developed based on the experience of construction on temperate zone soils, which mostly consist of transported (sedimentary) type of soils. But in tropical countries where soils can be literally classified as tropical soils, the mode of formation and hence the physical properties of the soils somewhat differ. This would inevitably affect the way we design and construct our foundation. This is because a key to successful foundation engineering is to understand the mix between rationalism and empiricism, the strengths and limitations of each, and how to apply them to practical design problems. 

Finally, let us learn to use more the powerful methods of statistical mechanics let us overcome our fear of partition functions and let us not hesitate to introduce some enlightened empiricism into their construction. 

But I think that Herron has introduced something of an inconsistency, since the kind of empiricism to which he appeals—namely, the demand that scientific knowledge should have its foundation in sense perception—stands in direct opposition to virtually all forms of constructivism. Constructivism instead upholds that scientific knowledge is not so much discovered but negotiated or constructed by social factors or in the mind of the scientist or the learner. 

The main focus of this study is upon explicit-discovered indicators. These indicators are measures of change that are routinely and unobtrusively produced by one or another agency - usually, but not necessarily, a government agency. Examples include statistics on PhD production, high school enrollment, or the number of patents issued. Their use as indicators awaits only their discovery, which can be no mean task. Complete dependence on such explicit-discovered indicators would imply commitment to an interim empiricism. Instead explicit-invented indicators have also been used wherever possible. These indicators — measures that are constructed deliberately - are usually theory-laden series of normative interest. ... 

The chemical kinetics of combustion systems is usually not well-established. Nevertheless, it is often possible to construct plausible mechanisms including elementary reactions of various degrees of certainty and even hypothetical ones never identified in direct laboratory experiments. The corresponding model, being physico-empirical in nature, is called a mechanistic model. The adequacy of the latter, in a statistical sense, does not necessarily mean that the true model is derived, but rather that with a certain probability the model cannot be rejected. Such an interpretation reflects the empiricism of mechanistic modeling and suggests that future experimental discoveries may lead to modification or abandonment of the model. 

The construction of a hybrid functional involves a certain amount of empiricism in the choice of functionals that are mixed and in the optimization of the weight factors given to the mixed functionals. Formally, this might be considered a drawback, but in practice B3LYP has proven to be the most successful approximate functional for chemical applications. 

---