Progress in Nomological, Explicative and Design Research

Abstract

Although philosophers of science almost always use to identify scientific research with description and explanation, this distinction is not only vague (see Part II), but, as we have stressed in Chapter 1, there are also other important types of research, notably design research and concept explication. Description and explanation may concern the actual or historical world, or they may concern the nomic world, that is, the world of what is nomically (physically, chemically, biologically, etc.) possible. In such case, they constitute nomological research. Whereas the previous parts contain much that is also useful for the research focussing on the actual world, the possibility of progress and ‘actual truth’ approximation in such research will be neglected in this chapter. The reader is referred to ICR (Chapters 7, 8 and 10) for brief discussions of these topics. This chapter deals first of all with nomological research, that is, by definition, research directed, by laws and theories, at the truth about (some part or aspect of) the nomic world, called the ‘nomic truth’. The chapter deals, moreover, though only briefly, with design and explicative research. Recall that design research includes all kinds of constructive research intended to make or improve certain products or processes. Explicative research aims at the construction of a simple, precise and useful concept that resembles an intuitive concept as much as possible.