Towards a 'Picture Theory' Philosophy of Science

Abstract

In this paper we espouse the position that the picture theory of meaning may or may not have failed as a theory of language but seems remarkably useful as a meta theory of science. We start with an exposition of a recent critic of the theory. We provide a brief exposition of the real Picture Theory as introduced by Wittgenstein in the Tractatus (1922). We examine two possible readings of the theory that do not entail the commitments most commonly criticized and defend one of them (Griffin, 1964) as both viable and immune to that criticism. We then submit the real Picture Theory as a viable new philosophy of social sciences that in our view is well overdue. The center piece of this approach is the endorsement of visualizing tools to construct pictures of empirical evidence that enable rigorous tests of theoretical arguments by visual inspection and sophisticated statistical techniques. This new justification for empirical research rejects the commonly accepted rationale for empirical research in the social sciences, that is based on a naive interpretation of Popper’s (1958) Logic of Scientific Discovery, and the notion of hypotheses testing as untenable. It endorses, instead, Wittgenstein’s real Picture Theory as a philosophy of science that is capable of bringing theory and evidence together in the service of advancing scientific knowledge. To provide a better idea of the implications of this philosophy of science to the daily practice of scientific research an example is drawn from a recent piece of research on decision-making and legislative politics.