Lexicon of Arguments

 

Duhem I 196
Definition Raw Fact/Poincaré: "The scientific fact is only the raw fact, translated into a comfortable language.
Everything that the scholar creates of a fact is the language in which he expresses it."
>Expressions, >Language use, >Theoretical language, >Theoretical terms, >Theoretical entities, >Mathematical entities.
E.g. I observe a galvanometer and ask a layman: does the current flow? He'll try to determine something on the wire. The assistant will understand the question like this: does the light strip move?
>Experiments, >Experiments/Duhem, >Measurements.
The difference between a raw and a scientific fact is the same as that between two expressions in two different languages.
It is not correct that the words "the current flows" are based on a convention, to translate the fact that the magnet strip is distracted!
>Conventions.
E.g., it may well be that the assistant says: the current is flowing, but the magnet does not move, the galvanometer seems to have a defect.
I 197
He can observe the occurrence of gas bubbles or something else on a voltmeter that is also connected to the circuit. "The current flows" does not mean a certain concrete fact in a technical or conventional language, but a symbolic formula. For the theorist, an infinite number of different kinds can be translated into concrete facts, since all these incoherent facts permit the same theoretical interpretation.
>Interpretation, >Translation, >Translation indeterminacy.