Rudolph Carnap, "The Nature of Theories"
1. According to Carnap, the distinction between observables and
nonobservables is:
- (a) absolute
- (b) unimportant
- (c) a matter of degree
- (d) none of the above
2. According to Carnap, empirical laws are discovered by:
- (a) advancing hypotheses and attempting to confirm them
- (b) making conjectures and attempting to falsify them
- (c) inductive generalization
- (d) following hunches and making guesses
3. According to Carnap, theoretical laws are confirmed by:
- (a) confirming empirical laws which are derived from them
- (b) direct observation
- (c) induction
- (d) none of the above
4. According to Carnap, the greatest value of a new theory is its
ability to:
- (a) explain known empirical laws
- (b) simplify known empirical laws
- (c) predict new empirical laws
- (d) consolidate known empirical laws
5. According to Carnap, correspondence rules are needed to:
- (a) derive empirical laws from theoretical laws
- (b) prove nonobservables exist
- (c) discover new theoretical laws
- (d) make new hypotheses
6. According to Carnap, theoretical concepts:
- (a) cannot be defined in terms of observables
- (b) can be defined in terms of observables
- (c) are arbitrary concepts
- (d) can be defined by pure mathematics
7. According to Carnap, a theory is not scientific unless:
- (a) it can be confirmed
- (b) it is true
- (c) it can be tested
- (d) it is about observables
8. According to Carnap, theoretical laws
- (a) explain existing empirical laws
- (b) permit the derivation of new empirical laws
- (c) justified indirectly by testing empirical laws which can be derived from them
- (d) all of the above
9. According to Carnap, empirical laws are justified or confirmed
by:
- (a) making observations of facts deduced from them
- (b) deriving theoretical laws from them
- (c) hypothesis
- (d) none of the above
10. According to Carnap, the geometrical concept of "line",
- (a) can be adequately defined by referring to observables
- (b) cannot be adequately defined by referring to observables
- (c) can be adequately defined by referring to light rays, or
stretched strings
- (d) none of the above
11. According to Carnap, the procedure of interpreting theoretical
terms by correspondence rules;
- (a) is never ending
- (b) if completed, would result in the elimination of all theoretical
terms
- (c) could be an infinite process
- (d) all of the above
12. According to Carnap, most physicists would advise against
stating correspondence rules which explicitly define
theoretical terms, because:
- (a) the history of physics has shown steady and unceasing
modification of theoretical terms
- (b) physicists don't want laymen to know their theoretical secrets
- (c) physics would become too easy to understand
- (d) all of the above
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