Int. J. Economics and Business Research, Vol. 1, No. 4, 2009 409

Copyright © 2009 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

‘Representative management’ as a rational research program in Kuhn–Lakatos–Laudan sense

Tadeusz Gospodarek Walbrzych High School of Management and Entrepreneurship, 58-309 Wa brzych, ul. Wroc awska 10, Poland GSM: +48605 27 77 45 Fax: +4874 848 60 17 E-mail: tgospo@op.pl

Abstract: In philosophy of science, the demarcation problem verifies what is scientific using as a verification criterion ‘scientific method’. In this paper, softer rule named ‘selective demarcation’ that groups problems around criterion of existing measure or minimum principle was used for management aspects. Logical construction is based on Kuhn’s paradigm concept, extended by Lakatos in ‘scientific programs’ approach to science development. These concepts were adapted as a set of joined paradigms describing the organisation and its interactions with the surroundings. It is a new approach to management science, which offers useful rational demarcation. As a result, the logical and consistent structure of measurable or having minimum property aspects of the management science was received. All problems that are classified this way may be transferred onto a computer language. The introduced ‘representative management’ research program is useful in quantisation and computation of management problems, and may be understood as a formal proof of their existing semantic model.

Keywords: optimum topology of organisation; paradigm; philosophy of management; representative management; research program; scientific method; selective demarcation.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Gospodarek, T. (2009) ‘‘Representative management’ as a rational research program in Kuhn–Lakatos–Laudan sense’, Int. J. Economics and Business Research,Vol. 1, No. 4, pp.409–421.

Biographical note: Tadeusz Gospodarek (PhD) is a Scientist with theoretical physics background. Base fields of scientific activity are application of computer technology in business decision-making, quantification of management problems and philosophy of scientific discovery in management science. He is working as an Associate Professor in the university type school with MBA Faculty and is the owner of consulting firm, www.ife.pl. He is experienced in practical development and rolling out of integrated MRP systems. He wrote 3 books, 20 papers, 10 strategies of development and feasibility studies on enterprises computerisation. Last book is entitled ‘Modelling in Management Science Based on the Scientific Programs Method and Representative Formalism’.

410 T. Gospodarek

Management sciences are epistemologically poorly described. Therefore, they are philosophically characterised as pre-paradigm young sciences (MacMorris, 1989). It is interesting to introduce a logical formalism that would allow to divide selected problems of management into consistent research programs understood as sets of good paradigms joined together according to Lakatos’ (1997) concept. In this way, it will be possible to observe a development of science alongside the paradigms arising from it, according to philosophical rules, rather than misusing the term ‘paradigm’. The concept of paradigm has become trendy, but only a minority understands its fundamental meaning. It serves as a tool for determining the demarcation line for a set of problems belonging to it. On the other hand, each logical division of science should reflect a set of paradigms forming the demarcation lines.

Four distinct research currents may be distinguished in management sciences:

1 Economic aspects of management – all the issues connected with a direct or indirect measurement of monetary units. They also include describing economic interactions and creating numerical representations (semantic modelling).

2 Technological aspects of management – a category consisting of topics including the AI aspects of decision-making, computer-aided management processes, information processing, knowledge use and process automation.

3 Topological structure of organisation – ergonomics of the organisational structure, optimisation of processes, information circuits, adaptative self-consistent rearrangement of the topology, feedback aspects of internal relations and structure.

4 Human aspects of management – all soft aspects of an organisation inside, concepts of decision-making, axiology and social relationships.

A logical consequence of the above is the conclusion that there should be four sets of paradigms that allow to form demarcation borders of the division. The most convenient situation for the demarcation defined is the case where the scientific method paradigm may be applied to the selected paradigm. It is an excellent methodological tool for ‘hard core’ sciences, but is questioned in terms of application in social sciences and rejected in management.

The closest analogy in relation to the structure of natural sciences is a group of management problems with a defined measurement. The philosophy of science accepts either a reductionist approach for this group, with its logical division of organisations into simplified layers, or a systemic (holistic) approach. The most important consequence of the existing analogy is the possibility of applying the scientific method together with the refined version of Popper’s falsificationism (Popper, 2002) as a criterion of the scientific kind of deducted hypotheses. Then, applying Kuhn’s concept, it is possible to state some base sentences, which may be verified as paradigms. Consequently, on the basis of their concepts, one can deduce hypotheses and sentences with a fixed logical value.

Any set of joined paradigms forms a research program in the Lakatos sense. It is obvious that any research program comprises a certain group of problems or described observations, and therefore, it defines the demarcation border inside a science. Assuming that the term ‘selective demarcation’ is understood as rational criteria that belong to the problem of a given research program, then the logical structure of management sciences may be defined as a finite set of research programs. It encourages attempts towards investigations resulting in definitions of paradigms that may be fixed as a hard core of the

Representative management in Kuhn–Lakatos–Laudan sense 411

research program. In the evolution process, these paradigms will be more and more selective, and the research program will be characterised by a thinner safety belt. Nevertheless, at the beginning phase, some overlapping of the programs should be expected as well as fuzzy demarcation borders. This overlapping will concern the sets of problems forming the safety belts because it is stated a priori that all hard cores are the Cartesian sum of paradigms.

1 Selective demarcation in management sciences

One of the classic problems of the philosophy of science – the demarcation problem – understood as a criterion for assessing whether an issue is or is not scientific, is less important in management sciences due to the epistemological chaos observed not only on the ontological level but also mainly on the semantic one. Simultaneously, the number of new observations and ideas grows exponentially in time. A lot of them fail to satisfy the criteria of a scientific problem according to methodological requirements. Therefore, introducing some rational demarcation criteria seems to be necessary. Further, it should be taken into account that concepts within the philosophy of science are changing as well. A lot of present-day philosophers think that the classic issue of demarcation is out of date (Lakatos and Musgrave, 1977), and some of them even claim that it is destructive (Feyerabend, 1993). It seems to be relevant to some interdisciplinary sciences as well as those in which there is insufficient theoretical background.

Most issues in management sciences are devoted to qualitative descriptions of single cases, relations, structure of organisations and human domain, which are non-mathematical by definition. However, the management process requires the maximum of rational decision-making and information exchange. Hence, the crucial role of computer aid in management. Unfortunately, the syntax of the computer system may not be applied directly on the ontological level because the ontology of managing processes is not comprehensible by machines and requires some additional data processing and modelling. It means that these are two different worlds, and some kind of isomorphism or at least morphism may exist between them but does not necessarily have to. One of them is the observed phenomenon, and the other is its symbolic representation (semantic model). However, in order to translate any non-mathematical problem to the symbolic level, it is necessary to perform three important steps:

1 To change the continuous variables of the real world into the discrete variables of the information (symbolic) world (semantic modelling).

2 To find some numerical representations of the transformed non-mathematical problem (any morphism between real categories and their numeric images).

3 To divide the problem into parts (or layers) acceptable to the information system (with technological restrictions as the major limitation).

Therefore, one of the fundamental epistemological problems should be the division of known management problems into specific paradigms, allowing a logical reduction and finding their semantic models, and in the next step – their numerical representations. It is necessary to assume a reductionist point of view as the only right solution, and in consequence, the methods of the logic of scientific discovery to verify or falsify

412 T. Gospodarek

hypotheses and observable sentences. Why? Because it is required by the syntax of information systems operating on the formal numeric representations of the problems.

2 Good paradigm

In his fundamental work ‘Theory of Scientific Revolutions’, Thomas Kuhn introduced the term ‘scientific paradigm’ (Kuhn, 1996) as a methodological procedure, where one should determine:

1 What was observed and what else should be observed.

2 The question which should be asked and ways of finding probable answers to the problem.

3 What structure the questions within the paradigm should have.

4 How the results of scientific investigations should be interpreted.

5 How to perform the experiment and what tools are necessary for it.

In this way, Kuhn extracted a group of problems inside a given science. However, the proposed criteria of demarcation turned out not to be rational, especially for problems located outside the hard core of natural sciences. It was the upgrade made by Imre Lakatos (Lakatos, 1977) that allowed its application in social sciences. He introduced the term ‘good paradigm’, which should satisfy the following conditions:

1 Logical consistency (possibility of forming sentences with a fixed logical value).

2 Notional simplicity (lack of excess information or terms).

3 Creativity (which should inspire a formulation of new partial theories).

4 Transformation (is subject to updating and extension in time).

In other words, it should be possible to form falsifiable or verifiable theories on the basis of a good paradigm. Such theories should adequately explain known and observable facts. It is also valid for management sciences. It may therefore be concluded that paradigms, together with methodologies contained in them, delineate certain division borders within a given knowledge. If the term ‘demarcation problem’ is to be understood as a subset of problems of a given field of knowledge satisfying paradigmatic assumptions, then ‘selective demarcation’ understood in this way gains a meaning again from the point of view of the philosophy of science.

The following theses connected with the use of paradigms may be formulated: a paradigm encompasses a group of issues within a given science. Therefore, it defines a certain demarcation line of a problem belonging the paradigm.

1 If a given science consists of a certain number of issues and paradigms, it may be defined as a logical set of problems that may be divided onto subsets belonging to the given paradigms.

2 Sometimes a given problem may belong to more than one paradigm at the same time. Therefore, it may be possible to categorise paradigms as more or less general. Management sciences lack paradigms with a high level of generality.

Representative management in Kuhn–Lakatos–Laudan sense 413

3 The most general paradigms containing plenty of problems allow to form clear demarcation borders for a given science.

4 The most prospective approach to the problem of rationality of demarcation seems to be Laudan’s criterion (Laudan, 1983).

It may be concluded from the discussion above that the reductionist approach with refined falsificationism and Laudan’s criterion of classifying issues forming management sciences seems to be rational and may be considered the selective demarcation paradigm. Assuming that a paradigm should satisfy Kuhn–Lakatos requirements of its scientific nature, alongside Laudan’s criterion of rational demarcation, it may be concluded that the development of a given science will be based on the inclusion relation of new problems to the defined paradigms. The development of research will reduce the number of detailed paradigms forming more general ones and sharper demarcation borders. Ideally, one problem will belong to one, general paradigm. In the case of pre-paradigm sciences, to which management sciences belong, a certain fuzziness of demarcation and a number of less generalised paradigms may be observed. Therefore, a return to the problems of selective demarcation and reductionistic approach to management seems to be necessary.

3 Selective demarcation paradigm

Let there be set X consisting of elements that are problems of science xk and let P be a set of good paradigms in Kuhn–Lakatos sense pi belonging to the science. Then:

1 Set P is a Cartesian sum of pi.2 Each paradigm pi P defines a selective demarcation line for set X.3 If each demarcation line between paradigms is rational in Laudan’s sense, then as a

consequence of the fact that problem xk meets assumptions of paradigm pj, the problem is scientific and its attachment to paradigm pj is rational.

The presented selective demarcation paradigm is valid for both general approaches to the management science – reductionistic and holistic – if the Cartesian sum of paradigms may be assumed (which means that paradigm A should not be included in B). It allows to create a research program in Lakatos’ sense for pre-paradigm sciences, e.g. management sciences. Introducing the following paradigms or updating the existing ones in the course of scientific development leads to more precise and valuable selective demarcations and exchange problems between paradigms. It is also a clear and open structure for the consecutive attachments of problems and paradigms. Therefore, the selective demarcation paradigm is a valuable and useful tool.

4 Paradigm of representative isomorphism

Let there be a given composite entity (structure) S = [U,O,R] determined on economic objects U, called an organisation, consisting of:

1 non-empty set U of objects called Resource S 2 indexed set O of operations allowed on set U 3 non-empty, indexed set R of possible relations on set U,

414 T. Gospodarek

then:

1 Set S is an economic organisation in the resource approach with the defined state of resources at a given moment.

2 Management is defined as any process of change of the state of resources from A to a different state B, using allowed operations and relations.

3 If operating on elements that are isomorphic representations of the defined objects, relations or operations of structure S, some true observation sentences are derived, then the isomorphic set is a model of organisation S.

It is a very strong paradigm of modelling an organisation for a possible quantitative and topological description and optimisation. It defines a clear demarcation border for all undetermined structures or operations and relations that are impossible to describe. It does not include problems with non-measurable properties of resources such as the culture of an organisation and managerial leadership. However, it is possible to include this aspect after suitably modelling the problem. The paradigm assumes the existence of some isomorphisms representing, symbolically or mentally, real objects (e.g. documents representing processes and decisions).

One of the most important examples of a practical use of the paradigm of representative isomorphism is document representation connected with operational activities of the organisation, decision-making and management on every level of abstraction (including strategic management). What arises from the presented model is that when handling any operations with documents one obtains a real image of the organisation. In consequence, it leads to the conclusion that the document is a perfect numerical representation of non-mathematical processes. It means that a representative paradigm is applicable and allows to transfer ontological problems onto the syntactic level of any information system. In this context, the resource modelling paradigm of an organisation introduces the demarcation border for problems within the realm of management sciences. It is possible to create document representations of real business processes as semantic models and isomorphism of the organisation understood as the presented structure.

Let us illustrate the procedure of proving the scientific character and rationality of demarcation for the representative isomorphism according to the Kuhn–Lakatos–Laudan concept.

1 Logical consistency – formulating the paradigm in the form of logical sentences with fixed logical values ‘true’ for sentences 1 and 2, and modus ponendo ponens for sentence 3, fulfil the requirements. This paradigm offers neither a fuzzy deduction nor sentences without logical value.

2 Simplicity – the paradigm is defined as a set of simple sentences, which determine the organisation as a set of resources with a defined structure and relations. The applied syntax is simple and based on fundamental knowledge.

3 Creativity – based on the paradigm definition, a continuum of semantic models and numeric representations may be built. Further, partial theories and new problem developments of the paradigm range are possible. Other practical aspects offer a wide spectrum of possibilities, e.g. computer algorithms, computer-aided decision systems, models of development and strategy.

Representative management in Kuhn–Lakatos–Laudan sense 415

4 Transformability – the paradigm is an open type. It is possible to update it if some observations and meta-analyses arise in the future. It may also be possible to join it with another paradigm, forming a more general structure. In this way, its transformability is confirmed.

5 Scientific character – the following falsifying sentence may be formulated: if any isomorphic set with S does not form a model, then operating on the elements being not isomorphic representations of real objects or relations or operations of the structure S, true observation sentences will not be obtained.

Therefore, it has been shown that a paradigm may be falsified in the sense of modus tollendo tollens, which automatically confirms its scientific character. Moreover, it fulfils Lakatos’ requirements for a good paradigm of science. It must also be indicated that Laudan’s criterion of rational demarcation is satisfied by the paradigm of representative isomorphism. Because the scientific character has been proved, it is necessary to discuss the two remaining aspects.

1 Adequacy – adequacy is derived from the problem of adjusting ontological and semantic models to the reality of information technology. It eliminates the privileged role of humans in the organisation, which allows pure semantic and quantitative modelling of real business processes and a possibility of investigating economic interactions, treated as internal relations in the categories of black box simplification. Therefore, it is possible to define steady states of resources in different moments of time. It is possible to build some acceptable numerical morphic (or isomorphic) representations for computerisation purposes and, for that reason, all problems classified as belonging to the paradigm are appropriate for computer processing.

2 Consequences of demarcation – the last element in Laudan’s criterion of rationality may be presented as follows: the resource approach together with formalised representative isomorphism of the real problem legitimises the use of indirect methods of management. The optimisation of document and information circuit generates a topological fitting, which may be considered an interesting example of feedback. All problems inside the paradigm focus are computable. Semantic modelling offers wide research horizons and conceptual views onto organisation functionality. Special attention should be paid to the existence of economic equilibrium models such as Mundel–Fleming open economy, Arrow–Debreu with the function of utility, Nash equilibrium and Hurwicz model. All of the above-mentioned Nobel Prize models may be included in the paradigm of representative isomorphism. In conclusion, it may be stated that the consequences of demarcation for management sciences are very positive.

It means that the resource modelling paradigm of representative isomorphism is of the scientific type and forms a rational demarcation border for the problems of optimising organisational structure and topology.

5 Effective economic interaction paradigm

Let there be a given economic system consisting of any organisation interacting with its surroundings. For such a system, it is possible to define the function of state at any

416 T. Gospodarek

moment based on the quantitative description of organisation resources and a set of macroscopic perimeters describing the surroundings. It is possible to introduce the following paradigm of effective interaction.

The system consisting of any organisation and its surrounding interact with each other in the following way:

1 Some capital is transferred from the organisation to the surrounding or vice versa.

2 Organisation resources are changed.

Then, the following statements are true:

1 There is no interaction in which the only consequence is capital transfer from the organisation to its surroundings or vice versa.

2 Some capital is continuously scattered from the organisation in order to keep the stable state of its resources in time.

3 With rational management of interactions performed continuously, the system fulfils the requirements for Nash equilibrium in time (stable minimax state).

This definition of economic interaction is very important from the demarcation point of view. It takes into account only rational behaviours of systems, eliminating chaotic, turbulent and similar non-equilibrium states inadequate in the long term. Then, the paradigm proves that management is irrational.

In the first statement, the keyword is ‘the only’. It means that any capital transfer induces at least some measurable changes of the resources in organisation, e.g. increasing monetary actives, transfer of any part of resources, etc.

The second thesis describes the existence of measurable costs of any organisation resources. At every moment some rearrangements of resources, changes of their functionality, etc. are observed, but also costs of amortisation, personal costs, some accidental costs are paid. It means that some part of capital collected in the organisation is lost. For balance, these costs must be covered by rational interactions with the surroundings. Further, this is an observable fact.

The third thesis describes the meaning of rational action in management processes. The rationality in the paradigm sense bases on any minimum rule, e.g. capital scattering minimum, operational costs minimum by maximisation of any other element of interactions such as maximum sale or maximum capital transfer from the surroundings to the organisation. If a macroeconomic equilibrium is maintained, the organisation keeps constant capital exchange, stable in time with a certainty to fluctuate. The optimum state is achieved by a minimax (Nash equilibrium), a maximum capital exchange with minimum costs. It may also be maximum elasticity with minimum value of resources.

This paradigm distinguishes problems where decisions are irrational, omitting the minimax rules or rational behaviour. Simon’s theory of bounded rationality may be included in the paradigm focus, because mistakes of managers are understood as noise fluctuations of the general economic equilibrium. In general, managers try to make their decisions as rational as possible, but some of them are erroneous. In such cases the response of the surroundings is always the most effective and some loss of capital takes place then.

Representative management in Kuhn–Lakatos–Laudan sense 417

6 Rational management paradigm

This fundamental statement is based on the practical observation of almost all decision-making centres. They try to make optimum decisions under given conditions and surrounding context, defined by PEST analysis. However, optimum does not always mean rational in the direct-measurement sense. Because an optimum decision in the game theory sense depends on some non-measurable variables, additionally changing in time, a rational decision may be bounded. It is important to extract these problems where a decision is based on some measurement or another acceptable quantification. Based on the selective paradigm, it is possible to find such problems, where the activity scenario may be related to a defined model with numerical representation or where decision perimeters are measurable. In other words, there exists a utility function in the economic system that is useful for rational management.

If managing an organisation is represented by a set of decisions based on any minimum rules, then:

1 This organisation remains in the state of economic equilibrium and the management process may be considered rational.

2 The set of management decisions is always optimum from the managers’ point of view, which they try to confirm with defined measurements or numbers.

3 There exists a usability function that allows to evaluate rationality and optimisation of managing processes.

6.1 Lemma

When managing an organisation, some minimum rules and quantitative methods are used, the variational calculations or the game theory approach may be applied for describing its economic evolution in time.

This statement of the paradigm of optimum and rational management is a basis for selection of well-defined problems with semantic representations. It shows logical consequences of the using minimum rules in relation to the well-known mathematical methods. The above-mentioned paradigm should be applied together with the representative isomorphism paradigm.

7 Optimum topology paradigm

Apart from humanistic relations inside an organisation, the most important element of its structure is the document flow connected with the management of taxes and finances. This is one of the major determiners of optimum internal topology, from which it derives its financial organisation structure (centres of costs and benefits) and the definition of the semantic model of economical result. Therefore, it is possible to introduce the following fundamental paradigm of optimum topology.

Every organisation aims at achieving optimum topology and structure for maximising its economic efficiency. Therefore: 1 Rational management leads to the optimisation of its competency structure,

document flow and information exchange. 2 There is feedback between the optimum structure and economic efficiency of the

organisation.

418 T. Gospodarek

3 The process of topology optimisation is a consecutive approximation-like type.

4 Optimum topology forms a logical frame on the definitions and calculations of financial result.

Based on the optimum topology paradigm, each organisation should prepare the fundamental document – ‘policy of management’, which is a blueprint of all managing processes, used documents, information circuits, structure of organisation, reports, etc. This paradigm forms a logical frame on the optimum structure of the organisation derived from financial and legal boundaries. From the strategic management point of view, these are very important statements, eliminating non-computable approaches. All soft human relations may be changed inside the organisation, but the topology derived from financial frames is rigid and may be optimised in an evolutionary way.

8 ‘Representative management’ research program

Figure 1 presents the model of a rational management research program in Lakatos’ sense. It consists of five paradigms, as described above. According to the methodology of research programs, a ‘hard core’ is built from the following four paradigms:

1 representative isomorphism

2 effective interactions

3 rationality of management

4 optimum topology.

The ‘safety belt’ of the program contains possible abnormal observations, phenomena not described by paradigms of hard core, theories and hypotheses supporting paradigms, possible falsifications of paradigms, etc. As seen above, the development of science inside the research program ‘representative management’ will take place in the safety belt area, which will be related to new ideas, some attacks onto paradigms of the hard core and new observations that are impossible to describe. It is a consistent and logical way of evolution. The presented epistemological approach is creative and logically indexed. It is available to previous scientific achievements and concepts and is far from the postmodernist anarchy of methodology. There is a choice of problems for which it is possible to form numeric representations, a semantic model or measurable usability function. The remaining problems are outside the research program ‘representative management’, and should be the goals of other programs or epistemic approaches. It may be concluded that the Kuhn–Lakatos approach allows the creation of an interesting philosophical and logical model for management sciences.

Representative management in Kuhn–Lakatos–Laudan sense 419

Figure 1 Ontological scheme of the ‘representative research program’ (see online version for colours)

420 T. Gospodarek

9 Conclusions

The methodology presented here is a new original epistemic approach to the selective demarcation problem in management sciences, based on Laudan’s rationality criterion and Kuhn–Lakatos philosophical concepts of paradigm and research programs. It is a modern reductionist approach with possibilities of systemic use on problems of organisational interactions. Even postmodernist anarchism (Rorty, 1979) may be included into research program ‘representative management’ if some assumptions are met. It forms a natural and rational demarcation line for problems included in the catalogue of management sciences described in literature.

1 The research program ‘representative management’ in Lakatos’ sense is an excellent epistemological tool for semantic modelling of problems for management sciences, and allows their computerisation.

2 Paradigms of the program allow quantified axiology marking of managing and forming forecasts of organisation development based on usability functions or minimum rules.

3 It is possible to optimise managing processes using isomorphic modelling. This is the basis of numerical representations created for non-mathematical problems included in the program. What may be derived from it is the definition of usability functions, state of the system, etc.

4 Selective demarcation rationality allows a good conformity of use of some formal methodologies, e.g. logical frame approach (LFA), International Organization for Standardization (ISO) or Six Sigma.

5 The proposed methodology shows a clear possibility of dividing management sciences into measurable and/or minimum rule-applicable, qualifying them as applicable and non-applicable for computerisation.

6 The paradigms of the hard core of the research program are defined in such a way that they include the majority of the known measurable problems of management sciences.

7 The development of sciences takes place inside the safety belt, where for any new problems, observations or hypotheses it is necessary to find either a metric or minimum rule, or proving that none of the hard core paradigms encompasses the issue (attack on the research program).

8 Inside the safety belt, it is possible to create some support models for the hard core paradigms support.

This classification of problems of management sciences is a consistent and logical methodological system. The most interesting benefit of its use is the existence of numeric representations of a given problem, assuming that its application for the management research program is proved.

Representative management in Kuhn–Lakatos–Laudan sense 421

References Feyerabend, P.K. (1993) Against Method (3rd ed.). London, UK: Verso (original New Left Books

1975). Kuhn, T.S. (1966) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (3rd ed.). Chicago, IL; London, UK:

University of Chicago Press. Lakatos, I. (1977) ‘The methodology of scientific research programmes’, Philosophical Papers.

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, Vol. 1. Lakatos, I. and Musgrave A. E. (eds.) (1977) ‘Criticism and the growth of knowledge’, Paper

presented in the Proceedings of the International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science,London 1965, Vol. 4, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Laudan, L. (1983) ‘The Demise of demarcation problem’, in R.S. Cohen and L. Laudan L. (Eds), Physics, Philosophy and Psychoanalysis. Essays in Honor of Adolf Grünbaum, BSPS, Dordrecht-Boston-Lancaster: Reidel Publishing Co., Vol. 76.

MacMorris, N. (1989) The Natures of Science. New York, NY: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.

Popper, K.R. (2002) The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Rutledge (orig. Logik der Forshung 1934, First English ed. 1959).

Rorty, R. (1979) Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.