BODIJA JOURNAL | A Philosophico-Theologal Journal

Natural Science enjoys unparalleled prestige compared to other disciplines in today?s society. Scientific theories are not just taken as models after which other theories are to be judged, they are often considered to be something of a different nature to theories in other disciplines especially the Arts and Humanities. Courts, for instance, do not acquit or discharge anyone on the expert witness of a theologian or a novelist for instance, but it does on the witness of scientists. While theories in the sciences are said to be objective, indubitable and verifiable, the theories of other disciplines are said to be assumptions adopted by the practitioners of the discipline or better still, statistical conclusions fused with lots of probability. This paper aims at a philosophical examination of the structure of scientific theories with the purpose of showing what the intricate characteristics theories in science share with theories in other disciplines. Through a look at the various views presented on the structure of scientific theories, the paper argues that scientific theories, like in other disciplines, are axiomatic laws derived from regularities observed in everyday life and nature. And like other theories outside science, they are under-determined. The paper employs an expository methodology in showing that the views and axiomatisation of scientific theories are offshoots of logical positivism, mechanistic materialism and Neo-Kantianism fused together. Just as these philosophical theories have shaped the history of thoughts, they have equally influenced the evolution of scientific theories.

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