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Author:
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080548547
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 713
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Book Description
Scientists use concepts and principles that are partly specific for their subject matter, but they also share part of them with colleagues working in different fields. Compare the biological notion of a 'natural kind' with the general notion of 'confirmation' of a hypothesis by certain evidence. Or compare the physical principle of the 'conservation of energy' and the general principle of 'the unity of science'. Scientists agree that all such notions and principles aren't as crystal clear as one might wish. An important task of the philosophy of the special sciences, such as philosophy of physics, of biology and of economics, to mention only a few of the many flourishing examples, is the clarification of such subject specific concepts and principles. Similarly, an important task of 'general' philosophy of science is the clarification of concepts like 'confirmation' and principles like 'the unity of science'. It is evident that clarfication of concepts and principles only makes sense if one tries to do justice, as much as possible, to the actual use of these notions by scientists, without however following this use slavishly. That is, occasionally a philosopher may have good reasons for suggesting to scientists that they should deviate from a standard use. Frequently, this amounts to a plea for differentiation in order to stop debates at cross-purposes due to the conflation of different meanings. While the special volumes of the series of Handbooks of the Philosophy of Science address topics relative to a specific discipline, this general volume deals with focal issues of a general nature. After an editorial introduction about the dominant method of clarifying concepts and principles in philosophy of science, called explication, the first five chapters deal with the following subjects. Laws, theories, and research programs as units of empirical knowledge (Theo Kuipers), various past and contemporary perspectives on explanation (Stathis Psillos), the evaluation of theories in terms of their virtues (Ilkka Niiniluto), and the role of experiments in the natural sciences, notably physics and biology (Allan Franklin), and their role in the social sciences, notably economics (Wenceslao Gonzalez). In the subsequent three chapters there is even more attention to various positions and methods that philosophers of science and scientists may favor: ontological, epistemological, and methodological positions (James Ladyman), reduction, integration, and the unity of science as aims in the sciences and the humanities (William Bechtel and Andrew Hamilton), and logical, historical and computational approaches to the philosophy of science (Atocha Aliseda and Donald Gillies).The volume concludes with the much debated question of demarcating science from nonscience (Martin Mahner) and the rich European-American history of the philosophy of science in the 20th century (Friedrich Stadler). - Comprehensive coverage of the philosophy of science written by leading philosophers in this field - Clear style of writing for an interdisciplinary audience - No specific pre-knowledge required
Author:
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080548547
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 713
Get Book Here
Book Description
Scientists use concepts and principles that are partly specific for their subject matter, but they also share part of them with colleagues working in different fields. Compare the biological notion of a 'natural kind' with the general notion of 'confirmation' of a hypothesis by certain evidence. Or compare the physical principle of the 'conservation of energy' and the general principle of 'the unity of science'. Scientists agree that all such notions and principles aren't as crystal clear as one might wish. An important task of the philosophy of the special sciences, such as philosophy of physics, of biology and of economics, to mention only a few of the many flourishing examples, is the clarification of such subject specific concepts and principles. Similarly, an important task of 'general' philosophy of science is the clarification of concepts like 'confirmation' and principles like 'the unity of science'. It is evident that clarfication of concepts and principles only makes sense if one tries to do justice, as much as possible, to the actual use of these notions by scientists, without however following this use slavishly. That is, occasionally a philosopher may have good reasons for suggesting to scientists that they should deviate from a standard use. Frequently, this amounts to a plea for differentiation in order to stop debates at cross-purposes due to the conflation of different meanings. While the special volumes of the series of Handbooks of the Philosophy of Science address topics relative to a specific discipline, this general volume deals with focal issues of a general nature. After an editorial introduction about the dominant method of clarifying concepts and principles in philosophy of science, called explication, the first five chapters deal with the following subjects. Laws, theories, and research programs as units of empirical knowledge (Theo Kuipers), various past and contemporary perspectives on explanation (Stathis Psillos), the evaluation of theories in terms of their virtues (Ilkka Niiniluto), and the role of experiments in the natural sciences, notably physics and biology (Allan Franklin), and their role in the social sciences, notably economics (Wenceslao Gonzalez). In the subsequent three chapters there is even more attention to various positions and methods that philosophers of science and scientists may favor: ontological, epistemological, and methodological positions (James Ladyman), reduction, integration, and the unity of science as aims in the sciences and the humanities (William Bechtel and Andrew Hamilton), and logical, historical and computational approaches to the philosophy of science (Atocha Aliseda and Donald Gillies).The volume concludes with the much debated question of demarcating science from nonscience (Martin Mahner) and the rich European-American history of the philosophy of science in the 20th century (Friedrich Stadler). - Comprehensive coverage of the philosophy of science written by leading philosophers in this field - Clear style of writing for an interdisciplinary audience - No specific pre-knowledge required
Author: John Perry
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 884
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Book Description
Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings, Fifth Edition, is the most comprehensive topically organized collection of classical and contemporary philosophy available. Building on the exceptionally successful tradition of previous editions, the fifth edition presents seventy substantial selections from the best and most influential works in philosophy. Revised and updated to make it more pedagogical, this edition incorporates boldfaced key terms; a guide to writing philosophy papers; and a "Logical Toolkit," which lists and explains common terminology used in philosophical reasoning. This edition also features five new readings and a separate section on existential issues.
Author: Richard Rorty
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108488455
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 263
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Book Description
"Philosophers suffer from a peculiar occupational hazard; people are always coming up and asking them just what it is that they do and how they do it. This is not the sort of question that biologists or economists or musicians get asked; people know, pretty well, what they do, and they may or may not be interested in the details. But a philosopher is different - it is very hard to imagine just what he does with his time"--
Author: Peter Adamson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199674531
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369
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Book Description
Readership: Anyone interested in philosophy, the history of ideas, or the ancient Greek world
Author: Mel Thompson
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
ISBN: 9780071419642
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Mel Thompson is a freelance writer and editor, specializing in philosophy, religion and ethics.
Author: Matthew Chrisman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315449757
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 187
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Book Description
Philosophy for Everyone begins by explaining what philosophy is before exploring the questions and issues at the foundation of this important subject. Key topics in this new edition and their areas of focus include: Moral philosophy – the nature of our moral judgments and reactions, whether they aim at some objective moral truth, or are mere personal or cultural preferences; and the possibility of moral responsibility given the sorts of things that cause behavior; Political philosophy – fundamental questions about the nature of states and their relationship to the citizens within those states Epistemology – what our knowledge of the world and ourselves consists in, and how we come to have it; and whether we should form beliefs by trusting what other people tell us; Philosophy of mind – what it means for something to have a mind, and how minds should be understood and explained; Philosophy of science – foundational conceptual issues in scientific research and practice, such as whether scientific theories are true; and Metaphysics - fundamental questions about the nature of reality, such as whether we have free will, or whether time travel is possible. This book is designed to be used in conjunction with the free ‘Introduction to Philosophy’ MOOC (massive open online course) created by the University of Edinburgh’s Eidyn research centre, and hosted by the Coursera platform (www.coursera.org/course/introphil).This book is also highly recommended for anyone looking for a short overview of this fascinating discipline.
Author: Douglas ALLEN
Publisher: Zeta Books
ISBN: 6066971301
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 214
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Book Description
The time for what? The title of Mihaela Gligor’s edited collection is wonderfully flexible, as anything having to do with time should be. There is something not only boundless about time, but also raw and untamed. In its pure form, time would be too much for us to handle. We would be crushed by the sheer immensity of it, or else we would lose our minds trying to make sense of such unmediated time. Luckily, for the most part we don’t experience time in its pure form. Time comes to us already processed: shaped, engineered, tamed. The volume does fine justice to the notion that we experience time as already shaped by religion, politics, and culture. Whether its contributions cover religious or political figures, philosophers or poets, mystics or physicists, they show – sometimes explicitly, sometimes more discreetly – how difficult it is to deal with time in a pure, unmediated form. The contributors’ cultural, religious, and intellectual rooting inform the way think about time, just as about anything else. Which, far from being a weakness, is something to be recognized and celebrated. (Costică Brădățan, Texas Tech University, U.S.A.)
Author: Simon Blackburn
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0199769842
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 317
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Book Description
This is a book about the big questions in life: knowledge, consciousness, fate, God, truth, goodness, justice. It is for anyone who believes there are big questions out there, but does not know how to approach them. Think sets out to explain what they are and why they are important. Simon Blackburn begins by putting forward a convincing case for the study of philosophy and goes on to give the reader a sense of how the great historical figures such as Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Wittgenstein have approached its central themes. Each chapter explains a major issue, and gives the reader a self-contained guide through the problems that philosophers have studied. The large scope of topics covered range from scepticism, the self, mond and body, and freedom to ethics and the arguments surrounding the existence of God. Lively and approachable, this book is ideal for all those who want to learn how the basic techniques of thinking shape our existence.
Author: Nicolas Laos
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781536195170
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Intro -- Contents -- Prolegomena by Giuliano di Bernardo -- Preface -- The Scope and the Structure of this Project -- Acknowledgments -- Chapter 1 -- Philosophy, Science, and The Dialectic of Rational Dynamicity -- 1.1. The Meaning of Philosophy and Preliminary Concepts -- 1.2. The Abstract Study of a Being -- 1.2.1. Epistemological Presuppositions -- 1.2.2. The Significance and the Presence of a Being -- 1.2.3. The Knowledge of a Being -- Structuralism in Physics -- Newton's Three Laws of Kinematics -- Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation -- Conservation of Mass and Energy -- Laws of Thermodynamics -- Electrostatic Laws -- Quantum Mechanics -- Structuralism in Biology -- Structuralism in Linguistics -- Philosophical Structuralism and Hermeneutics -- 1.2.4. The Modes of Being -- 1.3. The Dialectic of Rational Dynamicity -- 1.3.1. Dynamized Time -- 1.3.2. Dynamized Space and the Problem of the Extension of the Quantum Formalism -- 1.3.3. Consciousness, the World, and the Dialectic of Rational Dynamicity -- 1.3.4. Matter, Life, and Consciousness -- Chapter 2 -- Foundations of Mathematical Analysis and Analytic Geometry -- 2.1. Sets, Relations, and Groups -- 2.1.2. Basic Operations on Sets -- Applications of Set Theory to Probability Theory -- 2.1.3. Relations -- 2.1.4. Groups -- 2.2. Number Systems, Algebra, and Geometry -- 2.2.1. Axiomatic Number Theory -- The System of Natural Numbers -- Principle of Mathematical Induction -- Recursion -- Properties of the System of Natural Numbers -- Enumeration -- Order in N and Ordinal Numbers -- Division -- 2.2.2. The Set of Integral Numbers -- 2.2.3. The Set of Rational Numbers -- 2.2.4. The Set of Real Numbers -- Dedekind Algebra -- R as a Field -- The Absolute Value of a Real Number -- Exponentiation and Logarithm -- Properties of the System of the Real Numbers.
Author: Penelope Maddy
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190618698
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
How do you know the world around you isn't just an elaborate dream, or the creation of an evil neuroscientist? If all you have to go on are various lights, sounds, smells, tastes and tickles, how can you know what the world is really like, or even whether there is a world beyond your own mind? Questions like these -- familiar from science fiction and dorm room debates -- lie at the core of venerable philosophical arguments for radical skepticism: the stark contention that we in fact know nothing at all about the world, that we have no more reason to believe any claim -- that there are trees, that we have hands -- than we have to disbelieve it. Like non-philosophers in their sober moments, philosophers, too, find this skeptical conclusion preposterous, but they're faced with those famous arguments: the Dream Argument, the Argument from Illusion, the Infinite Regress of Justification, the more recent Closure Argument. If these can't be met, they raise a serious challenge not just to philosophers, but to anyone responsible enough to expect her beliefs to square with her evidence. What Do Philosophers Do? takes up the skeptical arguments from this everyday point of view, and ultimately concludes that they don't undermine our ordinary beliefs or our ordinary ways of finding out about the world. In the process, Maddy examines and evaluates a range of philosophical methods -- common sense, scientific naturalism, ordinary language, conceptual analysis, therapeutic approaches -- as employed by such philosophers as Thomas Reid, G. E. Moore, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and J. L. Austin. The result is a revealing portrait of what philosophers do, and perhaps a quiet suggestion for what they should do, for what they do best.
