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Author: Jerrold L. Aronson
Publisher: Open Court Publishing
ISBN: 9780812692884
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 236
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Book Description
Does science give us a progressively more accurate and objective account of the world? This book by three leading philosophers of science presents a new defense of scientific realism against skeptical and positivist attacks. While positivists view scientific theories as devices for predicting observable phenomena, realists maintain that theories describe hidden processes which account for observable phenomena. This problem raises the question: What are scientific theories about? Do they refer to an unobservable yet real realm of physical processes? It seems undeniable that the scientific endeavor has in some sense made progress. But is the increasing practical success of the physical sciences good grounds for believing that their theories and techniques lead us nearer to the truth? According to Aronson, Harre, and Way, past failures to answer these questions have been due in large part to the assumption that knowledge is expressed in propositions and organized by the canons of logic. On the assumption that science must meet the world in a correspondence between statements and states of affairs, realism turns out to be difficult to defend. Realism Rescued offers a new direction, relying on the importance of models in scientific work. Theories are not to be thought of as sets of propositions, though they can be expressed propositionally. Rather they are models, chunks of orderings of natural kinds. For the first time, the indispensability of models is turned into a powerful argument for realism, an argument that confronts the skeptic on his own ground. By drawing on a new technique of knowledge representation developed in Artificial Intelligence, the dynamic type-hierarchy, the authorsgive a convincing account of the central role of models. Such concepts as verisimilitude, natural kind, natural necessity, and natural law can then be presented far more clearly than ever before.
Author: Jerrold L. Aronson
Publisher: Open Court Publishing
ISBN: 9780812692884
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 236
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Book Description
Does science give us a progressively more accurate and objective account of the world? This book by three leading philosophers of science presents a new defense of scientific realism against skeptical and positivist attacks. While positivists view scientific theories as devices for predicting observable phenomena, realists maintain that theories describe hidden processes which account for observable phenomena. This problem raises the question: What are scientific theories about? Do they refer to an unobservable yet real realm of physical processes? It seems undeniable that the scientific endeavor has in some sense made progress. But is the increasing practical success of the physical sciences good grounds for believing that their theories and techniques lead us nearer to the truth? According to Aronson, Harre, and Way, past failures to answer these questions have been due in large part to the assumption that knowledge is expressed in propositions and organized by the canons of logic. On the assumption that science must meet the world in a correspondence between statements and states of affairs, realism turns out to be difficult to defend. Realism Rescued offers a new direction, relying on the importance of models in scientific work. Theories are not to be thought of as sets of propositions, though they can be expressed propositionally. Rather they are models, chunks of orderings of natural kinds. For the first time, the indispensability of models is turned into a powerful argument for realism, an argument that confronts the skeptic on his own ground. By drawing on a new technique of knowledge representation developed in Artificial Intelligence, the dynamic type-hierarchy, the authorsgive a convincing account of the central role of models. Such concepts as verisimilitude, natural kind, natural necessity, and natural law can then be presented far more clearly than ever before.
Author: Christopher Norris
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000143457
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 262
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Book Description
Through a close engagement with some key thinkers, Norris argues that deconstruction is part of the "unfinished project of modernity." a project whose interest and values it upholds by continuing to question them in a spirit of enlightened self-critical inquiry.
Author: Juha Saatsi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351362917
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 471
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Book Description
Scientific realism is a central, long-standing, and hotly debated topic in philosophy of science. Debates about scientific realism concern the very nature and extent of scientific knowledge and progress. Scientific realists defend a positive epistemic attitude towards our best theories and models regarding how they represent the world that is unobservable to our naked senses. Various realist theses are under sceptical fire from scientific antirealists, e.g. empiricists and instrumentalists. The different dimensions of the ensuing debate centrally connect to numerous other topics in philosophy of science and beyond. The Routledge Handbook of Scientific Realism is an outstanding reference source – the first collection of its kind – to the key issues, positions, and arguments in this important topic. Its thirty-four chapters, written by a team of international experts, are divided into five parts: Historical development of the realist stance Classic debate: core issues and positions Perspectives on contemporary debates The realism debate in disciplinary context Broader reflections In these sections, the core issues and debates presented, analysed, and set into broader historical and disciplinary contexts. The central issues covered include motivations and arguments for realism; challenges to realism from underdetermination and history of science; different variants of realism; the connection of realism to relativism and perspectivism; and the relationship between realism, metaphysics, and epistemology. The Routledge Handbook of Scientific Realism is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of science. It will also be very useful for anyone interested in the nature and extent of scientific knowledge.
Author: Marc Botha
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472526546
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 299
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Book Description
The explosion of minimalism into the worlds of visual arts, music and literature in the mid-to-late twentieth century presents one of the most radical and decisive revolutions in aesthetic history. Detested by some, embraced by others, minimalism's influence was immediate, pervasive and lasting, significantly changing the way we hear music, see art and read literature. In The Theory of Minimalism, Marc Botha offers the first general theory of minimalism, equally applicable to literature, the visual arts and music. He argues that minimalism establishes an aesthetic paradigm for rethinking realism in genuinely radical terms. In dialogue with thinkers from both the analytic and continental traditions – including Kant, Danto, Agamben, Badiou and Meillassoux – Botha develops a constellation of concepts which together encapsulate the transhistorcial and transdisciplinary reach of minimalism. Illustrated by a range of historical, canonical and contemporary minimalist works of different media, from the caves of early Christian ascetics to Samuel Beckett's late prose, Botha offers a bold and provocative argument which will equip readers with the tools to engage critically with past, present and future minimalism, and to recognize how, in a culture caught between the poles of excess and austerity, minimalism still matters.
Author: Christopher Norris
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474471366
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 241
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Book Description
Truth Matters is the first full-length introduction to the philosophical issue of response-dependence.
Author: Zdravko Radman
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110867834
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 472
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Book Description
Author: Ian Verstegen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135099626
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 194
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Book Description
As the theoretical alignments within academia shift, this book introduces a surprising variety of realism to abolish the old positivist-theory dichotomy that has haunted Art History. Demanding frankly the referential detachment of the objects under study, the book proposes a stratified, multi-causal account of art history that addresses postmodern concerns while saving it from its errors of self-refutation. Building from the very basic distinction between intransitive being and transitive knowing, objects can be affirmed as real while our knowledge of them is held to be fallible. Several focused chapters address basic problems while introducing philosophical reflection into art history. These include basic ontological distinctions between society and culture, general and “special” history, the discontinuity of cultural objects, the importance of definition for special history, scales, facets and fiat objects as forms of historical structure, the nature of evidence and proof, historical truth and controversies. Stressing Critical Realism as the stratified, multi-causal approach needed for productive research today in the academy, this book creates the subject of the ontology of art history and sets aside a theoretical space for metaphysical reflection, thus clarifying the usually muddy distinction between theory, methodology, and historiography in art history.
Author: Ann P. Bishop
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262025447
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 362
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Book Description
Viewing digital libraries as sociotechnical systems, networks of people and technology interacting with society.
Author: Christopher Norris
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1847144608
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 214
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Book Description
Christopher Norris presents a wide-ranging and distinctively angled perspective on many of the most challenging topics in current philosophical debate and explores a range of issues in epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of mind, language, and logic. The book marks a further stage in the author's project of developing a realist, truth-based approach that would point a way beyond the various unresolved dilemmas and dichotomies bequeathed by old-style logical empiricism. In a series of closely argued chapters Norris draws out the two chief kinds of deficit - normative and causal-explanatory - that have characterised much recent work in the analytic line of descent. He gives a shrewd diagnostic account of the rift that opened up between the two traditions of contemporary philosophic thought, one consequence of which was the analytic failure to develop precisely those normative resources that were needed in order to break out of that impasse. The book also engages critically with the work of Donald Davidson, Saul Kripke, John McDowell, Hilary Putnam, Neil Tennant, and Crispin Wright, and mounts a vigorous challenge to the prominent strain of anti-realist thinking developed on logico-semantic and metaphysical grounds by Michael Dummett.
Author: Michael Krausz
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742511699
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 194
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Book Description
SCOTT (copy 1): From the John Holmes Library collection.
