Resisting Scientific Realism

Resisting Scientific Realism PDF Author: K. Brad Wray
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108415210
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Provides a spirited defence of anti-realism in philosophy of science. Shows the historical evidence and logical challenges facing scientific realism.

Resisting Scientific Realism

Resisting Scientific Realism PDF Author: K. Brad Wray
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108415210
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 237

Get Book Here

Book Description
Provides a spirited defence of anti-realism in philosophy of science. Shows the historical evidence and logical challenges facing scientific realism.

Resisting Scientific Realism

Resisting Scientific Realism PDF Author: K. Brad Wray
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108244564
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
In this book K. Brad Wray provides a comprehensive survey of the arguments against scientific realism. In addition to presenting logical considerations that undermine the realists' inferences to the likely truth or approximate truth of our theories, he provides a thorough assessment of the evidence from the history of science. He also examines grounds for a defence of anti-realism, including an anti-realist explanation for the success of our current theories, an account of why false theories can be empirically successful, and an explanation for why we should expect radical changes of theory in the future. His arguments are supported and illustrated by cases from the history of science, including a sustained study of the Copernican Revolution, and a study of the revolution in early twentieth century chemistry, when chemists came to classify elements by their atomic number rather than by their atomic weight.

Kuhn's Intellectual Path

Kuhn's Intellectual Path PDF Author: K. Brad Wray
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316512177
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
Examines the influences on and impact of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Scientific Realism

Scientific Realism PDF Author: Stathis Psillos
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134619820
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Scientific realism is the optimistic view that modern science is on the right track. This book argues that the history of science does not undermine this notion, suggesting it as the best philosophical account of science.

Interpreting Kuhn

Interpreting Kuhn PDF Author: K. Brad Wray
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108498299
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
"One might wonder if there is anything new to say about Thomas Kuhn and his views on science. Scholarship on Kuhn, though, has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. This is so for a number reasons"--

Theoretical Virtues in Science

Theoretical Virtues in Science PDF Author: Samuel Schindler
Publisher:
ISBN: 1108422268
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
In-depth discussion of the value of scientific theories, bringing together and advancing current important debates in realism.

Science as Social Existence

Science as Social Existence PDF Author: Jeff Kochan
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 1783744138
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
In this bold and original study, Jeff Kochan constructively combines the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) with Martin Heidegger’s early existential conception of science. Kochan shows convincingly that these apparently quite different approaches to science are, in fact, largely compatible, even mutually reinforcing. By combining Heidegger with SSK, Kochan argues, we can explicate, elaborate, and empirically ground Heidegger’s philosophy of science in a way that makes it more accessible and useful for social scientists and historians of science. Likewise, incorporating Heideggerian phenomenology into SSK renders SKK a more robust and attractive methodology for use by scholars in the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). Kochan’s ground-breaking reinterpretation of Heidegger also enables STS scholars to sustain a principled analytical focus on scientific subjectivity, without running afoul of the orthodox subject-object distinction they often reject. Science as Social Existence is the first book of its kind, unfurling its argument through a range of topics relevant to contemporary STS research. These include the epistemology and metaphysics of scientific practice, as well as the methods of explanation appropriate to social scientific and historical studies of science. Science as Social Existence puts concentrated emphasis on the compatibility of Heidegger’s existential conception of science with the historical sociology of scientific knowledge, pursuing this combination at both macro- and micro-historical levels. Beautifully written and accessible, Science as Social Existence puts new and powerful tools into the hands of sociologists and historians of science, cultural theorists of science, Heidegger scholars, and pluralist philosophers of science.

Knowledge and Inquiry

Knowledge and Inquiry PDF Author: K. Brad Wray
Publisher: Broadview Press
ISBN: 9781551114132
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
This anthology focuses on three areas in the theory of knowledge: epistemic justification; analyses of knowledge and scepticism; and recent developments in epistemology. Each of the three sections includes a brief introduction to the readings, a series of study questions, and a list of suggested readings. Section 1 deals with coherentism, foundationalism, reliabilism, and includes articles by Chisholm, BonJour, Audi, Goldman, and Fumerton. Section 2 deals with the analysis of knowledge and Gettier problems, and a variety of forms and responses to scepticism; it includes articles by Gettier, Conee, Feldman, Putnam, Nagel, and Stroud. Section 3 introduces the reader to recent developments in naturalized, feminist, and social epistemology, and includes articles by Quine, Almeder, Putnam, Anderson, Harding, Longino, Hardwig, Rorty, and Kitcher.

Kuhn's Evolutionary Social Epistemology

Kuhn's Evolutionary Social Epistemology PDF Author: K. Brad Wray
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139503464
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962) has been enduringly influential in philosophy of science, challenging many common presuppositions about the nature of science and the growth of scientific knowledge. However, philosophers have misunderstood Kuhn's view, treating him as a relativist or social constructionist. In this book, Brad Wray argues that Kuhn provides a useful framework for developing an epistemology of science that takes account of the constructive role that social factors play in scientific inquiry. He examines the core concepts of Structure and explains the main characteristics of both Kuhn's evolutionary epistemology and his social epistemology, relating Structure to Kuhn's developed view presented in his later writings. The discussion includes analyses of the Copernican revolution in astronomy and the plate tectonics revolution in geology. The book will be useful for scholars working in science studies, sociologists and historians of science as well as philosophers of science.

The Fight Against Doubt

The Fight Against Doubt PDF Author: Inmaculada de Melo-Martín
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190869259
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
The lack of public support for climate change policies and refusals to vaccinate children are just two alarming illustrations of the impacts of dissent about scientific claims. Dissent can lead to confusion, false beliefs, and widespread public doubt about highly justified scientific evidence. Even more dangerously, it has begun to corrode the very authority of scientific consensus and knowledge. Deployed aggressively and to political ends, some dissent can intimidate scientists, stymie research, and lead both the public and policymakers to oppose important public policies firmly rooted in science. To criticize dissent is, however, a fraught exercise. Skepticism and fearless debate are key to the scientific process, making it both vital and incredibly difficult to characterize and identify dissent that is problematic in its approach and consequences. Indeed, as de Melo-Martín and Intemann show, the criteria commonly proposed as means of identifying inappropriate dissent are flawed and the strategies generally recommended to tackle such dissent are not only ineffective but could even make the situation worse. The Fight Against Doubt proposes that progress on this front can best be achieved by enhancing the trustworthiness of the scientific community and by being more realistic about the limits of science when it comes to policymaking. It shows that a richer understanding of the context in which science operates is needed to disarm problematic dissent and those who deploy it. This, the authors argue, is the best way forward, rather than diagnosing the many instances of wrong-headed dissent.