Making Prehistory

Making Prehistory PDF Author: Derek Turner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139465058
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
Scientists often make surprising claims about things that no one can observe. In physics, chemistry, and molecular biology, scientists can at least experiment on those unobservable entities, but what about researchers in fields such as paleobiology and geology who study prehistory, where no such experimentation is possible? Do scientists discover facts about the distant past or do they, in some sense, make prehistory? In this book Derek Turner argues that this problem has surprising and important consequences for the scientific realism debate. His discussion covers some of the main positions in philosophy of science - realism, social constructivism, empiricism, and the natural ontological attitude - and shows how they relate to issues in paleobiology and geology. His original and thought-provoking book will be of wide interest to philosophers and scientists alike.

Making Prehistory

Making Prehistory PDF Author: Derek Turner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139465058
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 195

Get Book Here

Book Description
Scientists often make surprising claims about things that no one can observe. In physics, chemistry, and molecular biology, scientists can at least experiment on those unobservable entities, but what about researchers in fields such as paleobiology and geology who study prehistory, where no such experimentation is possible? Do scientists discover facts about the distant past or do they, in some sense, make prehistory? In this book Derek Turner argues that this problem has surprising and important consequences for the scientific realism debate. His discussion covers some of the main positions in philosophy of science - realism, social constructivism, empiricism, and the natural ontological attitude - and shows how they relate to issues in paleobiology and geology. His original and thought-provoking book will be of wide interest to philosophers and scientists alike.

The Realism-Antirealism Debate in the Age of Alternative Logics

The Realism-Antirealism Debate in the Age of Alternative Logics PDF Author: Shahid Rahman
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 940071923X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
The relation between logic and knowledge has been at the heart of a lively debate since the 1960s. On the one hand, the epistemic approaches based their formal arguments in the mathematics of Brouwer and intuitionistic logic. Following Michael Dummett, they started to call themselves `antirealists'. Others persisted with the formal background of the Frege-Tarski tradition, where Cantorian set theory is linked via model theory to classical logic. Jaakko Hintikka tried to unify both traditions by means of what is now known as `explicit epistemic logic'. Under this view, epistemic contents are introduced into the object language as operators yielding propositions from propositions, rather than as metalogical constraints on the notion of inference. The Realism-Antirealism debate has thus had three players: classical logicians, intuitionists and explicit epistemic logicians. The editors of the present volume believe that in the age of Alternative Logics, where manifold developments in logic happen at a breathtaking pace, this debate should be revisited. Contributors to this volume happily took on this challenge and responded with new approaches to the debate from both the explicit and the implicit epistemic point of view.

The Idealism-Realism Debate Among Edmund Husserl’s Early Followers and Critics

The Idealism-Realism Debate Among Edmund Husserl’s Early Followers and Critics PDF Author: Rodney K. B. Parker
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030621596
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
This volume aims to contextualize the development and reception of Husserl’s transcendental-phenomenological idealism by placing him in dialogue with his most important interlocutors – his mentors, peers, and students. Husserl’s “turn” to idealism and the ensuing reaction to Ideas I resulted in a schism between the early members of the phenomenological movement. The division between the realist and the transcendental phenomenologists is often portrayed as a sharp one, with the realists naively and dogmatically rejecting all of Husserl’s written work after the Logical Investigations. However, this understanding of the trajectory of the phenomenological movement ignores the extensive and intricate contours of the idealism-realism debate. In addition to helping us better interpret Husserl’s attempts to defend his idealism, reconsidering the idealism-realism debate elucidates the relationship and differences between Husserl's phenomenology and the broader landscape of early 20th century German philosophy, particularly the Munich phenomenologists and the Neo-Kantians. The contributions to this volume reconsider many of the early interpretations and critiques of Husserl, inviting readers to assess the merits of the arguments put forward by his critics while also shedding new light on their so-called “misunderstandings” of his idealism. This text should be of interest to researchers working in the history of phenomenology and Husserlian studies.

Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science

Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science PDF Author: Shahid Rahman
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402028083
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 618

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Book Description
The first volume in this new series explores, through extensive co-operation, new ways of achieving the integration of science in all its diversity. The book offers essays from important and influential philosophers in contemporary philosophy, discussing a range of topics from philosophy of science to epistemology, philosophy of logic and game theoretical approaches. It will be of interest to philosophers, computer scientists and all others interested in the scientific rationality.

Realism and the Balancing of Power

Realism and the Balancing of Power PDF Author: John A. Vasquez
Publisher: Pearson
ISBN: 9780130908667
Category : Balance of power
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book explores all aspects of an important scholarly debate that has widespread implications for the political world, including the making of foreign policy--i.e., a debate over whether the contemporary theory of the balance of power as presented by Kenneth Waltz is a scientifically acceptable theory. It allows readers to examine and analyze the different views (in their original form) by all those in the debate and to come to their own conclusions. An Introduction gives an overview of the debate, defines and clarifies in simple language some of the major concepts used in philosophy of science, sets the historical context of the debate, and explains why it is important for both international relations theory and foreign policy making. An editorial commentary for each article highlights areas of agreement and disagreement with the other authors. First presents the original articles in the initial debate with responses from several of the leading international relations theorists in the field--Kenneth Waltz, Thomas Christensen, Jack Snyder, Colin Elman, Miriam Fendius Elman, Randall Schweller, and Stephen Walt. Then features response from scholars who take differing methodological approaches and who have disparate views on realism and balancing of power (e.g., Jack S. Levy, Paul W. Schroeder, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Zeev Maoz, Richard Rosecrance, Charles L. Glaser, William C. Wohlforth, Michael Barnett). For anyone interested in the philosophical underpinnings of international relations.

Philosophy of Science

Philosophy of Science PDF Author: Samir Okasha
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198745583
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
What is science? -- Scientific inference -- Explanation in science -- Realism and anti-realism -- Scientific change and scientific revolutions -- Philosophical problems in physics, biology, and psychology -- Science and its critics.

International Relations and the First Great Debate

International Relations and the First Great Debate PDF Author: Brian Schmidt
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136319123
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
This book provides an authoritative account of the controversy about the first great debate in the field of International Relations. Of all the self-images of International Relations, none is as pervasive and enduring as the notion that a great debate pitting idealists against realists took place in the 1940s. The story of the first great debate continues to structure the contemporary identity of International Relations, yet in recent years revisionist historians have challenged the conventional wisdom that the field experienced such a debate. Drawing on expert contributors working in Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States, this book includes key participants in the historiographical controversy. The book assembles the existing scholarship and provides a thorough analysis of the status of the first great debate in the history of International Relations. It is an invaluable examination of the causes and future direction of idealist and realist arguments. International Relations and the First Great Debate will be of interest to students and scholars concerned with the foundations of International Relations.

Critical Realism in Economics

Critical Realism in Economics PDF Author: Steve Fleetwood
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415195683
Category : Critical realism
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Presents a collection of articles previously published in the Review of Social Economy (1996) and in Ekonomia (1997). These articles extend insights from critical realism into the fields of economic methodology and economic theory in such a way as to open up new forms of investigation in economics and transform the nature of economic reasoning. It is argued that the specific value of this approach is that it directs attention to the structures and capacities that explain the observed phenomena of economic life. This volume includes papers from authors critical of this approach, as well as from those who discuss its full implications for contemporary economics. Paper edition (19568-3), $27.99. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Neorealism and Neoliberalism

Neorealism and Neoliberalism PDF Author: David Allen Baldwin
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231084413
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
Essays by prominent political theorists representing the two dominant schools of international relations, neoliberalism and neorealism.

Realist Constructivism

Realist Constructivism PDF Author: J. Samuel Barkin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139484400
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Realism and constructivism, two key contemporary theoretical approaches to the study of international relations, are commonly taught as mutually exclusive ways of understanding the subject. Realist Constructivism explores the common ground between the two, and demonstrates that, rather than being in simple opposition, they have areas of both tension and overlap. There is indeed space to engage in a realist constructivism. But at the same time, there are important distinctions between them, and there remains a need for a constructivism that is not realist, and a realism that is not constructivist. Samuel Barkin argues more broadly for a different way of thinking about theories of international relations, that focuses on the corresponding elements within various approaches rather than on a small set of mutually exclusive paradigms. Realist Constructivism provides an interesting new way for scholars and students to think about international relations theory.