Scientific Ontology

Scientific Ontology PDF Author: Anjan Chakravartty
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190651458
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Though science and philosophy take different approaches to ontology, metaphysical inferences are relevant to interpreting scientific work, and empirical investigations are relevant to philosophy. This book argues that there is no uniquely rational way to determine which domains of ontology are appropriate for belief, making room for choice in a transformative account of scientific ontology.

Scientific Ontology

Scientific Ontology PDF Author: Anjan Chakravartty
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190651458
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Though science and philosophy take different approaches to ontology, metaphysical inferences are relevant to interpreting scientific work, and empirical investigations are relevant to philosophy. This book argues that there is no uniquely rational way to determine which domains of ontology are appropriate for belief, making room for choice in a transformative account of scientific ontology.

The Scientific Image

The Scientific Image PDF Author: Bas C. Van Fraassen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198244271
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
The aim of The Scientific Image is to develop an empiricist alternative to both logical positivism and scientific realism. Against positivism, the author insists on a literal interpretation of the language of science, and on an irreducibly pragmatic dimension of theory acceptance. Against realism he argues that the central aim of science is empirical adequacy, and that the only belief involved in the acceptance of a scientific theory is belief that the theory fits the observable phenomena.To substatiate this, the book presents three mutually supporting theories concerning science. The first is an account of the relation between a scientific theory and the empirical world. The second is a new theory of explanation and why-questions, according to which the explanatory power of a theory is a pragmatic aspect which goes beyond its empirical import, but which provides no additional reasons for believing it. And the third is an interpretation of probability in physical theory, with reference to both classical and quantum physics. The presentation of these three central theses is preceded by two chapters which provide an informal introduction to current debates in the philosophy of science, particularly concerning scientific realism.

The Empirical Stance

The Empirical Stance PDF Author: Bas C. van Fraassen
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300127960
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
What is empiricism and what could it be? Bas C. van Fraassen, one of the world’s foremost contributors to philosophical logic and the philosophy of science, here undertakes a fresh consideration of these questions and offers a program for renewal of the empiricist tradition. The empiricist tradition is not and could not be defined by common doctrines, but embodies a certain stance in philosophy, van Fraassen says. This stance is displayed first of all in a searing, recurrent critique of metaphysics, and second in a focus on experience that requires a voluntarist view of belief and opinion. Van Fraassen focuses on the philosophical problems of scientific and conceptual revolutions and on the not unrelated ruptures between religious and secular ways of seeing or conceiving of ourselves. He explores what it is to be or not be secular and points the way toward a new relationship between secularism and science within philosophy.

Karl Popper's Philosophy of Science

Karl Popper's Philosophy of Science PDF Author: Stefano Gattei
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134182953
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 154

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Book Description
Rectifying misrepresentations of Popperian thought with a historical approach to Popper’s philosophy, Gattei reconstructs the logic of Popper’s development to show how one problem and its tentative solution led to a new problem.

A Metaphysics for Scientific Realism

A Metaphysics for Scientific Realism PDF Author: Anjan Chakravartty
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139468391
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
Scientific realism is the view that our best scientific theories give approximately true descriptions of both observable and unobservable aspects of a mind-independent world. Debates between realists and their critics are at the very heart of the philosophy of science. Anjan Chakravartty traces the contemporary evolution of realism by examining the most promising strategies adopted by its proponents in response to the forceful challenges of antirealist sceptics, resulting in a positive proposal for scientific realism today. He examines the core principles of the realist position, and sheds light on topics including the varieties of metaphysical commitment required, and the nature of the conflict between realism and its empiricist rivals. By illuminating the connections between realist interpretations of scientific knowledge and the metaphysical foundations supporting them, his book offers a compelling vision of how realism can provide an internally consistent and coherent account of scientific knowledge.

From a Scientific Point of View

From a Scientific Point of View PDF Author: Mario Bunge
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527514633
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
This book deals with the scientific viewpoint, which is illustrated here through a number of topical cases in modern science, from gravitational waves to mental disorders to social policies. The scientific perspective involves rationality, realism, and reism – the thesis that the universe is composed of concrete things like atoms, force fields, people, and social organizations. The book shows that the scientific worldview underlies all current scientific and technological research projects. It also claims that any subject involving knowledge can be approached scientifically, and contends that the scientific viewpoint can trump both dogma and improvisation – the standbys of amateurs and demagogues.

The New Atlantis

The New Atlantis PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Technology
Languages : en
Pages : 590

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Book Description


Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems

Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems PDF Author: Jerome R. Ravetz
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000159841
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
Science is continually confronted by new and difficult social and ethical problems. Some of these problems have arisen from the transformation of the academic science of the prewar period into the industrialized science of the present. Traditional theories of science are now widely recognized as obsolete. In Scientific Knowledge and Its Social Problems (originally published in 1971), Jerome R. Ravetz analyzes the work of science as the creation and investigation of problems. He demonstrates the role of choice and value judgment, and the inevitability of error, in scientific research. Ravetz's new introductory essay is a masterful statement of how our understanding of science has evolved over the last two decades.

Science Without Laws

Science Without Laws PDF Author: Ronald N. Giere
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226292083
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
"Science without Laws thus stakes out a middle ground in these debates by demonstrating a more powerful way of seeing science."--BOOK JACKET.

Scientific Perspectivism

Scientific Perspectivism PDF Author: Ronald N. Giere
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226292142
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 171

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Book Description
Many people assume that the claims of scientists are objective truths. But historians, sociologists, and philosophers of science have long argued that scientific claims reflect the particular historical, cultural, and social context in which those claims were made. The nature of scientific knowledge is not absolute because it is influenced by the practice and perspective of human agents. Scientific Perspectivism argues that the acts of observing and theorizing are both perspectival, and this nature makes scientific knowledge contingent, as Thomas Kuhn theorized forty years ago. Using the example of color vision in humans to illustrate how his theory of “perspectivism” works, Ronald N. Giere argues that colors do not actually exist in objects; rather, color is the result of an interaction between aspects of the world and the human visual system. Giere extends this argument into a general interpretation of human perception and, more controversially, to scientific observation, conjecturing that the output of scientific instruments is perspectival. Furthermore, complex scientific principles—such as Maxwell’s equations describing the behavior of both the electric and magnetic fields—make no claims about the world, but models based on those principles can be used to make claims about specific aspects of the world. Offering a solution to the most contentious debate in the philosophy of science over the past thirty years, Scientific Perspectivism will be of interest to anyone involved in the study of science.