Forms of Explanation

Forms of Explanation PDF Author: Alan Garfinkel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780300049022
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 186

Get Book Here

Book Description
What makes one explanation better than another? How can we tell when an explanation has really answered our question? In a lively and readable discussion, Garfinkel argues that the key to understanding an explanation is to discover what question is really being answered. He then suggests criteria for a good explanation and goes on to examine some classic explanations in social and natural science.

Forms of Explanation

Forms of Explanation PDF Author: Alan Garfinkel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780300049022
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 186

Get Book Here

Book Description
What makes one explanation better than another? How can we tell when an explanation has really answered our question? In a lively and readable discussion, Garfinkel argues that the key to understanding an explanation is to discover what question is really being answered. He then suggests criteria for a good explanation and goes on to examine some classic explanations in social and natural science.

Forms of Explanation

Forms of Explanation PDF Author: Alan Garfinkel
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780300021363
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 186

Get Book Here

Book Description
"What makes one explanation better than another? How can we tell when an explanation has really answered our question? In a lively and readable discussion, Garfinkel argues that the key to understanding an explanation is to discover what question is really being answered. He then suggests criteria for a good explanation and goes on to examine some classic explanations in social and natural science."

Varieties Of Social Explanation

Varieties Of Social Explanation PDF Author: Daniel Little
Publisher: Westview Press
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 294

Get Book Here

Book Description
Professor Little presents an introduction to the philosophy of social science with an emphasis on the central forms of explanation in social science: rational-intentional, causal, functional, structural, materialist, statistical and interpretive. The book is very strong on recent developments, particularly in its treatment of rational choice theory, microfoundations for social explanation, the idea of supervenience, functionalism, and current discussions of relativism.Of special interest is Professor Little's insight that, like the philosophy of natural science, the philosophy of social science can profit from examining actual scientific examples. Throughout the book, philosophical theory is integrated with recent empirical work on both agrarian and industrial society drawn from political science, sociology, geography, anthropology, and economics.Clearly written and well structured, this text provides the logical and conceptual tools necessary for dealing with the debates at the cutting edge of contemporary philosophy of social science. It will prove indispensible for philosophers, social scientists and their students.

Theoretical Issues in Psychology

Theoretical Issues in Psychology PDF Author: Sacha Bem
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 144629210X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 504

Get Book Here

Book Description
Bem and de Jong present complex ideas in an accessible manner. Theoretical Issues in Psychology gives undergraduate psychology students all the resources they need to begin reflecting on the most pressing conceptual issues in their discipline. - Stuart Wilson, Queen Margaret University The 3rd edition of Theoretical Issues in Psychology provides an authoritative overview of the conceptual issues in psychology which introduces the underlying philosophies that underpin them. It includes new insights across the philosophy of science combined with increased psychological coverage to show clearly how these two communities interrelate, ensuring an integrative understanding of the fundamental debates and how they link to your wider studies. Key features of this new edition include: Concise paragraphs, multiple examples and additional summaries throughout to help you focus on key areas of knowledge. Textboxes with definitions and key concepts to help your understanding of the main debates and ideas. New content on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, cognition and cognitive neuroscience. New up-to-date material on consciousness and evolutionary psychology. For lecturers and teachers, PowerPoint slides are available for each chapter. Sacha Bem & Huib Looren de Jong′s textbook remains essential for students taking courses in conceptual and historical issues in psychology, the philosophy of psychology or theoretical psychology.

Lessons on Form

Lessons on Form PDF Author: August Blunck
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Decoration and ornament
Languages : en
Pages : 138

Get Book Here

Book Description


Visual Differential Geometry and Forms

Visual Differential Geometry and Forms PDF Author: Tristan Needham
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691203695
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 530

Get Book Here

Book Description
An inviting, intuitive, and visual exploration of differential geometry and forms Visual Differential Geometry and Forms fulfills two principal goals. In the first four acts, Tristan Needham puts the geometry back into differential geometry. Using 235 hand-drawn diagrams, Needham deploys Newton’s geometrical methods to provide geometrical explanations of the classical results. In the fifth act, he offers the first undergraduate introduction to differential forms that treats advanced topics in an intuitive and geometrical manner. Unique features of the first four acts include: four distinct geometrical proofs of the fundamentally important Global Gauss-Bonnet theorem, providing a stunning link between local geometry and global topology; a simple, geometrical proof of Gauss’s famous Theorema Egregium; a complete geometrical treatment of the Riemann curvature tensor of an n-manifold; and a detailed geometrical treatment of Einstein’s field equation, describing gravity as curved spacetime (General Relativity), together with its implications for gravitational waves, black holes, and cosmology. The final act elucidates such topics as the unification of all the integral theorems of vector calculus; the elegant reformulation of Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism in terms of 2-forms; de Rham cohomology; differential geometry via Cartan’s method of moving frames; and the calculation of the Riemann tensor using curvature 2-forms. Six of the seven chapters of Act V can be read completely independently from the rest of the book. Requiring only basic calculus and geometry, Visual Differential Geometry and Forms provocatively rethinks the way this important area of mathematics should be considered and taught.

Explaining Explanation

Explaining Explanation PDF Author: David-Hillel Ruben
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317259920
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 259

Get Book Here

Book Description
This second edition of David-Hillel Ruben's influential and highly acclaimed book on the philosophy of explanation has been revised and expanded, and the author has made substantial changes in light of the extensive reviews the first edition received. Ruben's views on the place of laws in explanation has been refined and clarified. What is perhaps the central thesis of the book, his realist view of explanation, describing the way in which explanation depends on metaphysics, has been updated and extended and engages with some of the work in this area published since the book's first edition.

A Framework for K-12 Science Education

A Framework for K-12 Science Education PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309214459
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Get Book Here

Book Description
Science, engineering, and technology permeate nearly every facet of modern life and hold the key to solving many of humanity's most pressing current and future challenges. The United States' position in the global economy is declining, in part because U.S. workers lack fundamental knowledge in these fields. To address the critical issues of U.S. competitiveness and to better prepare the workforce, A Framework for K-12 Science Education proposes a new approach to K-12 science education that will capture students' interest and provide them with the necessary foundational knowledge in the field. A Framework for K-12 Science Education outlines a broad set of expectations for students in science and engineering in grades K-12. These expectations will inform the development of new standards for K-12 science education and, subsequently, revisions to curriculum, instruction, assessment, and professional development for educators. This book identifies three dimensions that convey the core ideas and practices around which science and engineering education in these grades should be built. These three dimensions are: crosscutting concepts that unify the study of science through their common application across science and engineering; scientific and engineering practices; and disciplinary core ideas in the physical sciences, life sciences, and earth and space sciences and for engineering, technology, and the applications of science. The overarching goal is for all high school graduates to have sufficient knowledge of science and engineering to engage in public discussions on science-related issues, be careful consumers of scientific and technical information, and enter the careers of their choice. A Framework for K-12 Science Education is the first step in a process that can inform state-level decisions and achieve a research-grounded basis for improving science instruction and learning across the country. The book will guide standards developers, teachers, curriculum designers, assessment developers, state and district science administrators, and educators who teach science in informal environments.

Making Things Happen

Making Things Happen PDF Author: James Woodward
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198035330
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 419

Get Book Here

Book Description
In Making Things Happen, James Woodward develops a new and ambitious comprehensive theory of causation and explanation that draws on literature from a variety of disciplines and which applies to a wide variety of claims in science and everyday life. His theory is a manipulationist account, proposing that causal and explanatory relationships are relationships that are potentially exploitable for purposes of manipulation and control. This account has its roots in the commonsense idea that causes are means for bringing about effects; but it also draws on a long tradition of work in experimental design, econometrics, and statistics. Woodward shows how these ideas may be generalized to other areas of science from the social scientific and biomedical contexts for which they were originally designed. He also provides philosophical foundations for the manipulationist approach, drawing out its implications, comparing it with alternative approaches, and defending it from common criticisms. In doing so, he shows how the manipulationist account both illuminates important features of successful causal explanation in the natural and social sciences, and avoids the counterexamples and difficulties that infect alternative approaches, from the deductive-nomological model onwards. Making Things Happen will interest philosophers working in the philosophy of science, the philosophy of social science, and metaphysics, and as well as anyone interested in causation, explanation, and scientific methodology.

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods PDF Author: Mike Allen
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 1483381420
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 2013

Get Book Here

Book Description
Communication research is evolving and changing in a world of online journals, open-access, and new ways of obtaining data and conducting experiments via the Internet. Although there are generic encyclopedias describing basic social science research methodologies in general, until now there has been no comprehensive A-to-Z reference work exploring methods specific to communication and media studies. Our entries, authored by key figures in the field, focus on special considerations when applied specifically to communication research, accompanied by engaging examples from the literature of communication, journalism, and media studies. Entries cover every step of the research process, from the creative development of research topics and questions to literature reviews, selection of best methods (whether quantitative, qualitative, or mixed) for analyzing research results and publishing research findings, whether in traditional media or via new media outlets. In addition to expected entries covering the basics of theories and methods traditionally used in communication research, other entries discuss important trends influencing the future of that research, including contemporary practical issues students will face in communication professions, the influences of globalization on research, use of new recording technologies in fieldwork, and the challenges and opportunities related to studying online multi-media environments. Email, texting, cellphone video, and blogging are shown not only as topics of research but also as means of collecting and analyzing data. Still other entries delve into considerations of accountability, copyright, confidentiality, data ownership and security, privacy, and other aspects of conducting an ethical research program. Features: 652 signed entries are contained in an authoritative work spanning four volumes available in choice of electronic or print formats. Although organized A-to-Z, front matter includes a Reader’s Guide grouping entries thematically to help students interested in a specific aspect of communication research to more easily locate directly related entries. Back matter includes a Chronology of the development of the field of communication research; a Resource Guide to classic books, journals, and associations; a Glossary introducing the terminology of the field; and a detailed Index. Entries conclude with References/Further Readings and Cross-References to related entries to guide students further in their research journeys. The Index, Reader’s Guide themes, and Cross-References combine to provide robust search-and-browse in the e-version.