Theory and Reality

Theory and Reality PDF Author: Peter Godfrey-Smith
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022677113X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
How does science work? Does it tell us what the world is “really” like? What makes it different from other ways of understanding the universe? In Theory and Reality, Peter Godfrey-Smith addresses these questions by taking the reader on a grand tour of more than a hundred years of debate about science. The result is a completely accessible introduction to the main themes of the philosophy of science. Examples and asides engage the beginning student, a glossary of terms explains key concepts, and suggestions for further reading are included at the end of each chapter. Like no other text in this field, Theory and Reality combines a survey of recent history of the philosophy of science with current key debates that any beginning scholar or critical reader can follow. The second edition is thoroughly updated and expanded by the author with a new chapter on truth, simplicity, and models in science.

Theory and Reality

Theory and Reality PDF Author: Peter Godfrey-Smith
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022677113X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 412

Get Book Here

Book Description
How does science work? Does it tell us what the world is “really” like? What makes it different from other ways of understanding the universe? In Theory and Reality, Peter Godfrey-Smith addresses these questions by taking the reader on a grand tour of more than a hundred years of debate about science. The result is a completely accessible introduction to the main themes of the philosophy of science. Examples and asides engage the beginning student, a glossary of terms explains key concepts, and suggestions for further reading are included at the end of each chapter. Like no other text in this field, Theory and Reality combines a survey of recent history of the philosophy of science with current key debates that any beginning scholar or critical reader can follow. The second edition is thoroughly updated and expanded by the author with a new chapter on truth, simplicity, and models in science.

Theory and Reality

Theory and Reality PDF Author: Peter Godfrey-Smith
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226300617
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
How does science work? Does it tell us what the world is "really" like? What makes it different from other ways of understanding the universe? In Theory and Reality, Peter Godfrey-Smith addresses these questions by taking the reader on a grand tour of one hundred years of debate about science. The result is a completely accessible introduction to the main themes of the philosophy of science. Intended for undergraduates and general readers with no prior background in philosophy, Theory and Reality covers logical positivism; the problems of induction and confirmation; Karl Popper's theory of science; Thomas Kuhn and "scientific revolutions"; the views of Imre Lakatos, Larry Laudan, and Paul Feyerabend; and challenges to the field from sociology of science, feminism, and science studies. The book then looks in more detail at some specific problems and theories, including scientific realism, the theory-ladeness of observation, scientific explanation, and Bayesianism. Finally, Godfrey-Smith defends a form of philosophical naturalism as the best way to solve the main problems in the field. Throughout the text he points out connections between philosophical debates and wider discussions about science in recent decades, such as the infamous "science wars." Examples and asides engage the beginning student; a glossary of terms explains key concepts; and suggestions for further reading are included at the end of each chapter. However, this is a textbook that doesn't feel like a textbook because it captures the historical drama of changes in how science has been conceived over the last one hundred years. Like no other text in this field, Theory and Reality combines a survey of recent history of the philosophy of science with current key debates in language that any beginning scholar or critical reader can follow.

Theory and Reality

Theory and Reality PDF Author: Peter Godfrey-Smith
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226300627
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
How does science work? Does it tell us what the world is "really" like? What makes it different from other ways of understanding the universe? In Theory and Reality, Peter Godfrey-Smith addresses these questions by taking the reader on a grand tour of one hundred years of debate about science. The result is a completely accessible introduction to the main themes of the philosophy of science. Intended for undergraduates and general readers with no prior background in philosophy, Theory and Reality covers logical positivism; the problems of induction and confirmation; Karl Popper's theory of science; Thomas Kuhn and "scientific revolutions"; the views of Imre Lakatos, Larry Laudan, and Paul Feyerabend; and challenges to the field from sociology of science, feminism, and science studies. The book then looks in more detail at some specific problems and theories, including scientific realism, the theory-ladeness of observation, scientific explanation, and Bayesianism. Finally, Godfrey-Smith defends a form of philosophical naturalism as the best way to solve the main problems in the field. Throughout the text he points out connections between philosophical debates and wider discussions about science in recent decades, such as the infamous "science wars." Examples and asides engage the beginning student; a glossary of terms explains key concepts; and suggestions for further reading are included at the end of each chapter. However, this is a textbook that doesn't feel like a textbook because it captures the historical drama of changes in how science has been conceived over the last one hundred years. Like no other text in this field, Theory and Reality combines a survey of recent history of the philosophy of science with current key debates in language that any beginning scholar or critical reader can follow.

Theory and Reality in Public International Law

Theory and Reality in Public International Law PDF Author: Charles De Visscher
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400875021
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 398

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Book Description
This edition of the work regarded as a modern classic in the field of international law corresponds to the third French edition in which the author updates his attempt "to increase the authority of international law by bringing back into it the values upon which it was founded." While this edition remains faithful to the ideas expounded in earlier versions, the author included new currents of thought in judicial practice and doctrine. These relate chiefly to the development of international organization, to the progress of codification, and to the decisions of the International Court of Justice. Originally published in 1968. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Economics and Reality

Economics and Reality PDF Author: Tony Lawson
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415154208
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
Discusses and critiques the current practice of economics.

Theory of Reality

Theory of Reality PDF Author: David O. Wiebers
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780985937522
Category : Metaphysics
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
"The Theory of Reality combines key elements of neuroscience, physics and metaphysical science to provide critical evidence for existence beyond the brain with practical everyday application for increased compassion, effectiveness and higher understanding in your life. Discover worldview-changing evidence regarding the most basic and profound questions of humankind, and explore the fundamental fabrics of our universe and the purpose of our lives. Equip yourself with new knowledge and empowering tools and techniques designed to help you "put it all together" and chart your own spiritual adventure. Take control of your own life journey and allow inspiration, uncommon creativity and greater happiness to unfold."

Unified Reality Theory

Unified Reality Theory PDF Author: Steven Kaufman
Publisher: Balboa Press
ISBN: 150434376X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 543

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Book Description
“Unified Reality Theory demonstrates that the source of reality is a universal consciousness, and that we are in no way separable from that source, and so in no way truly separable from each other or any other aspect of reality. I recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding the nature of reality and their place in it.” —Deepak Chopra Unified Reality Theory describes how all reality evolves from an absolute existence. It also demonstrates that this absolute existence must have consciousness as an attribute that’s intrinsic to its being. Thus, Unified Reality Theory shows that consciousness, rather than being a product of the evolution of physical reality, is itself the source of what we experience as physical reality, and that physical reality is itself but one aspect of an evolving universal consciousness. Unified Reality Theory shows that, most fundamentally, this absolute consciousness-existence evolves into reality by means of a single process: self-relation. That is, consciousness-existence becomes reality by forming relationships with itself, analogous in a very limited way to what happens to a rubber band that’s twisted upon itself, i.e., it remains whole while differentiating into other forms. Thus, Unified Reality Theory demonstrates that reality is a state of existential self-relation. The idea that the universe consists of existence which has formed relationships with itself isn’t new; Taoists have understood this idea for at least a couple of thousand years. What’s new here is the presentation of this idea in the form of a detailed and defined structural model that correlates with the behavior of physical reality as described by science in general and physics in particular. Ultimately, Unified Reality Theory uses science and logic to make the case that God exists, as a pervasive and absolute consciousness that transcends the realities of space and time, and that we, as well as everything else, are that!

The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science

The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science PDF Author: Michael Strevens
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1631491385
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
“The Knowledge Machine is the most stunningly illuminating book of the last several decades regarding the all-important scientific enterprise.” —Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex A paradigm-shifting work, The Knowledge Machine revolutionizes our understanding of the origins and structure of science. • Why is science so powerful? • Why did it take so long—two thousand years after the invention of philosophy and mathematics—for the human race to start using science to learn the secrets of the universe? In a groundbreaking work that blends science, philosophy, and history, leading philosopher of science Michael Strevens answers these challenging questions, showing how science came about only once thinkers stumbled upon the astonishing idea that scientific breakthroughs could be accomplished by breaking the rules of logical argument. Like such classic works as Karl Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery and Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The Knowledge Machine grapples with the meaning and origins of science, using a plethora of vivid historical examples to demonstrate that scientists willfully ignore religion, theoretical beauty, and even philosophy to embrace a constricted code of argument whose very narrowness channels unprecedented energy into empirical observation and experimentation. Strevens calls this scientific code the iron rule of explanation, and reveals the way in which the rule, precisely because it is unreasonably close-minded, overcomes individual prejudices to lead humanity inexorably toward the secrets of nature. “With a mixture of philosophical and historical argument, and written in an engrossing style” (Alan Ryan), The Knowledge Machine provides captivating portraits of some of the greatest luminaries in science’s history, including Isaac Newton, the chief architect of modern science and its foundational theories of motion and gravitation; William Whewell, perhaps the greatest philosopher-scientist of the early nineteenth century; and Murray Gell-Mann, discoverer of the quark. Today, Strevens argues, in the face of threats from a changing climate and global pandemics, the idiosyncratic but highly effective scientific knowledge machine must be protected from politicians, commercial interests, and even scientists themselves who seek to open it up, to make it less narrow and more rational—and thus to undermine its devotedly empirical search for truth. Rich with illuminating and often delightfully quirky illustrations, The Knowledge Machine, written in a winningly accessible style that belies the import of its revisionist and groundbreaking concepts, radically reframes much of what we thought we knew about the origins of the modern world.

Many Worlds?

Many Worlds? PDF Author: Simon Saunders
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191614114
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 636

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Book Description
What does realism about the quantum state imply? What follows when quantum theory is applied without restriction, if need be, to the whole universe? These are the questions which an illustrious team of philosophers and physicists debate in this volume. All the contributors are agreed on realism, and on the need, or the aspiration, for a theory that unites micro- and macroworlds, at least in principle. But the further claim argued by some is that if you allow the Schrödinger equation unrestricted application, supposing the quantum state to be something physically real, then this universe is one of countlessly many others, constantly branching in time, all of which are real. The result is the many worlds theory, also known as the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics. The contrary claim sees this picture of many worlds as in no sense inherent in quantum mechanics, even when the latter is allowed unrestricted scope and even given that the quantum state itself is something physically real. For this picture of branching worlds fails to make physical sense, let alone common sense, even on its own terms. The status of these worlds, what they are made of, is never adequately explained. Ordinary ideas about time and identity over time become hopelessly compromised. The concept of probability itself is brought into question. This picture of many branching worlds is inchoate, it is a vision, an error. There are realist alternatives to many worlds, some even that preserve the Schrödinger equation unchanged. Twenty specially written essays, accompanied by commentaries and discussions, examine these claims and counterclaims in depth. They focus first on the question of ontology, the existence of worlds (Part 1 and 2), second on the interpretation of probability (Parts 3 and 4), and third on alternatives or additions to many worlds (Parts 5 and 6). The introduction offers a helpful guide to the arguments for the Everett interpretation, particularly as they have been formulated in the last two decades.

Theory and Reality of International Politics

Theory and Reality of International Politics PDF Author: Hans Mouritzen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429750307
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
First published in 1998, this volume deals with the explanation of international politics and foreign policy. Levels of explanation and their interrelationships offer the book’s structure. Based on critiques of major IR approaches, a ‘bottom-up’ instead of a systemic ‘top-down’ perspective (Waltz) is advocated, but without falling prey to reductionism explaining international politics from domestic factors. Explanation of state behaviour should primarily stress states’ salient environment, but occasionally also their historical lessons from previous experience with this environment. International organizations or other non-state actors may be allowed an influence of their own in certain areas, but the state remains in ultimate control.