Download or read book The Scientific Image written by Bas C. Van Fraassen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1980-12-11 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book van Fraassen develops an alternative to scientific realism by constructing and evaluating three mutually reinforcing theories.
Download or read book The Empirical Stance written by Bas C. van Fraassen and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Scientific Representation written by James Nguyen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-09-01 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Element presents a philosophical exploration of the notion of scientific representation. It does so by focussing on an important class of scientific representations, namely scientific models. Models are important in the scientific process because scientists can study a model to discover features of reality. But what does it mean for something to represent something else? This is the question discussed in this Element. The authors begin by disentangling different aspects of the problem of representation and then discuss the dominant accounts in the philosophical literature: the resemblance view and inferentialism. They find them both wanting and submit that their own preferred option, the so-called DEKI account, not only eschews the problems that beset these conceptions, but further provides a comprehensive answer to the question of how scientific representation works. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Download or read book Laws and Symmetry written by Bas C. van Fraassen and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 1989-11-02 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Metaphysicians speak of laws of nature in terms of necessity and universality; scientists do so in terms of symmetry and invariance. This book argues that no metaphysical account of laws can succeed. The author analyses and rejects the arguments that there are laws of nature, or that we must believe that there are. He argues that we should discard the idea of law as an inadequate clue to science. After exploring what this means for general epistemology, the book develops the empiricist view of science as a construction of models to represent the phenomena. Concepts of symmetry, transformation, and invariance illuminate the structure of such models. A central role is played in science by symmetry arguments, and it is shown how these function also in the philosophical analysis of probability. The advocated approach presupposes no realism about laws or necessities in nature.
Download or read book Quantum Mechanics written by Bas C. Van Fraassen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 562 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author argues that quantum theory admits a plurality of interpretations, each aiding further understanding of the theory, but also advocating specifically the Copenhagen Variant of the Modal Interpretation. That variant is applied to topics like the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox and the problem of 'identical' particles.
Download or read book Images of Science written by Bas C. Van Fraassen and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1985-10-15 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Churchland and Hooker have collected ten papers by prominent philosophers of science which challenge van Fraassen's thesis from a variety of realist perspectives. Together with van Fraassen's extensive reply . . . these articles provide a comprehensive picture of the current debate in philosophy of science between realists and anti-realists."—Jeffrey Bub and David MacCallum, Foundations of Physics Letters
Download or read book The Logic in Philosophy of Science written by Hans Halvorson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-11 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reconsiders the role of formal logic in the analytic approach to philosophy, using cutting-edge mathematical techniques to elucidate twentieth-century debates.
Download or read book Scientific Representation written by Bas C. van Fraassen and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-07-22 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bas C. van Fraassen presents an original exploration of how we represent the world. Science represents natural phenomena by means of theories, as well as in many concrete ways by such means as pictures, graphs, table-top models, and computer simulations. Scientific Representation begins with an inquiry into the nature of representation in general, drawing on such diverse sources as Plato's dialogues, the development of perspectival drawing in the Renaissance, and the geometric styles of modelling in modern physics. Starting with Mach's and Poincaré's analyses of measurement and the 'problem of coordination', van Fraassen then presents a view of measurement outcomes as representations. With respect to the theories of contemporary science he defends an empiricist structuralist version of the 'picture theory' of science, through an inquiry into the paradoxes that came to light in twentieth-century philosophies of science. Van Fraassen concludes with an analysis of the complex relationship between appearance and reality in the scientific world-picture.
Download or read book The Experimental Side of Modeling written by Isabelle F. Peschard and published by Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science. This book was released on 2018 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An innovative, multifaceted approach to scientific experiments as designed by and shaped through interaction with the modeling process The role of scientific modeling in mediation between theories and phenomena is a critical topic within the philosophy of science, touching on issues from climate modeling to synthetic models in biology, high energy particle physics, and cognitive sciences. Offering a radically new conception of the role of data in the scientific modeling process as well as a new awareness of the problematic aspects of data, this cutting-edge volume offers a multifaceted view on experiments as designed and shaped in interaction with the modeling process. Contributors address such issues as the construction of models in conjunction with scientific experimentation; the status of measurement and the function of experiment in the identification of relevant parameters; how the phenomena under study are reconceived when accounted for by a model; and the interplay between experimenting, modeling, and simulation when results do not mesh. Highlighting the mediating role of models and the model-dependence (as well as theory-dependence) of data measurement, this volume proposes a normative and conceptual innovation in scientific modeling--that the phenomena to be investigated and modeled must not be precisely identified at the start but specified during the course of the interactions arising between experimental and modeling activities. Contributors: Nancy D. Cartwright, U of California, San Diego; Anthony Chemero, U of Cincinnati; Ronald N. Giere, U of Minnesota; Jenann Ismael, U of Arizona; Tarja Knuuttila, U of South Carolina; Andrea Loettgers, U of Bern, Switzerland; Deborah Mayo, Virginia Tech; Joseph Rouse, Wesleyan U; Paul Teller, U of California, Davis; Michael Weisberg, U of Pennsylvania; Eric Winsberg, U of South Florida.
Download or read book Images of Empiricism written by Bradley John Monton and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2007-10-04 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirteen specially written essays discuss topics from the work of the leading philosopher of science Bas van Fraassen. The unifying theme is empiricism. Included is an extensive and intriguing reply by van Fraassen, in which he develops his views further, and offers new insights into the nature of science, empiricism, and philosophy itself.
Download or read book Constructive Empiricism written by P. Dicken and published by Springer. This book was released on 2010-07-16 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Constructive empiricism is not just a view regarding the aim of science; it is also a view regarding the epistemological framework in which one should debate the aim of science. This is the focus of this book – not with scientific truth, but with how one should argue about scientific truth.
Download or read book Bas van Fraassen written by Andreas Berg-Hildebrand and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Participation in the Münstersche Vorlesungen zur Philosophie 2005 was an honor and a genuine intellectual pleasure for me. The symposium, with all its contributions by the Münster faculty and students, was a wonderfully valuable experience. I can hardly do justice to its spirit of free discussion, or adequately express my thanks, by these short replies. But I think that they will testify clearly to the stimulation the symposium provided and to how much I learned from this exchange." Bas van Fraassen
Download or read book Possibilities and Paradox written by J. C. Beall and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2003 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The book opens up topics to debate, suitable for an intermediate course in logic. Each chapter contains innovative features that guide us through the subject: exercises to give students hands-on experience, examples to demonstrate the application of concepts, and lists of further reading."--Jacket.
Download or read book The Scientific Image written by Bas C. Van Fraassen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1980-12-11 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Explanatory Pluralism written by C. Mantzavinos and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-26 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explaining phenomena is one of the main activities in which scientists engage. This book proposes a new philosophical theory of scientific explanation by developing and defending the position of explanatory pluralism with the help of the notion of 'explanatory games'. Mantzavinos provides a descriptive account of the explanatory activity of scientists in different domains and shows how they differ from commonsensical explanations offered in everyday life by ordinary people and also from explanations offered in religious contexts. He also shows how an evaluation and a critical appraisal of explanations put forward in different social arenas can take place on the basis of different values. Explanatory Pluralism provides solutions to all important descriptive and normative problems of the philosophical theory of explanation as illustrated in sophisticated case studies from economics and medicine, but also from mythology and religion.
Download or read book Foundations and Philosophy of Epistemic Applications of Probability Theory written by W.L. Harper and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 1976 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Proceedings of an International Research Colloquium held at the University of Western Ontario, 10-13 May 1973.
Download or read book Representing and Intervening written by Ian Hacking and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1983-10-20 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 1983 book is a lively and clearly written introduction to the philosophy of natural science, organized around the central theme of scientific realism. It has two parts. 'Representing' deals with the different philosophical accounts of scientific objectivity and the reality of scientific entities. The views of Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos, Putnam, van Fraassen, and others, are all considered. 'Intervening' presents the first sustained treatment of experimental science for many years and uses it to give a new direction to debates about realism. Hacking illustrates how experimentation often has a life independent of theory. He argues that although the philosophical problems of scientific realism can not be resolved when put in terms of theory alone, a sound philosophy of experiment provides compelling grounds for a realistic attitude. A great many scientific examples are described in both parts of the book, which also includes lucid expositions of recent high energy physics and a remarkable chapter on the microscope in cell biology.
