Download or read book Philosophy of Language and the Challenge to Scientific Realism written by Christopher Norris and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-06-02 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book Christopher Norris develops the case for scientific realism by tackling various adversary arguments from a range of anti-realist positions. Through a close critical reading he shows how they fail to make adequate sense on any rational, consistent, and scientifically-informed survey of the evidence. Along the way he incorporates a number of detailed case-studies from the history and philosophy of science. Norris devotes much of his discussion to some of the most prominent and widely influential source-texts of anti-realism. Also included are the sophisticated versions of verificationism developed - albeit in very different ways - by thinkers such as Michael Dummett and Bas van Fraassen. Central to Norris's argument is a prolonged engagement with the once highly influential but nowadays neglected work of Norwood Russell Hanson. This book will be welcomed especially by readers who possess some knowledge of the background debate and who wish to deepen and extend their understanding of these issues beyond an introductory level.
Download or read book Philosophy of Language and the Challenge to Scientific Realism written by Christopher Norris and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book Christopher Norris develops the case for scientific realism by tackling various adversary arguments from a range of anti-realist positions. Through a close critical reading he shows how they fail to make adequate sense on any rational, consistent, and scientifically-informed survey of the evidence. Along the way he incorporates a number of detailed case-studies from the history and philosophy of science. Norris devotes much of his discussion to some of the most prominent and widely influential source-texts of anti-realism. Also included are the sophisticated versions of verificationism developed - albeit in very different ways - by thinkers such as Michael Dummett and Bas van Fraassen. Central to Norris's argument is a prolonged engagement with the once highly influential but nowadays neglected work of Norwood Russell Hanson. This book will be welcomed especially by readers who possess some knowledge of the background debate and who wish to deepen and extend their understanding of these issues beyond an introductory level.
Download or read book Contemporary Scientific Realism written by Timothy D. Lyons and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientific realists claim we can justifiably believe that science is getting at the truth. However, they have faced historical challenges: various episodes across history appear to demonstrate that even strongly supported scientific theories can be overturned and left behind. In response, realists have developed new positions and arguments. As a result of specific challenges from the history of science, and realist responses, we find ourselves with an ever-increasing dataset bearing on the (possible) relationship between science and truth. The present volume introduces new historical cases impacting the debate and advances the discussion of cases that have only very recently been introduced. At the same time, shifts in philosophical positions affect the very kind of case study that is relevant. Thus, the historical work must proceed hand in hand with philosophical analysis of the different positions and arguments in play. It is with this in mind that the volume is divided into two sections, entitled "Historical Cases for the Debate" and "Contemporary Scientific Realism." All sides agree that historical cases are informative with regard to how, or whether, science connects with truth. Defying proclamations as early as the 1980s announcing the death knell of the scientific realism debate, here is that rare thing: a philosophical debate making steady and definite progress. Moreover, the progress it is making concerns one of humanity's most profound and important questions: the relationship between science and truth, or, put more boldly, the epistemic relation between humankind and the reality in which we find ourselves.
Download or read book Scientific Realism written by Stathis Psillos and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-08-02 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientific realism is the optimistic view that modern science is on the right track. This book argues that the history of science does not undermine this notion, suggesting it as the best philosophical account of science.
Download or read book Philosophy of Science written by Samir Okasha and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this new edition Samir Ikasha reviews the main themes of contemporary philosophy of science. Beginning with a brief account of the history of modern science, he asks whether there is a discernible pattern to the way scientific ideas change over time. He examines scientific inference, scientific explanation, and the debate between realist and anti-realist views of science."--
Download or read book The Semantic Conception of Theories and Scientific Realism written by Frederick Suppe and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An authoritative account of the semantic conception of theories by one of its chief developers. Suppe has always seen the semantic conception as providing a way of moving beyond empiricist philosophies of science. This book provides the definitive account of his views not only on the issue of realism, but also on a variety of other issues central to the philosophy of science." -- Ronald N. Giere, author of Explaining Science: A Cognitive Approach
Download or read book Varieties of Scientific Realism written by Evandro Agazzi and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-03-08 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a comprehensive update on the scientific realism debate, enabling readers to gain a novel appreciation of the role of objectivity and truth in science and to understand fully the various ways in which antirealist conceptions have been subjected to challenge over recent decades. Authoritative representatives of different philosophical traditions explain their perspectives on the meaning and validity of scientific realism and describe the strategies being adopted to counter persisting antirealist positions. The coverage extends beyond the usual discussion of realism within the context of the natural sciences, and especially physics, to encompass also its applicability in mathematics, logic, and the human sciences. The book will appeal to all with an interest in the recent realist epistemologies of science, the nature of current philosophical debate, and the ongoing rehabilitation of truth as the legitimate goal of scientific research.
Download or read book Resisting Scientific Realism written by K. Brad Wray and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-11 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a spirited defence of anti-realism in philosophy of science. Shows the historical evidence and logical challenges facing scientific realism.
Download or read book Theory and Reality written by Peter Godfrey-Smith and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-07-16 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Scientific Realism and the Rationality of Science written by Howard Sankey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientific realism is the position that the aim of science is to advance on truth and increase knowledge about observable and unobservable aspects of the mind-independent world which we inhabit. This book articulates and defends that position. In presenting a clear formulation and addressing the major arguments for scientific realism Sankey appeals to philosophers beyond the community of, typically Anglo-American, analytic philosophers of science to appreciate and understand the doctrine. The book emphasizes the epistemological aspects of scientific realism and contains an original solution to the problem of induction that rests on an appeal to the principle of uniformity of nature.
Download or read book Badiou s Being and Event written by Christopher Norris and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2009-05-24 with total page 658 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alain Badiou's Being and Event is the most original and significant work of French philosophy to have appeared in recent decades. It is the magnum opus of a thinker who is widely considered to have re-shaped the character and set new terms for the future development of philosophy in France and elsewhere. This book has been written very much with a view to clarifying Badiou's complex and demanding work for non-specialist readers. It offers guidance on philosophical and intellectual context, key themes, reading the text, reception and influence; and further reading.
Download or read book Revitalizing Causality written by Ruth Groff and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This cutting edge collection of new and previously published articles by philosophers and social scientists addresses just what it means to invoke causal mechanisms, or powers, in the context of offering a causal explanation. A unique collection, it offers the reader various disciplinary and inter-disciplinary divides, helping to stake out a new, neo-Aristotelian position within contemporary debate.
Download or read book A Realist Theory of Art History written by Ian Verstegen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the theoretical alignments within academia shift, this book introduces a surprising variety of realism to abolish the old positivist-theory dichotomy that has haunted Art History. Demanding frankly the referential detachment of the objects under study, the book proposes a stratified, multi-causal account of art history that addresses postmodern concerns while saving it from its errors of self-refutation. Building from the very basic distinction between intransitive being and transitive knowing, objects can be affirmed as real while our knowledge of them is held to be fallible. Several focused chapters address basic problems while introducing philosophical reflection into art history. These include basic ontological distinctions between society and culture, general and "special" history, the discontinuity of cultural objects, the importance of definition for special history, scales, facets and fiat objects as forms of historical structure, the nature of evidence and proof, historical truth and controversies. Stressing Critical Realism as the stratified, multi-causal approach needed for productive research today in the academy, this book creates the subject of the ontology of art history and sets aside a theoretical space for metaphysical reflection, thus clarifying the usually muddy distinction between theory, methodology, and historiography in art history.
Download or read book Language and Scientific Research written by Wenceslao J. Gonzalez and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-04-27 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyzes the role of language in scientific research and develops the semantics of science from different angles. The philosophical investigation of the volume is divided into four parts, which covers both basic science and applied science: I) The Problem of Reference and Potentialities of the Language in Science; II) Language and Change in Scientific Research: Evolution and Historicity; III) Scientific Language in the Context of Truth and Fiction; and IV) Language in Mathematics and in Empirical Sciences. Language plays a key role in science: our access to the theoretical, practical or evaluative dimensions of scientific activity begins with the mastery of language, continues with a deepening in the use of language and reaches the level of contribution when it creates new terms or changes them in sense and reference. This reveals the compatibility between objectivity in semantic contents and historicity in the progress of science. This volume is a valuable enrichment to students, academics and other professionals interested in science in all its forms, who seek to deepen the role that language plays in its structure and dynamics.
Download or read book Re Thinking the Cogito written by Christopher Norris and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2010-08-12 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Re-Thinking the Cogito seeks to combine a strongly naturalistic with a distinctively rationalist perspective on some nowadays much-discussed issues in philosophy of mind. Against the common view that they involve downright incompatible conceptions of mind, knowledge and ethics it seeks to unite a naturalism that draws on recent advances in neurophysiology and cognitive science with an outlook that gives full weight to those normative values at the heart of rationalist thought. True to the book's constructive spirit, Norris offers various detailed proposals for bringing the two approaches into a mutually enhancing - though also mutually provocative - relationship. He finds that claim strikingly prefigured in Spinoza's working-out of a non-reductive yet metaphysically uncompromising mind/body monism. Moreover he suggests how a thoroughly naturalised approach might yet become a locus of productive engagement with the work of an ultra-rationalist thinker such as Alain Badiou. Thus Norris puts the case that physically embodied human thought has cognitive, intellectual and creative powers that cannot and need not be accounted for in terms of conscious (let alone self-conscious) reflection.
Download or read book Dictionary of Critical Realism written by Mervyn Hartwig and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-01-30 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dictionary of Critical Realism fulfils a vital gap in the literature, Critical Realism is often criticised for being too opaque and deploying too much jargon, thereby making the concepts inaccessible for a wider audience. However, as Hartwig puts it 'Just as the tools of the various skilled trades need to be precision-engineered for specific, interrelated functions, so meta-theory requires concepts honed for specific interrelated tasks: it is impossible to think creatively at that level without them.' This Dictionary seeks to redress this problem; to throw open the important contribution of Critical Realism to a wider audience for the first time, by thoroughly explaining all the key concepts and key developments. It includes 500 entries on these themes, and has contributions from major players in field. However this text does not stop there, it goes further than simply elucidating the concepts and includes a number of essays which use the notions in important areas, thereby demonstrating the appropriate use of the concepts in action to encourage their wider use. This book will become a requisite reference tool for Critical Realist scholars and Philosophers and Social scientists alike will enjoy this vital introduction and explanatory text of the indispensable ideas contained within the dynamic and vibrant school of Critical Realism.
Download or read book Reality and Self Realization written by MinGyu Seo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-03-21 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the publication of Roy Bhaskar’s A Realist Theory of Science in 1975, critical realism has been evolved as one of the new developments in the areas of philosophy of natural and social science which offers an alternatively fresh view to the existing theories including positivism and post-modernism. Bhaskar’s intellectual movement, which is now fully international and multi-disciplinary, and continues to influence the philosophies of natural and social science, has transformed into ‘Dialectical Critical Realism’ (hereafter DCR) and the philosophy of ‘meta-Reality.’ MinGyu will conclude that his anti-anthropic Non-duality continues through all the steps of Bhaskar’s thought, maintaining the consistency of his scientific, metaphysical, and spiritual journey. The anti-anthropic motif is fully realized in the philosophy of Non-duality - the ‘constellational identification of dualism, duality and non-duality’ in his meta-Reality. Defending Bhaskar against Collier, Agar, and Morgan, MinGyu tries to show how its anti-anthropic and non-dualistic foundation is sustained through the whole of Bhaskar’s journey, involving a transformation of its subject matters from reality, to the dialectic of reality, to the real truth underlying the former stages. This book provides an indispensible resource for all students of philosophy and the human sciences.
