Download or read book The Empirical Stance written by Bas C. Van Fraassen and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is empiricism and what could it be? The author, contributor to philosophical logic and the philosophy of science, undertakes a fresh consideration of these questions and offers a programme for renewal of the empiricist tradition.

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 Images of Empiricism written by Bradley Monton and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2007-10-04 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirteen specially written essays discuss topics from the work of Bas C. van Fraassen, one of the most important contemporary philosophers of science. The central and unifying theme of the volume is empiricism, an approach which van Fraassen developed most fully in The Scientific Image and The Empirical Stance. Thirteen of the world's leading experts in the field examine van Fraassen's defence of scientific anti-realism (which he sees as a core tenet of empiricism), as well as his claim that adopting a philosophical position like empiricism does not consist in holding a particular set of beliefs, but is rather a matter of taking a stance. Images of Empiricism concludes with an extensive and intriguing reply by van Fraassen, in which he develops and corrects his old views, and offers new insights into the nature of science, empiricism, and philosophy itself.

Download or read book The Spirit of Empiricism An Analysis of Empiricism as a Stance written by Navarre Di Carlo and published by LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. This book was released on 2013 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 'The Empirical Stance' Bas C. van Fraassen sets out to uncover the spirit of empiricism: "what is empiricism, and what it could be, if it is to be a viable philosophy today?" (2002, p. 31). In answer to this question van Fraassen rejects the canonical characterization of empiricism as a philosophical position established on a thesis (such as all knowledge comes from sense experience), and argues that we must endorse empiricism as a philosophical position established in a stance. But what the empirical stance is or entails exactly, van Fraassen has failed to make clear. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and philosophically evaluate empiricism as a stance. In light of my analysis, however, I will argue that van Fraassen has not provided a concrete characterization of stance empiricism (or indeed stances in general), and that the concept remains problematically vague.

Download or read book Shen Gua s Empiricism written by Ya Zuo and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-10-20 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Shen Gua (1031–1095) is a household name in China, known as a distinguished renaissance man and the author of Brush Talks from Dream Brook, an old text whose remarkable “scientific” discoveries make it appear curiously ahead of its time. In this first book-length study of Shen in English, Ya Zuo reveals the connection between Shen’s life as an active statesman and his ideas, specifically the empirical stance manifested through his wide-ranging inquiries. She places Shen on the broad horizon of premodern Chinese thought, and presents his empiricism within an extensive narrative of Chinese epistemology.Relying on Shen as a searchlight, Zuo focuses in on how an individual thinker summoned conditions and concepts from the vast Chinese intellectual tradition to build a singular way of knowing. Moreover, her study of Shen provides insights into the complex dynamics in play at the dawn of the age of Neo-Confucianism and compels readers to achieve a deeper appreciation of the diversity in Chinese thinking."

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 Wittgenstein s Metaphilosophy written by Paul Horwich and published by Oxford University Press (UK). This book was released on 2012-12-13 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paul Horwich presents a bold new interpretation of Wittgenstein's later work. He argues that it is Wittgenstein's radically anti-theoretical metaphilosophy - and not his identification of the meaning of a word with its use - that underpins his discussions of specific issues concerning language, the mind, mathematics, knowledge, art, and religion.

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 Voluntarism Values and Community written by Elizabeth Braae and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In The Empirical Stance, Bas C. van Fraassen suggests that philosophical positions include non-factual things like values and attitudes: they are "stances" rather than factual theses. Choosing between stances is not a matter of reason or rational compulsion; rather, we choose the stance that best reflects or expresses our values. For Dien Ho and Anja Jauernig, however, this reduces philosophy to a subjective expression of personal preference (subjectivism) and, moreover, reduces philosophical debate to an irresolvable value-based dispute (relativism). In this dissertation, I offer an intersubjective reading of van Fraassen. In doing so, I seek to extend what I think is an underdeveloped appeal to community in his work. Approaching van Fraassen with reference to community helps us to appreciate better his position (comprising his voluntarism and voluntarist epistemology, permissive rationality, and stance philosophy) and, as I hope to show, to respond to subjectivist and relativist concerns. In developing this community-based account, I first consider Brandom's model of reciprocal recognition. This gives us an understanding of stance choice as a process of mutually recognising and committing to particular values and attitudes. In choosing the empirical stance, say, I recognise and commit to the values of the empiricist community. In turn, this community recognises my commitment and acknowledges me as an empiricist, as an adherent of the empirical stance. In Brandom's model, then, we find an account of stance choice as a community matter rather than something purely subjective. This leaves the relativist issue unresolved: how can we defend our stance choice to another community, whose members perhaps do not share our relevant values? In addressing this, I consider Davidson's radical interpretation and his principle of charity. As Davidson shows us, if we want to interpret (and hence communicate with) another being, we must assume a shared background of agreement."--

Download or read book Scientific Ontology written by Anjan Chakravartty and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-30 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Both science and philosophy are interested in questions of ontology - questions about what exists and what these things are like. Science and philosophy, however, seem like very different ways of investigating the world, so how should one proceed? Some defer to the sciences, conceived as something apart from philosophy, and others to metaphysics, conceived as something apart from science, for certain kinds of answers. This book contends that these sorts of deference are misconceived. A compelling account of ontology must appreciate the ways in which the sciences incorporate metaphysical assumptions and arguments. At the same time, it must pay careful attention to how observation, experience, and the empirical dimensions of science are related to what may be viewed as defensible philosophical theorizing about ontology. The promise of an effectively naturalized metaphysics is to encourage beliefs that are formed in ways that do justice to scientific theorizing, modeling, and experimentation. But even armed with such a view, there is no one, uniquely rational way to draw lines between domains of ontology that are suitable for belief, and ones in which it would be better to suspend belief instead. In crucial respects, ontology is in the eye of the beholder: it is informed by underlying commitments with implications for the limits of inquiry, which inevitably vary across rational inquirers. As result, the proper scope of ontology is subject to a striking form of voluntary choice, yielding a new and transformative conception of scientific ontology.

Download or read book Modal Empiricism written by Quentin Ruyant and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-05-07 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book proposes a novel position in the debate on scientific realism: Modal Empiricism. Modal empiricism is the view that the aim of science is to provide theories that correctly delimit, in a unified way, the range of experiences that are naturally possible given our position in the world. The view is associated with a pragmatic account of scientific representation and an original notion of situated modalities, together with an inductive epistemology for modalities. It purports to provide a faithful account of scientific practice and of its impressive achievements, and defuses the main motivations for scientific realism. More generally, Modal Empiricism purports to be the precise articulation of a pragmatist stance towards science. This book is of interest to any philosopher involved in the debate on scientific realism, or interested in how to properly understand the content, aim and achievements of science.

Download or read book Bas C Van Fraassen written by Bas C. Van Fraassen and published by Ontos Verlag. This book was released on 2006 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Without doubt Bas C. van Fraassen is among the most distinguished and celebrated philosophers of science of our days. His fields of expertise range from logic and semantics to epistemology and philosophy of physics. Several of his monographs belong to the standard literature of these disciplines. It was already in 1980 when his The Scientific Image brilliantly entered the philosophical scene. The exposition of constructive empiricism, especially (van Fraassen's favored philosophy of science as well as his alternative to scientific realism), launched an intensive and highly controversial debate on the aim and status of science which has still not been settled. In his Terry Lectures at Yale University (published as The Empirical Stance in 2002) Bas van Fraassen gave a comprehensive account of what he deems cogent answers to the questions of what empiricism is and what it could be. Distancing himself from the self-defeating fundamentalist projects of logical empiricism he envisaged empiricism as a stance, as opposed to a factual thesis. From his point of view, it is the recurrent rebellion against metaphysics and the admiration for science that characterizes the empiricists' stance and buttresses their philosophical arguments. It is beyond doubt that the prospects of empiricism today are intimately related to Bas van Fraassen and his work. Andreas Berg-Hildebrand holds an M.A. degree in philosophy and now teaches in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Mnster (Germany). He is currently working on a thesis on scientific realism. Christian Suhm received his Ph. D. in philosophy from the University of Mnster. He is now assistant professor of philosophy at the Department of Philosophy at Mnster (Germany). His main fields of research are in the philosophy of science and epistemology. At present he is working on a book on induction. Bastiaan C. van Fraassen was born in Goes (the Netherlands), in 1941, and emigrated with his family to Canada in 1956. He attended the University of Alberta (B.A. (hon.), Philosophy, 1963), and the University of Pittsburgh (M.A. 1964; Ph. D., Philosophy, 1966). He taught at Yale University, the University of Toronto, the University of Southern California, and Princeton University. Since 1982 he is McCosh Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University.

Download or read book Scientific Theories and Philosophical Stances written by Claus Beisbart and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2024-05-20 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the publication of his seminal monograph "The scientific image", Bas van Fraassen is a key figure in philosophy of science. In this book, other philosophers with various outlooks critically discuss his work on theories, empiricism and philosophical stances. The book starts with a new article by van Fraassen on his preferred account of theories, the so-called semantic view. This account is now 50 years old, and van Fraassen takes this anniversary as an opportunity to review the account, its history and the philosophical discussion about it. In the main part of the book, Nancy Cartwright, Finnur Dellsén, Matthias Egg, Steven French, Michael Friedman, Milena Ivanova and Michela Massimi discuss van Fraassen's contributions to philosophy. Three chapters focus on his engagement with realism (French, Friedman, Ivanova). Others study his voluntarism (Cartwright) and his view on representation (Massimi). Finally, there are contributions about his elaboration of empiricism (Dellsén) and his proposal to consider philosophical positions as stances (Egg). The volume includes a laudatio written by Steven French and finishes with a reply by van Fraassen to his critics.

Download or read book A Metaphysics for Scientific Realism written by Anjan Chakravartty and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-10-18 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

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 Articulating the World written by Joseph Rouse and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-11-13 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Naturalism as a guiding philosophy for modern science both disavows any appeal to the supernatural or anything else transcendent to nature, and repudiates any philosophical or religious authority over the workings and conclusions of the sciences. A longstanding paradox within naturalism, however, has been the status of scientific knowledge itself, which seems, at first glance, to be something that transcends and is therefore impossible to conceptualize within scientific naturalism itself. In Articulating the World, Joseph Rouse argues that the most pressing challenge for advocates of naturalism today is precisely this: to understand how to make sense of a scientific conception of nature as itself part of nature, scientifically understood. Drawing upon recent developments in evolutionary biology and the philosophy of science, Rouse defends naturalism in response to this challenge by revising both how we understand our scientific conception of the world and how we situate ourselves within it.

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