Download or read book Theoretical Virtues in Science written by Samuel Schindler and published by . This book was released on 2018-05-24 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In-depth discussion of the value of scientific theories, bringing together and advancing current important debates in realism.
Download or read book Theoretical Virtues in Science written by Samuel Schindler and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the features of a good scientific theory? Samuel Schindler's book revisits this classical question in the philosophy of science and develops new answers to it. Theoretical virtues matter not only for choosing theories 'to work with', but also for what we are justified in believing: only if the theories we possess are good ones (qua virtues) can we be confident that our theories' claims about nature are actually correct. Recent debates have focussed rather narrowly on a theory's capacity to predict new phenomena successfully, but Schindler argues that the justification for this focus is thin. He discusses several other theory properties such as testability, accuracy, and consistency, and highlights the importance of simplicity and coherence. Using detailed historical case studies and careful philosophical analysis, Schindler challenges the received view of theoretical virtues and advances arguments for the view that science uncovers reality through theory.
Download or read book Virtue Epistemology Naturalized written by Abrol Fairweather and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-05-27 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents four bridges connecting work in virtue epistemology and work in philosophy of science (broadly construed) that may serve as catalysts for the further development of naturalized virtue epistemology. These bridges are: empirically informed theories of epistemic virtue; virtue theoretic solutions to under determination; epistemic virtues in the history of science; and the value of understanding. Virtue epistemology has opened many new areas of inquiry in contemporary epistemology including: epistemic agency, the role of motivations and emotions in epistemology, the nature of abilities, skills and competences, wisdom and curiosity. Value driven epistemic inquiry has become quite complex and there is a need for a responsible and rigorous process of constructing naturalized theories of epistemic virtue. This volume makes the involvement of the sciences more explicit and looks at the empirical aspect of virtue epistemology. Concerns about virtue epistemology are considered in the essays contained here, including the question: can any virtue epistemology meet both the normativity constraint and the empirical constraint? The volume suggests that these worries should not be seen as impediments but rather as useful constraints and desiderata to guide the construction of naturalized theories of epistemic virtue.
Download or read book Theoretical Virtues in Science written by Samuel Schindler and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-24 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the features of a good scientific theory? Samuel Schindler's book revisits this classical question in the philosophy of science and develops new answers to it. Theoretical virtues matter not only for choosing theories 'to work with', but also for what we are justified in believing: only if the theories we possess are good ones (qua virtues) can we be confident that our theories' claims about nature are actually correct. Recent debates have focussed rather narrowly on a theory's capacity to predict new phenomena successfully, but Schindler argues that the justification for this focus is thin. He discusses several other theory properties such as testability, accuracy, and consistency, and highlights the importance of simplicity and coherence. Using detailed historical case studies and careful philosophical analysis, Schindler challenges the received view of theoretical virtues and advances arguments for the view that science uncovers reality through theory.
Download or read book Epistemic Virtues in the Sciences and the Humanities written by Jeroen van Dongen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-12-07 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how physicists, astronomers, chemists, and historians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries employed ‘epistemic virtues’ such as accuracy, objectivity, and intellectual courage. In doing so, it takes the first step in providing an integrated history of the sciences and humanities. It assists in addressing such questions as: What kind of perspective would enable us to compare organic chemists in their labs with paleographers in the Vatican Archives, or anthropologists on a field trip with mathematicians poring over their formulas? While the concept of epistemic virtues has previously been discussed, primarily in the contexts of the history and philosophy of science, this volume is the first to enlist the concept in bridging the gap between the histories of the sciences and the humanities. Chapters research whether epistemic virtues can serve as a tool to transcend the institutional disciplinary boundaries and thus help to attain a ‘post-disciplinary’ historiography of modern knowledge. Readers will gain a contextualization of epistemic virtues in time and space as the book shows that scholars themselves often spoke in terms of virtue and vice about their tasks and accomplishments. This collection of essays opens up new perspectives on questions, discourses, and practices shared across the disciplines, even at a time when the neo-Kantian distinction between sciences and humanities enjoyed its greatest authority. Scholars including historians of science and of the humanities, intellectual historians, virtue epistemologists, and philosophers of science will all find this book of particular interest and value.
Download or read book Current Controversies in Virtue Theory written by Mark Alfano and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-02-11 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Virtue is among the most venerable concepts in philosophy, and has recently seen a major revival. However, new challenges to conceptions of virtue have also arisen. In Current Controversies in Virtue Theory, five pairs of cutting-edge philosophers square off over central topics in virtue theory: the nature of virtue, the connection between virtue and flourishing, the connection between moral and epistemic virtues, the way in which virtues are acquired, and the possibility of attaining virtue. Mark Alfano guides his readers through these essays (all published here for the first time), with a synthetic introduction, succinct abstracts of each debate, suggested further readings and study questions for each controversy, and a list of further controversies to be explored.
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 Reading the Book of Nature written by Peter Kosso and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1992-07-31 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why should we believe what science tells us about the world? Observation data, confirmation of theories, and the explanation of phenomena are all considered in an introductory survey of the philosophy of science.
Download or read book Scientific Understanding written by Henk W. de Regt and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2009 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To most scientists, and to those interested in the sciences, understanding is the ultimate aim of scientific endeavor. In spite of this, understanding, and how it is achieved, has received little attention in recent philosophy of science. Scientific Understanding seeks to reverse this trend by providing original and in-depth accounts of the concept of understanding and its essential role in the scientific process. To this end, the chapters in this volume explore and develop three key topics: understanding and explanation, understanding and models, and understanding in scientific practice. Earlier philosophers, such as Carl Hempel, dismissed understanding as subjective and pragmatic. They believed that the essence of science was to be found in scientific theories and explanations. In Scientific Understanding, the contributors maintain that we must also consider the relation between explanations and the scientists who construct and use them. They focus on understanding as the cognitive state that is a goal of explanation and on the understanding of theories and models as a means to this end. The chapters in this book highlight the multifaceted nature of the process of scientific research. The contributors examine current uses of theory, models, simulations, and experiments to evaluate the degree to which these elements contribute to understanding. Their analyses pay due attention to the roles of intelligibility, tacit knowledge, and feelings of understanding. Furthermore, they investigate how understanding is obtained within diverse scientific disciplines and examine how the acquisition of understanding depends on specific contexts, the objects of study, and the stated aims of research.
Download or read book The Territories of Science and Religion written by Peter Harrison and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-04-06 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peter Harrison takes what we think we know about science and religion, dismantles it, and puts it back together again in a provocative new way. It is a mistake to assume, as most do, that the activities and achievements that are usually labeled religious and scientific have been more or less enduring features of the cultural landscape of the West. Harrison, by setting out the history of science and religion to see when and where they come into being and to trace their mutations over timereveals how distinctively Western and modern they are. Only in the past few hundred years have religious beliefs and practices been bounded by a common notion and set apart from the secular. And the idea of the natural sciences as discrete activities conducted in isolation from religious and moral concerns is even more recent, dating from the nineteenth century. Putting the so-called opposition between religion and science into historical perspective, as Harrison does here for the first time, has profound implications for our understanding of the present and future relations between them. "
Download or read book Judgments of Beauty in Theory Evaluation written by Devon Brickhouse-Bryson and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-07-01 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Judgments of Beauty in Theory Evaluation, Devon Brickhouse-Bryson argues that judgments of beauty are a justified part of theory evaluation of all sorts, including both scientific theory evaluation and philosophical theory evaluation. He supports this argument with an account of beauty—inherited from Kant and Mothersill—on which the distinctive nature of judgments of beauty is that they are unprincipled, yet possible. Brickhouse-Bryson analyzes two important methods of theory evaluation—reflective equilibrium and simplicity—and argues that these methods require making judgments of beauty understood. He further argues that these methods of theory evaluation are not anomalies, but that they point to a deeper lesson about the nature of theorizing and the necessity of using judgments of beauty to evaluate systems, like theories. This book has implications for the debate in philosophy of science over judgments of beauty and also prompts a reckoning in philosophy itself over the use of judgments of beauty in philosophical theory evaluation.
Download or read book The Theory and Practice of Virtue Education written by Tom Harrison and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-01-03 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Theory and Practice of Virtue Education offers the reader a comprehensive and authoritative account of both the theoretical and practical complexities of cultivating virtue in education and beyond. The book moves beyond the usual philosophical literature that merely discusses virtue in the abstract, and offers scholarly, research-informed suggestions for practice. Drawn from a highly successful international conference organised by the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, the chapters in this volume offer a unique insight into the varieties of approaches that leading scholars have identified for putting the learning and nurturing of virtues into practice. Featured are chapters from internationally acclaimed scholars primarily in the fields of philosophy, psychology and education, which are categorised under three headings: philosophical and theoretical foundations for cultivating virtues; developing virtues in practice; and nurturing specific virtues. Beginning with chapters that examine differing theoretical complexities of virtue education, the book then moves on to explore different approaches to nurturing virtue in the classroom and beyond. This practical approach is further evidenced in the final section, where individual virtues are discussed. The Theory and Practice of Virtue Education highlights the theoretical complexity of putting virtue education into practice and, as a result, is of real use to researchers, academics and postgraduates in the fields of education, philosophy, psychology, sociology and theology. It should also be essential reading for educators in character and virtue.
Download or read book Habits in Mind written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the role of both “mere habits” and sophisticated habitus in the formation of moral character and the virtues, incorporating perspectives from philosophy, theology, psychology, and neuroscience.
Download or read book Bridging the Gap between Aristotle s Science and Ethics written by Devin Henry and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-05 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the extent to which Aristotle's ethical treatises employ the concepts, methods, and practices developed in his 'scientific' works.
Download or read book Character Strengths and Virtues written by Christopher Peterson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004-04-08 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Character" has become a front-and-center topic in contemporary discourse, but this term does not have a fixed meaning. Character may be simply defined by what someone does not do, but a more active and thorough definition is necessary, one that addresses certain vital questions. Is character a singular characteristic of an individual, or is it composed of different aspects? Does character--however we define it--exist in degrees, or is it simply something one happens to have? How can character be developed? Can it be learned? Relatedly, can it be taught, and who might be the most effective teacher? What roles are played by family, schools, the media, religion, and the larger culture? This groundbreaking handbook of character strengths and virtues is the first progress report from a prestigious group of researchers who have undertaken the systematic classification and measurement of widely valued positive traits. They approach good character in terms of separate strengths-authenticity, persistence, kindness, gratitude, hope, humor, and so on-each of which exists in degrees. Character Strengths and Virtues classifies twenty-four specific strengths under six broad virtues that consistently emerge across history and culture: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. Each strength is thoroughly examined in its own chapter, with special attention to its meaning, explanation, measurement, causes, correlates, consequences, and development across the life span, as well as to strategies for its deliberate cultivation. This book demands the attention of anyone interested in psychology and what it can teach about the good life.
Download or read book Eliminativism Objects and Persons written by Jiri Benovsky and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Eliminativism, Objects, and Persons, Jiri Benovsky defends the view that he doesn't exist. In this book, he also defends the view that this book itself doesn't exist. But this did not prevent him to write the book, and although in Benovsky's view you don't exist either, this does not prevent you to read it. Benovsky defends a brand of non-exceptionalist eliminativism. Some eliminativists, typically focusing on ordinary material objects such as chairs and hammers, make exceptions, for instance for blue whales (that is, living beings) or for persons (that is, conscious organisms). Benovsky takes one by one all types of allegedly existing objects like chairs, whales, and persons and shows that from the metaphysical point of view they are more trouble than they are worth—we are much better off without them. He thus defends an eliminativist view about ordinary objects as well as the 'no-Self' view, where he explores connections between metaphysics, phenomenology, and Buddhist thought. He then also considers the case of aesthetic objects, focusing on musical works and photographs, and shows that the claim of their non-existence solves the many problems that arise when one tries to find an appropriate ontological category for them, and that such an eliminativist view is more natural than what we might have thought. The arguments provided here are always topic-specific: each type of entity is given its own type of treatment, thus proving a varied and solid foundation for a generalized, non-exceptionalist, full-blown eliminativist worldview.
Download or read book Exploring Inductive Risk written by Kevin C. Elliott and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science is the most reliable means available for understanding the world around us and our place in it. But, since science draws conclusions based on limited empirical evidence, there is always a chance that a scientific inference will be incorrect. That chance, known as inductive risk, is endemic to science. Though inductive risk has always been present in scientific practice, the role of values in responding to it has only recently gained extensive attention from philosophers, scientists, and policy-makers. Exploring Inductive Risk brings together a set of eleven concrete case studies with the goals of illustrating the pervasiveness of inductive risk, assisting scientists and policymakers in responding to it, and moving theoretical discussions of this phenomenon forward. The case studies range over a wide variety of scientific contexts, including the drug approval process, high energy particle physics, dual-use research, climate science, research on gender disparities in employment, clinical trials, and toxicology. The book includes an introductory chapter that provides a conceptual introduction to the topic and a historical overview of the argument that values have an important role to play in responding to inductive risk, as well as a concluding chapter that synthesizes important themes from the book and maps out issues in need of further consideration.
