Download or read book Logic Methodology and Philosophy of Science VII written by R. Barcan Marcus and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 1986-05-01 with total page 783 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science VII

Download or read book From Instrumentalism to Constructive Realism written by Theo A.F. Kuipers and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-04-18 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surprisingly, modified versions of the confirmation theory (Carnap and Hempel) and truth approximation theory (Popper) turn out to be smoothly sythesizable. The glue between the two appears to be the instrumentalist methodology, rather than that of the falsificationalist. The instrumentalist methodology, used in the separate, comparative evaluation of theories in terms of their successes and problems (hence, even if already falsified), provides in theory and practice the straight road to short-term empirical progress in science ( à la Laudan). It is also argued that such progress is also functional for all kinds of truth approximation: observational, referential, and theoretical. This sheds new light on the long-term dynamics of science and hence on the relation between the main epistemological positions, viz., instrumentalism (Toulmin, Laudan), constructive empiricism (Van Fraassen), referential realism (Hacking, Cartwright), and theory realism of a non-essentialist nature (constructive realism à la Popper). Readership: Open minded philosophers and scientists. The book explains and justifies the scientist's intuition that the debate among philosophers about instrumentalism and realism has almost no practical consequences.

Download or read book PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS Volume I written by Reinhard Viertl and published by EOLSS Publications. This book was released on 2009-06-11 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Probability and Statistics theme is a component of Encyclopedia of Mathematical Sciences in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. The Theme with contributions from distinguished experts in the field, discusses Probability and Statistics. Probability is a standard mathematical concept to describe stochastic uncertainty. Probability and Statistics can be considered as the two sides of a coin. They consist of methods for modeling uncertainty and measuring real phenomena. Today many important political, health, and economic decisions are based on statistics. This theme is structured in five main topics: Probability and Statistics; Probability Theory; Stochastic Processes and Random Fields; Probabilistic Models and Methods; Foundations of Statistics, which are then expanded into multiple subtopics, each as a chapter. These three volumes are aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College students Educators, Professional practitioners, Research personnel and Policy analysts, managers, and decision makers and NGOs

Download or read book Counterfactuals and Scientific Realism written by Michael J. Shaffer and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-08-13 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author attempts to show that scientific realism is compatible with the presence of idealization in the sciences. His main contention is that idealized theories can be treated as counterfactuals about how things are in worlds that are similar to but simpler than the actual world.

Download or read book The Philosophy of Science A M written by Sahotra Sarkar and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2006 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first in-depth reference to the field that combines scientific knowledge with philosophical inquiry, this encyclopedia brings together a team of leading scholars to provide nearly 150 entries on the essential concepts in the philosophy of science. The areas covered include biology, chemistry, epistemology and metaphysics, physics, psychology and mind, the social sciences, and key figures in the combined studies of science and philosophy. (Midwest).

Download or read book EPSA Epistemology and Methodology of Science written by Mauricio Suárez and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-01-14 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These volumes collect a selection of papers presented at the Founding Conference of the European Philosophy of Science Association meeting in Madrid. The volumes provide an excellent overview of the state of the art in philosophy of science as practised nowadays in different European countries.

Download or read book Theory and Experiment written by Diderik Batens and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is not "another collection of contributions on a traditional subject." Even more than we dared to expect during the preparatory stages, the papers in this volume prove that our thinking about science has taken a new turn and has reached a new stage. The progressive destruction of the received view has been a fascinating and healthy experience. At present, the period of destruction is over. A richer and more equilibrated analysis of a number of problems is possible and is being cru'ried out. In this sense, this book comes right on time. We owe a lot to the scholars of the Kuhnian period. They not only did away with obstacles, but in several respects instigated a shift in attention that changed history and philosophy of science in a irreversible way. A c1earcut example - we borrow it from the paper by Risto Hilpinen - concerns the study of science as a process, Rnd not only as a result. Moreover, they apparently reached several lasting results, e.g., concerning the tremendous impact of theoretical conceptions on empirical data. Apart from baffling people for several decades, this insight rules out an other return to simple-minded empiricism in the future.

Download or read book Sociobiology and Epistemology written by J.H. Fetzer and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The papers presented in this special collection focus upon conceptual, the oretical and epistemological aspects of sociobiology, an emerging discipline that deals with the extent to which genetic factors influence or control patterns of behavior as well as the extent to which patterns of behavior, in turn, influence or control genetic evolution. The Prologue advances a compre hensive acco/unt of the field of gene-culture co-evolution, where Lumsden and Gushurst differentiate between "classical" sociobiology (represented especially by Wilson's early work) and current research on human socio biology (represented by Lumsden and Wilson's later work), which emphasizes interplay between genes, minds, and culture. The specter of genetic deter minism, no doubt, has created considerable controversy, some of which may be laid to rest by Hanna's analysis of the (ambiguous) notion of a "genetic program", which indicates the necessity for distinguishing between descriptive and prescriptive dimensions of this complex concept. Brandon offers a framework for assessing the respective contributions of nature and of nurture by advancing a means for measuring genetic and cultural influences upon "inheritance", which supports the conclusion that evolving patterns of behavior do not always maximize inclusive fitness, contrary to what socio biologists have claimed. The influence of culture upon genetic evolution, of course, can be adequately appraised only when a suitable account of culture itself has been found, a desideratum Smillie attempts to satisfy by utilizing the notion of "cinfo" as culturally transmitted ecological informa tion, a resource other species tend not to exploit.

Download or read book Rethinking the Foundations of Statistics written by Joseph B. Kadane and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1999-08-13 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This important collection of essays is a synthesis of foundational studies in Bayesian decision theory and statistics. An overarching topic of the collection is understanding how the norms for Bayesian decision making should apply in settings with more than one rational decision maker and then tracing out some of the consequences of this turn for Bayesian statistics. The volume will be particularly valuable to philosophers concerned with decision theory, probability, and statistics, statisticians, mathematicians, and economists.

Download or read book Reasoning about Uncertainty second edition written by Joseph Y. Halpern and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017-03-31 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Formal ways of representing uncertainty and various logics for reasoning about it; updated with new material on weighted probability measures, complexity-theoretic considerations, and other topics. In order to deal with uncertainty intelligently, we need to be able to represent it and reason about it. In this book, Joseph Halpern examines formal ways of representing uncertainty and considers various logics for reasoning about it. While the ideas presented are formalized in terms of definitions and theorems, the emphasis is on the philosophy of representing and reasoning about uncertainty. Halpern surveys possible formal systems for representing uncertainty, including probability measures, possibility measures, and plausibility measures; considers the updating of beliefs based on changing information and the relation to Bayes' theorem; and discusses qualitative, quantitative, and plausibilistic Bayesian networks. This second edition has been updated to reflect Halpern's recent research. New material includes a consideration of weighted probability measures and how they can be used in decision making; analyses of the Doomsday argument and the Sleeping Beauty problem; modeling games with imperfect recall using the runs-and-systems approach; a discussion of complexity-theoretic considerations; the application of first-order conditional logic to security. Reasoning about Uncertainty is accessible and relevant to researchers and students in many fields, including computer science, artificial intelligence, economics (particularly game theory), mathematics, philosophy, and statistics.

Download or read book Reasoning about Uncertainty written by Joseph Y. Halpern and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2005-08-12 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uncertainty is a fundamental and unavoidable feature of daily life; in order to deal with uncertaintly intelligently, we need to be able to represent it and reason about it. In this book, Joseph Halpern examines formal ways of representing uncertainty and considers various logics for reasoning about it. While the ideas presented are formalized in terms of definitions and theorems, the emphasis is on the philosophy of representing and reasoning about uncertainty; the material is accessible and relevant to researchers and students in many fields, including computer science, artificial intelligence, economics (particularly game theory), mathematics, philosophy, and statistics. Halpern begins by surveying possible formal systems for representing uncertainty, including probability measures, possibility measures, and plausibility measures. He considers the updating of beliefs based on changing information and the relation to Bayes' theorem; this leads to a discussion of qualitative, quantitative, and plausibilistic Bayesian networks. He considers not only the uncertainty of a single agent but also uncertainty in a multi-agent framework. Halpern then considers the formal logical systems for reasoning about uncertainty. He discusses knowledge and belief; default reasoning and the semantics of default; reasoning about counterfactuals, and combining probability and counterfactuals; belief revision; first-order modal logic; and statistics and beliefs. He includes a series of exercises at the end of each chapter.

Download or read book Patrick Suppes Scientific Philosopher written by P. Humphreys and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 1994-09-30 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Patrick Suppes is a philosopher and scientist whose contributions range over probability and statistics, mathematical and experimental psychology, the foundations of physics, education theory, the philosophy of language, measurement theory, and the philosophy of science. He has also been a pioneer in the area of computer assisted instruction. In each of these areas, Suppes has provided seminal ideas that in some cases led to shaping the direction of research in the field. The papers contained in this collection were commissioned with the mandate of advancing research in their respective fields rather than retrospectively surveying the contributions that Suppes himself has made. The authors form an interesting mixture of researchers in both formal philosophy of science and science itself all of whom have been inspired by his ideas. To maintain the spirit of constructive dialogue that characterizes Suppes's intellectual style, he has written individual responses to each article. In Volume 1: Probability and Probabilistic Causality, nineteen distinguished philosophers and scientists focus their attention on probabilistic issues. In Part I the contributors explore axiomatic representations of probability theory including qualitative and interval valued probabilities as well as traditional point valued probabilities. Belief structures and the dynamics of belief are also treated in detail. In Part II the rapidly growing field of probabilistic causation is assessed from both formal and empirical viewpoints. For probability theorists, statisticians, economists, philosophers of science, psychologists and those interested in the foundations of mathematical social science. In Volume 2: Philosophy of Physics, Theory Structure, and Measurement Theory, fifteen distinguished philosophers and scientists cover a wide variety of topics. Part III covers issues in quantum theory, geometry, classical mechanics, and computational physics. Part IV explores Suppes's well known set-theoretic account of scientific theories which has served him well throughout his career. Suppes's contributions to measurement theory have been widely used in mathematical psychology and elsewhere, and this material is the subject of Part V. For physicists, logicians, workers in mathematical social sicence, and philosophers of science. In Volume 3: Philosophy of Language and Logic, Learning and Action Theory, fourteen distinguished philosophers and scientists explore issues in the philosophy of language, logic, and philosophical psychology. Suppes's suggestions that quantum theory requires a rethinking of classical logic form a particularly sharp account of that controversial thesis, and Part VI deals with this issue together with topics in the philosophy of language and logic, including relational grammars and anaphora. Part VII deals with issues in psychology, action theory, and robotics, while Part VIII concludes with a general survey of Suppes's views in the philosophy of science. A comprehensive chronological and topical bibliography of Suppes's writings is included in this volume. For philosophers of language, theoretical linguists, logicians, workers in mathematical social sciences, and philosophers of science.

Download or read book Advances in Scientific Philosophy written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-06-26 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Game of Language written by Jaakko Hintikka and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the first chapter of this book presents an intro duction to the present state of game-theoretical semantics (GTS), there is no point in giving a briefer survey here. Instead, it may be helpful to indicate what this volume attempts to do. The first chapter gives a short intro duction to GTS and a survey of what is has accomplished. Chapter 2 puts the enterprise of GTS into new philo sophical perspective by relating its basic ideas to Kant's phi losophy of mathematics, space, and time. Chapters 3-6 are samples of GTS's accomplishments in understanding different kinds of semantical phenomena, mostly in natural languages. Beyond presenting results, some of these chapters also have other aims. Chapter 3 relates GTS to an interesting line of logical and foundational studies - the so-called functional interpretations - while chapter 4 leads to certain important methodological theses. Chapter 7 marks an application of GTS in a more philo sophical direction by criticizing the Frege-Russell thesis that words like "is" are multiply ambiguous. This leads in turn to a criticism of recent logical languages (logical notation), which since Frege have been based on the ambi guity thesis, and also to certain methodological sug gestions. In chapter 8, GTS is shown to have important implications for our understanding of Aristotle's doctrine of categories, while chapter 9 continues my earlier criticism of Chomsky's generative approach to linguistic theorizing.

Download or read book Analytic Philosophy in Finland written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-08-09 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finland is internationally known as one of the leading centers of twentieth century analytic philosophy. This volume offers for the first time an overall survey of the Finnish analytic school. The rise of this trend is illustrated by original articles of Edward Westermarck, Eino Kaila, Georg Henrik von Wright, and Jaakko Hintikka. Contributions of Finnish philosophers are then systematically discussed in the fields of logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, history of philosophy, ethics and social philosophy. Metaphilosophical reflections on the nature of philosophy are highlighted by the Finnish dialogue between analytic philosophy, phenomenology, pragmatism, and critical theory.

Download or read book Unity of Science written by Robert L. Causey and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 1977-04-30 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first section of this chapter describes the major goals of this investiga tion and the general strategy of my presentation. The remaining three sections review some requisite background material and introduce some terminology and notation used in the book. Section B contains a brief review of some of the ideas and notation of elementary logic and set theory. Section C contains an introductory discussion of kinds and at tributes. Section D presents some basic ideas about laws and law sentences. A. GENERAL PLAN OF THE BOOK Basic scientific research is directed towards the goals of increasing our knowledge of the wor1d and our understanding of the wor1d. Knowledge increases through the discovery and confirmation of facts and laws. Understanding results from the explanation of known facts and laws, and through the formulation of general, systematic theories. Other things being equal, we tend to feeI that our understanding of a c1ass of phenomena increases as we develop increasingly general and intuitively unified theories of that c1ass of phenomena. It is therefore natural to consider the possibility of one very general, unified theory which, at least in principle, governs all known phenomena. The dream of obtaining such a theory, and the understanding that it would provide, has motivated an enormous amount of research by both scientists and philosophers.

Download or read book Knowledge and Inquiry written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-03-27 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ISBN 9042000694 (paperback) NLG 50.00 Main headings: I. Historical perspectives.- II. Formal tools: induction, observation and identifiability.- III. Questions in inquiry: the interrogative model.- IV. Growth of knowledge: explanation and discovery.- V. Jaakko Hintikka: replies.- VI. Abstracts. skills in writing.