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 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 Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science written by Marx W. Wartofsky and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The broad range of interdisciplinary concerns which are encompassed by the philosophy of science have this much in common: (I) they arise from reflection upon the fundamental concepts, the formal structures, and the methodology of the sciences; (2) they touch upon the characteristically philosophical questions of ontology and epistemology in a unique way, bringing to traditional conceptions the analytic apparatus of modern logic, and the new content and conceptual models of active scientific investigations. These sources are reflected in the present volume, which consists of the major portion of the papers presented to the Boston Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science in the academic year 1961-1962. There is no central theme nor any dominant approach in this colloquium. Initiated in 1960 as an inter-university interdisciplinary faculty group, the Colloqnium is intended to foster creative and regular exchange of research and opinion, to provide a forum for professional discussion in the philosophy of science, and to stimulate the development of academic programs in philosophy of science in the colleges and universities of metropolitan Boston. The base of the Colloquium is our philosophic and scientific community, as broad and heterodox as the academic, cultural and techno logical complex in and about this city. The Colloquium has been supported in its first full year, as an inter-institutional cooperative association, by a generous grant to Boston University from the U. S. National Science Foundation. We are most grateful for this help.
Download or read book What is Philosophy of Science written by Dean Rickles and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-04-20 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophy of science puts science itself under the microscope: What exactly is science? How do its explanations of the world differ from those of other subjects, including so-called “pseudo-sciences”? How should we understand and evaluate scientific methods? What, if anything, can science tell us about the nature of physical reality? Dean Rickles guides beginners through the central topics in philosophy of science. He looks at the origins and evolution of the field, the issues that arise when distinguishing between science and non-science, the concepts of logic and associated problems, scientific realism and anti-realism, and the nature of scientific models and representing. Rickles brings the subject to sparkling life with a user-friendly tone and rich, real-world examples. What is Philosophy of Science? is the must-have primer for students getting to grips with this broad-ranging and important topic.
Download or read book Philosophy of Science written by David Boersema and published by Prentice Hall. This book was released on 2009 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new anthology, which integrates explanatory text, primary source readings, and case studies, provides students of any major (philosophy, science, or other) with an accessible and comprehensive introduction to the philosophy of science. The anthology is organized around a unique "three-pronged" approach: the metaphysical (what), the epistemological (how), and the axiological (why). The topics covered build coherently and logically: from issues of scientific method to ethical issues, to science's most current social and political implications. They demonstrate how philosophy of science is relevant in a modern day context. The anthology carefully examines the theoretical apparatus of the philosophy of science and applies it to rich case studies from the history of science.
Download or read book Introduction to the Philosophy of Science written by Anthony O'Hear and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 1989 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a balanced and up-to-date introduction to the philosophy of science. It covers all the main topics in the area, as well as introducing the student to the moral and social reality of science. The author's style is free from jargon, and although he makes use of scientific examples, these should be intelligible to those without much scientific background. At the same time the questions he raises are not merely abstract, so the book will be of interest and concern to scientists as well as philosophers. The author discusses the growth of knowledge of science, the status of scientific theories and their relationship to observational data, the extent to which scientific theories rest on unprovable paradigms, and the nature of scientific explanations. In later chapters he considers probability, scientific reductionism, the relationship between science and technology, and the relationship between scientific and other values.
Download or read book Philosophy and the Sciences for Everyone written by Michela Massimi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-09-25 with total page 165 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the origin of our universe? What are dark matter and dark energy? What is our role in the universe as human beings capable of knowledge? What makes us intelligent cognitive agents seemingly endowed with consciousness? Scientific research across both the physical and cognitive sciences raises fascinating philosophical questions. Philosophy and the Sciences For Everyone introduces these questions and more. It begins by asking what good is philosophy for the sciences before examining the following questions: The origin of our universe Dark matter and dark energy Anthropic reasoning in philosophy and cosmology Evolutionary theory and the human mind What is consciousness? Intelligent machines and the human brain Embodied Cognition. Each chapter includes an introduction, summary and study questions and there is a glossary of technical terms. Designed to be used on the corresponding Philosophy and the Sciences online course offered by the University of Edinburgh this book is also a superb introduction to central topics in philosophy of science and popular science.
Download or read book Why Does the World Exist written by Jim Holt and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2012-07-17 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this astonishing and profound work, an irreverent sleuth traces the riddleof existence from the ancient world to modern times.
Download or read book A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science written by John Losee and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2001-03-01 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Losee provides a balanced and engaging survey of the development of views about scientific method. Ideal for those coming to the subject for the first time, this fully updated new edition incorporates discussion on contemporary debates, including philosophy of biology, normative naturalism, theory appraisal, experimental practice, and scientific realism. Concise profiles of the major philosophers discussed within the text are provided, including Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Whewell, Hempel, and Kuhn.
Download or read book Philosophy of Science after Feminism written by Janet A. Kourany and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-09 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this monograph Janet A. Kourany argues for a philosophy of science more socially engaged and socially responsible than the philosophy of science we have now. The central questions feminist scientists, philosophers, and historians have been raising about science during the last three decades form Kourany's point of departure and her response to these questions builds on their insights. This way of approaching science differs from mainstream philosophy of science in two crucial respects: it locates science within its wider societal context rather than treating science as if it existed in a social, political, and economic vacuum; and it points the way to a more comprehensive understanding of scientific rationality, one that integrates the ethical with the epistemic. Kourany develops her particular response, dubbed by her the ideal of socially responsible science, beyond the gender-related questions and contexts that form its origins and she defends it against a variety of challenges, epistemological, historical, sociological, economic, and political. She ends by displaying the important new directions philosophy of science can take and the impressive new roles philosophers of science can fill with the approach to science she offers.
Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Feminist Philosophy of Science written by Sharon Crasnow and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-11-30 with total page 671 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Handbook of Feminist Philosophy of Science is a comprehensive resource for feminist thinking about and in the sciences. Its 33 chapters were written exclusively for this Handbook by a group of leading international philosophers as well as scholars in gender studies, women’s studies, psychology, economics, and political science. The chapters of the Handbook are organized into four main parts: I. Hidden Figures and Historical Critique II. Theoretical Frameworks III. Key Concepts and Issues IV. Feminist Philosophy of Science in Practice. The chapters in this extensive, fourth part examine the relevance of feminist philosophical thought for a range of scientific and professional disciplines, including biology and biomedical sciences; psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience; the social sciences; physics; and public policy. The Handbook gives a snapshot of the current state of feminist philosophy of science, allowing students and other newcomers to get up to speed quickly in the subfield and providing a handy reference for many different kinds of researchers.
Download or read book Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science written by Matthew H. Slater and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume of essays will explore the relationship between science and metaphysics, asking what role metaphysics should play in philosophizing about science. The essays will address this question both through ground-level investigations of particular issues in the metaphysics of science and more general methodological investigations. They thereby contribute to an ongoing discussion concerning the future, the limits, and the possibility of metaphysics as a legitimate philosophical project.
Download or read book Philosophy of Science for Scientists written by Lars-Göran Johansson and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-12-17 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This textbook offers an introduction to the philosophy of science. It helps undergraduate students from the natural, the human and social sciences to gain an understanding of what science is, how it has developed, what its core traits are, how to distinguish between science and pseudo-science and to discover what a scientific attitude is. It argues against the common assumption that there is fundamental difference between natural and human science, with natural science being concerned with testing hypotheses and discovering natural laws, and the aim of human and some social sciences being to understand the meanings of individual and social group actions. Instead examines the similarities between the sciences and shows how the testing of hypotheses and doing interpretation/hermeneutics are similar activities. The book makes clear that lessons from natural scientists are relevant to students and scholars within the social and human sciences, and vice versa. It teaches its readers how to effectively demarcate between science and pseudo-science and sets criteria for true scientific thinking. Divided into three parts, the book first examines the question What is Science? It describes the evolution of science, defines knowledge, and explains the use of and need for hypotheses and hypothesis testing. The second half of part I deals with scientific data and observation, qualitative data and methods, and ends with a discussion of theories on the development of science. Part II offers philosophical reflections on four of the most important con cepts in science: causes, explanations, laws and models. Part III presents discussions on philosophy of mind, the relation between mind and body, value-free and value-related science, and reflections on actual trends in science.
Download or read book The Worst Enemy of Science written by Paul Feyerabend and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2000 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This stimulating collection is devoted to the life and work of the most flamboyant of twentieth-century philosophers, Paul Feyerabend. Feyerabend's radical epistemological claims, and his stunning argument that there is no such thing as scientific method, were highly influential during his life and have only gained attention since his death in 1994. The essays that make up this volume, written by some of today's most respected philosophers of science, many of whom knew Feyerabend as students and colleagues, cover the diverse themes in his extensive body of work and present a personal account of this fascinating thinker.
Download or read book Philosophy of Chemistry written by Davis Baird and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-09-01 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive volume marks a new standard in scholarship in the emerging field of the philosophy of chemistry. Philosophers, chemists, and historians of science ask some fundamental questions about the relationship between philosophy and chemistry.
Download or read book Conceptual Change and the Philosophy of Science written by David J. Stump and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-05-15 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, David Stump traces alternative conceptions of the a priori in the philosophy of science and defends a unique position in the current debates over conceptual change and the constitutive elements in science. Stump emphasizes the unique epistemological status of the constitutive elements of scientific theories, constitutive elements being the necessary preconditions that must be assumed in order to conduct a particular scientific inquiry. These constitutive elements, such as logic, mathematics, and even some fundamental laws of nature, were once taken to be a priori knowledge but can change, thus leading to a dynamic or relative a priori. Stump critically examines developments in thinking about constitutive elements in science as a priori knowledge, from Kant’s fixed and absolute a priori to Quine’s holistic empiricism. By examining the relationship between conceptual change and the epistemological status of constitutive elements in science, Stump puts forward an argument that scientific revolutions can be explained and relativism can be avoided without resorting to universals or absolutes.
Download or read book A Tale of Seven Scientists and a New Philosophy of Science written by Eric Scerri and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-10-10 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his latest book, Eric Scerri presents a completely original account of the nature of scientific progress. It consists of a holistic and unified approach in which science is seen as a living and evolving single organism. Instead of scientific revolutions featuring exceptionally gifted individuals, Scerri argues that the "little people" contribute as much as the "heroes" of science. To do this he examines seven case studies of virtually unknown chemists and physicists in the early 20th century quest to discover the structure of the atom. They include the amateur scientist Anton van den Broek who pioneered the notion of atomic number as well as Edmund Stoner a then physics graduate student who provided the seed for Pauli's Exclusion Principle. Another case is the physicist John Nicholson who is virtually unknown and yet was the first to propose the notion of quantization of angular momentum that was soon put to good use by Niels Bohr. Instead of focusing on the logic and rationality of science, Scerri elevates the role of trial and error and multiple discovery and moves beyond the notion of scientific developments being right or wrong. While criticizing Thomas Kuhn's notion of scientific revolutions he agrees with Kuhn that science is not drawn towards an external truth but is rather driven from within. The book will enliven the long-standing debate on the nature of science, which has increasingly shied away from the big question of "what is science?"
