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Author: I. Niiniluoto Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 9401719780 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 282
Book Description
This collection brings together several essays which have been written between the years 197 5 and 1983. During that period I have been occupied with the attempt to find a satisfactory explicate for the notion of tnithlike ness or verisimilitude. The technical results of this search have partly appeared elsewhere, and I am also working on a systematic presentation of them in a companion volume to this book: Truthlikeness (forthcoming hopefully in 1985). The essays collected in this book are less formal and more philos ophical: they all explore various aspects of the idea that progress in science is associated with an increase in the truthlikeness of its results. Even though they do not exhaust the problem area of scientific change, together they constitute a step in the direction which I find most promising in the defence of critical scientific realism. * Chapter 1 appeared originally in Finnish as the opening article of a new journal Tiede 2000 (no. 1 I 1980) - a Finnish counterpart to journals such as Science and Scientific American. This explains its programmatic character. It tries to give a compact answer to the question 'What is science?', and serves therefore as an introduction to the problem area of the later chapters. Chapter 2 is a revised translation of my inaugural lecture for the chair of Theoretical Philosophy in the University of Helsinki on April 8, 1981. It appeared in Finnish inParnasso 31 (1981), pp.
Author: I. Niiniluoto Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 9401719780 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 282
Book Description
This collection brings together several essays which have been written between the years 197 5 and 1983. During that period I have been occupied with the attempt to find a satisfactory explicate for the notion of tnithlike ness or verisimilitude. The technical results of this search have partly appeared elsewhere, and I am also working on a systematic presentation of them in a companion volume to this book: Truthlikeness (forthcoming hopefully in 1985). The essays collected in this book are less formal and more philos ophical: they all explore various aspects of the idea that progress in science is associated with an increase in the truthlikeness of its results. Even though they do not exhaust the problem area of scientific change, together they constitute a step in the direction which I find most promising in the defence of critical scientific realism. * Chapter 1 appeared originally in Finnish as the opening article of a new journal Tiede 2000 (no. 1 I 1980) - a Finnish counterpart to journals such as Science and Scientific American. This explains its programmatic character. It tries to give a compact answer to the question 'What is science?', and serves therefore as an introduction to the problem area of the later chapters. Chapter 2 is a revised translation of my inaugural lecture for the chair of Theoretical Philosophy in the University of Helsinki on April 8, 1981. It appeared in Finnish inParnasso 31 (1981), pp.
Author: Larry Laudan Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 0520037219 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 267
Book Description
"A book that shakes philosophy of science to its roots. Laudan both destroys and creates. With detailed, scathing criticisms, he attacks the 'pregnant confusions' in extant philosophies of science. The progress they espouse derives from strictly empirical criteria, he complains, and this clashes with historical evidence. Accordingly, Laudan constructs a remedy from historical examples that involves nothing less than the redefinition of scientific rationality and progress . . . Surprisingly, after this reshuffling, science still looks like a noble-and progressive-enterprise ... The glory of Laudan's system is that it preserves scientific rationality and progress in the presence of social influence. We can admit extra-scientific influences without lapsing into complete relativism. . . a must for both observers and practitioners of science." --Physics Today "A critique and substantial revision of the historic theories of scientific rationality and progress (Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyerabend, etc.). Laudan focuses on contextual problem solving effectiveness (carefully defined) as a criterion for progress, and expands the notion of 'paradigm' to a 'research tradition,' thus providing a meta-empirical basis for the commensurability of competing theories. From this perspective, Laudan suggests revised programs for history and philosophy of science, the history of ideas, and the sociology of science. A superb work, closely argued, clearly written, and extensively annotated, this book will become a widely required text in intermediate courses."--Choice
Author: I. Niiniluoto Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 9400937393 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 542
Book Description
The modern discussion on the concept of truthlikeness was started in 1960. In his influential Word and Object, W. V. O. Quine argued that Charles Peirce's definition of truth as the limit of inquiry is faulty for the reason that the notion 'nearer than' is only "defined for numbers and not for theories". In his contribution to the 1960 International Congress for Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science at Stan ford, Karl Popper defended the opposite view by defining a compara tive notion of verisimilitude for theories. was originally introduced by the The concept of verisimilitude Ancient sceptics to moderate their radical thesis of the inaccessibility of truth. But soon verisimilitudo, indicating likeness to the truth, was confused with probabilitas, which expresses an opiniotative attitude weaker than full certainty. The idea of truthlikeness fell in disrepute also as a result of the careless, often confused and metaphysically loaded way in which many philosophers used - and still use - such concepts as 'degree of truth', 'approximate truth', 'partial truth', and 'approach to the truth'. Popper's great achievement was his insight that the criticism against truthlikeness - by those who urge that it is meaningless to speak about 'closeness to truth' - is more based on prejudice than argument.
Author: Isabelle Stengers Publisher: John Wiley & Sons ISBN: 1509521844 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 220
Book Description
Like fast food, fast science is quickly prepared, not particularly good, and it clogs up the system. Efforts to tackle our most pressing issues have been stymied by conflict within the scientific community and mixed messages symptomatic of a rushed approach. What is more, scientific research is being shaped by the bubbles and crashes associated with economic speculation and the market. A focus on conformism, competitiveness, opportunism and flexibility has made it extremely difficult to present cases of failure to the public, for fear that it will lose confidence in science altogether. In this bold new book, distinguished philosopher Isabelle Stengers shows that research is deeply intertwined with broader social interests, which means that science cannot race ahead in isolation but must learn instead to slow down. Stengers offers a path to an alternative science, arguing that researchers should stop seeing themselves as the 'thinking, rational brain of humanity' and refuse to allow their expertise to be used to shut down the concerns of the public, or to spread the belief that scientific progress is inevitable and will resolve all of society's problems. Rather, science must engage openly and honestly with an intelligent public and be clear about the kind of knowledge it is capable of producing. This timely and accessible book will be of great interest to students, scholars and policymakers in a wide range of fields, as well anyone concerned with the role of science and its future.
Author: Philip Kitcher Publisher: Prometheus Books ISBN: 1616144084 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 326
Book Description
In this successor to his pioneering Science, Truth, and Democracy, the author revisits the topic explored in his previous workânamely, the challenges of integrating science, the most successful knowledge-generating system of all time, with the problems of democracy. But in this new work, the author goes far beyond that earlier book in studying places at which the practice of science fails to answer social needs. He considers a variety of examples of pressing concern, ranging from climate change to religiously inspired constraints on biomedical research to the neglect of diseases that kill millions of children annually, analyzing the sources of trouble. He shows the fallacies of thinking that democracy always requires public debate of issues most people cannot comprehend, and argues that properly constituted expertise is essential to genuine democracy. No previous book has treated the place of science in democratic society so comprehensively and systematically, with attention to different aspects of science and to pressing problems of our times.
Author: Robert Nisbet Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1351515462 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 594
Book Description
The idea of progress from the Enlightenment to postmodernism is still very much with us. In intellectual discourse, journals, popular magazines, and radio and talk shows, the debate between those who are "progressivists" and those who are "declinists" is as spirited as it was in the late seventeenth century. In History of the Idea of Progress, Robert Nisbet traces the idea of progress from its origins in Greek, Roman, and medieval civilizations to modern times. It is a masterful frame of reference for understanding the present world. Nisbet asserts there are two fundamental building blocks necessary to Western doctrines of human advancement: the idea of growth, and the idea of necessity. He sees Christianity as a key element in both secular and spiritual evolution, for it conveys all the ingredients of the modern idea of progress: the advancement of the human race in time, a single time frame for all the peoples and epochs of the past and present, the conception of time as linear, and the envisagement of the future as having a Utopian end. In his new introduction, Nisbet shows why the idea of progress remains of critical importance to studies of social evolution and natural history. He provides a contemporary basis for many disciplines, including sociology, economics, philosophy, religion, politics, and science. History of the Idea of Progress continues to be a major resource for scholars in all these areas.
Author: John Losee Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1134360266 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 190
Book Description
There seems little doubt that we have made progress in scientific theories, but how? Theories of Scientific Progress presents the arguments, covers interpretations of scientific progress and discusses the latest contemporary debates.
Author: John C. Caiazza Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1351484273 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 174
Book Description
This book is about the concept of progress, its separate varieties, its current rejection, and how it may be reconsidered from a philosophical and scientific basis. John C. Caiazza's main emphasis is on how science is understood as it has a direct impact on social values as expressed by prominent philosophers. He argues that progress is at a standstill, which presents a crisis for Western civilization.Caiazza presents historical examples, both of scientific inquiry and social and cultural themes, to examine the subject of progress. Beginning with the Whig model and progressive political values exemplified by Bacon and Dewey, he also examines other variations, the Enlightenment, cosmopolitanism, and totalitarianism. Technology, argues Caiazza, also has a stultifying effect on Western culture and to understand the idea of progress, we must take a philosophic rather than a scientific point of view. Modern cosmology has inevitable humanistic and theological implications, and major contemporary philosophers reject social science in favour of ancient concepts of virtue and ethics.In the end, Caiazza writes that time is an agent, not a neutral plain on which scientific and historical events occur. We can expect technology to keep us in stasis or become aware of the possibility of transcendence. This book will be of interest for students of scientific history and philosophy.
Author: I. Niiniluoto
Author: I. Niiniluoto
Author: Thomas S. Kuhn
Author: Larry Laudan
Author: I. Niiniluoto
Author: Isabelle Stengers
Author: Philip Kitcher
Author: Robert Nisbet
Author: John Losee
Author: John C. Caiazza
Author: