Scientific Realism PDF Download

Author: Stathis Psillos
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134619820
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Scientific realism is the optimistic view that modern science is on the right track. This book argues that the history of science does not undermine this notion, suggesting it as the best philosophical account of science.

Author: K. Brad Wray
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108415210
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Provides a spirited defence of anti-realism in philosophy of science. Shows the historical evidence and logical challenges facing scientific realism.

Author: Alan D. Flurkey
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000149595
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
This book provides research-based insights that deepen and broaden current understandings of the nature of reading. Informed by psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic views of reading-as-meaning-construction, the studies build on principles of scientific realism – an approach to inquiry that incorporates and values a wide variety of methods of observation to find the most inclusive, ecologically valid description of the reading process as it is observed in a variety of contexts from a wide range of perspectives. Focusing on how facts are discovered, developed, and used in the construction of knowledge about reading – a data-driven and theory-driven construction that results from observing the reading process with a variety of tools, methods, disciplines, and conceptual frameworks – scientific realism goes beyond rationalism and experimentation to include studies of events and experiences, but still satisfies even the most narrow definitions of what state and national lawmakers refer to as "reliable and replicable research on reading." Each study in this volume breaks ground for a new line of reading research underpinned by the theory of reading based in scientific realism. Scientific Realism in Studies of Reading is directed to reading researchers, teacher educators, reading specialists, special educators, graduate students, and related education professionals in the disciplines of applied psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics, and is appropriate as a text for advanced courses in these areas.

Author: Ilkka Niiniluoto
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191519405
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Ilkka Niiniluoto comes to the rescue of scientific realism, showing that reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated. Philosophical realism holds that the aim of a particular discourse is to make true statements about its subject-matter. Niiniluoto surveys the different varieties of realism in ontology, semantics, epistemology, theory construction, and methodology. He then sets out his own original version, and defends it against competing theories in the philosophy of science. Niiniluoto's critical scientific realism is founded upon the notion of truth as correspondence between language and reality, and characterizes scientific progress in terms of increasing truthlikeness. This makes it possible not only to take seriously, but also to make precise, the troublesome idea that scientific theories typically are false but nevertheless close to the truth.

Author: Anjan Chakravartty
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139468391
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
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.

Author: Timothy D. Lyons
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197554636
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Scientific realists claim we can justifiably believe that science is getting at the truth. However, they have faced historical challenges: various episodes across history appear to demonstrate that even strongly supported scientific theories can be overturned and left behind. In response, realists have developed new positions and arguments. As a result of specific challenges from the history of science, and realist responses, we find ourselves with an ever-increasing dataset bearing on the (possible) relationship between science and truth. The present volume introduces new historical cases impacting the debate and advances the discussion of cases that have only very recently been introduced. At the same time, shifts in philosophical positions affect the very kind of case study that is relevant. Thus, the historical work must proceed hand in hand with philosophical analysis of the different positions and arguments in play. It is with this in mind that the volume is divided into two sections, entitled "Historical Cases for the Debate" and "Contemporary Scientific Realism." All sides agree that historical cases are informative with regard to how, or whether, science connects with truth. Defying proclamations as early as the 1980s announcing the death knell of the scientific realism debate, here is that rare thing: a philosophical debate making steady and definite progress. Moreover, the progress it is making concerns one of humanity's most profound and important questions: the relationship between science and truth, or, put more boldly, the epistemic relation between humankind and the reality in which we find ourselves.

Author: Darrell P. Rowbottom
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429666292
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Roughly, instrumentalism is the view that science is primarily, and should primarily be, an instrument for furthering our practical ends. It has fallen out of favour because historically influential variants of the view, such as logical positivism, suffered from serious defects. In this book, however, Darrell P. Rowbottom develops a new form of instrumentalism, which is more sophisticated and resilient than its predecessors. This position—‘cognitive instrumentalism’—involves three core theses. First, science makes theoretical progress primarily when it furnishes us with more predictive power or understanding concerning observable things. Second, scientific discourse concerning unobservable things should only be taken literally in so far as it involves observable properties or analogies with observable things. Third, scientific claims about unobservable things are probably neither approximately true nor liable to change in such a way as to increase in truthlikeness. There are examples from science throughout the book, and Rowbottom demonstrates at length how cognitive instrumentalism fits with the development of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century chemistry and physics, and especially atomic theory. Drawing upon this history, Rowbottom also argues that there is a kind of understanding, empirical understanding, which we can achieve without having true, or even approximately true, representations of unobservable things. In closing the book, he sets forth his view on how the distinction between the observable and unobservable may be drawn, and compares cognitive instrumentalism with key contemporary alternatives such as structural realism, constructive empiricism, and semirealism. Overall, this book offers a strong defence of instrumentalism that will be of interest to scholars and students working on the debate about realism in philosophy of science.

Author: Juha Saatsi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367572556
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors the The Routledge handbook of Scientific Realism covers the following central topics: the historical development of the realist stance; core issues and positions of classic debate; perspectives on contemporary debates and the realism debate in disciplinary context.

Author: R. Nola
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400928777
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The institutionalization of History and Philosophy of Science as a distinct field of scholarly endeavour began comparatively earl- though not always under that name - in the Australasian region. An initial lecturing appointment was made at the University of Melbourne immediately after the Second World War, in 1946, and other appoint ments followed as the subject underwent an expansion during the 1950s and 1960s similar to that which took place in other parts of the world. Today there are major Departments at the University of Melbourne, the University of New South Wales and the University of Wollongong, and smaller groups active in many other parts of Australia and in New Zealand. "Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science" aims to provide a distinctive publication outlet for Australian and New Zealand scholars working in the general area of history, philosophy and social studies of science. Each volume comprises a group of essays on a connected theme, edited by an Australian or a New Zealander with special expertise in that particular area. Papers address general issues, however, rather than local ones; parochial topics are avoided. Further more, though in each volume a majority of the contributors is from Australia or New Zealand, contributions from elsewhere are by no means ruled out. Quite the reverse, in fact - they are actively encour aged wherever appropriate to the balance of the volume in question.

Author: J. Joseph
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230281982
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
Critical and scientific realism have emerged as important perspectives on international relations in recent years. The attraction of these approaches lies in the claim that they can transcend the positivism vs postpositivism divide. This book demonstrates the vitality of this approach and the difference that 'realism' makes.