Probabilistic models have much to offer to philosophy. We continually receive information from a variety of sources: from our senses, from witnesses, from scientific instruments. When considering whether we should believe this information, we assess whether the sources are independent, how reliable they are, and how plausible and coherent the information is. Bovens and Hartmann provide a systematic Bayesian account of these features of reasoning. Simple Bayesian networks allow us to model alternative assumptions about the nature of the information sources. Measurement of the coherence of information is a controversial matter: arguably, the more coherent a set of information is, the more confident we may be that its content is true, other things being equal. The authors offer a new treatment of coherence which respects this claim and shows its relevance to scientific theory choice. Bovens and Hartmann apply this methodology to a wide range of much-discussed issues regarding evidence, testimony, scientific theories and voting. "Bayesian Epistemology" is for anyone working on probabilistic methods in philosophy, and has broad implications for many other disciplines.

With contributions by sixteen scholars from such diverse fields as communication, linguistics, literary studies, rhetoric, and sociology of sciences, Essays in the Study of Scientific Discourse continues the contemporary discussion about the origin and nature of scientific discourse and its function in today's society. Essays document the increasing importance of rhetorical expertise in scientific discourse, shed new light into the history and language of science, and offer pedagogical guidance for teachers of scientific writing. Readers may also discover new topics for scholarly research in scientific discourse. Gay and Ted Gragson, for instance, show how technological advances may increase the rhetorical complexity of the grant proposal process, while J. Harrison Carpenter reveals the rhetorical power of the scientific report. In a related study, Cynthia Haller shows how scientific claims change as they mover from the scientific to the public arena. Dwight Atkinson gives empiricists a new methodology by integrating rhetorical analysis with sociolinguistic methodology. Richard Johnson-Sheehan and Dan Ding describe the evolution of scientific metaphor and passive voice, respectively. Ramon Plo Alastrue, Carmen Ramon Plo Alastrue-Llantada, and Rosemary Horowitz offer advice for teachers of scientific writing, while Steven Darian explores the intricacies and argumentative power of scientific classification schemas. In turn, Philippa Benson gives editorial advice to writers of scientific texts. Gender issues in scientific writing are addressed by Christine Skolnik and Mary Rosner. Trevor Pinch and Charles Alan Taylor put the cold fusion controversy of 1989 in critical perspective.

The philosophically most challenging science today, arguably, is no longer physics but biology. It is hardly an exaggeration to state that Charles Darwin has shaped modern evolutionary biology more significantly than anyone else. Moreover, since Darwin's day, philosophers and scientists have realized the enormous philosophical potential of Darwinism and have tried to expand his insights well beyond the limits of biology. However, no consensus has been achieved. The aim of this collection of essays is to revive a comprehensive discussion of the meaning and the philosophical implications of "Darwinism." The contributors to Darwinism and Philosophy are international scholars from the fields of philosophy, science, and history of ideas. A strength of this collection is that it brings together sustained reflection from American and Continental philosophical traditions. The conclusions of the contributors vary, but taken together their essays successfully map the problems of interpreting "Darwinism."

As society struggles to cope with the many repercussions of assisted life and death, the evening news is filled with stories of legal battles over frozen embryos and the possible prosecution of doctors for their patients' suicide. Using an "institutional" approach as an alternative to the prevailing "rights" based analysis of problems in law and medicine, this study explains why society should resist the tendency to look to science and law for a resolution of intimate matters, such as how our children are born and how we die. Palmer's institutional approach demonstrates that legislative analysis is often more important than judicial analysis when it comes to issues raised by new reproductive technologies and physician-assisted suicide. A reliance on individual rights alone for answers to the complex ethical questions that result from society's faith in scientific progress and science's close alliance with medicine will be insufficient and ill-advised. Palmer predicts that the key role of the family as a societal institution will mean that questions of assisted reproduction will be resolved more in response to market forces than through legal intervention. However, he does support a strong role for legislatures in decisions involving the physicians' role in our deaths. These findings are based on the differing views of the Supreme Court justices in these matters: a tendency to protect family formation from state interference (as in abortion decisions), but support of a legislative obligation to control medicine (assisted suicide). According to Palmer, recent Supreme Court decisions on physician assisted suicide usher in a new era in how legal institutions will resolve biomedical dilemmas.

"The Emerging Religion of Science" is a broad and erudite examination of the individual's place in the modern world. What can we believe today that will not betray us tomorrow? the author asks. Religion is losing influence. But the scientist, who explores the laws of nature, may be the modern guide to meaning. The mathematical equations of science have become unifying elements of the world as we know it. The author explores ways to face today's problems within the context of good and evil, freedom and restraint, probability and certainty, the real and the illusory, and the concept of self. He offers the view that, thought the paths we take may be different, we are all searching for the same thing: a thread on which the beads of experience and education can be strung.

Over the last two decades the distinguished philosopher Philip Kitcher has started to make a serious case for pragmatism as the source of a new life in contemporary philosophy. There are some, like Kitcher, who view today's analytic philosophy as mired in narrowly focused, technical disputes of little interest to the wider world. What is the future of philosophy, and what would it look like? While Classical Pragmatism - the American philosophy developed by John Dewey, Charles Peirce, and William James in the 19th century- has a mixed reputation today, Kitcher admires the way its core ideas provide a way to prioritize avenues of inquiry. As he points out, both James and Dewey shared a wish to eliminate 'insignificant questions' from philosophy, and both harbored suspicion of 'timeless' philosophical problems handed down generation after generation. Rather, they saw philosophy as inherently embedded in its time, grappling with pressing issues in religion, social life, art, politics, and education. Kitcher has become increasingly moved by this reformist approach to philosophy, and the published essays included here, alongside a detailed introduction setting out Kitcher's views, provide motivation for his view of the "reconstruction of philosophy." These essays try to install the pragmatic spirit into contemporary philosophy, renewing James and Dewey for our own times.

This book provides an accessible and up-to-date discussion of contemporary theories of perceptual justification that each highlight different factors related to perception, i.e., conscious experience, higher-order beliefs, and reliable processes. The book's discussion starts from the viewpoint that perception is not only one of our fundamental sources of knowledge and justification, but also plays this role for many less sophisticated animals. It proposes a scientifically informed reliabilist theory which can accommodate this fact without denying that some of our epistemic abilities as human perceivers are special. This allows it to combine many of our intuitions about the importance of conscious experience and higher-order belief with the controversial thesis that perceptual justification is fundamentally non-evidential in character.

This is a translation of work which first appeared in 1816 in Germany. Although Schopenhauer himself acknowledged that the treatise did not present any new and significant doctrines to his philosophy, he nonetheless considered it important enough to publish it again in revised form toward the end of his life, in 1854. As Professor Cartwright argues in his introduction, the book's philosophical value is to be found in the means it provides for increasing our understanding of Schopenhauer's philosophy, both in terms of its method and meaning. Not only does this book aim to offer insight into the younger Schopenhauer, it is also a significant document in the history of optics and colour theory.

The fifth volume of the collected works of Professor M.A.K. Halliday, The Language of Science, explores the semantic character of scientific discourse. The chapters are organized into two sections, one being on grammatical metaphor; the other dealing with scientific English. In language, there exists the potential for constructing new discourses, among them scientific discourse. The volume opens with a new work from Professor Halliday addressing the question, How big is a language? It is a question that goes to the heart of the paradigmatic complexity, or meaning potential, that characterizes language.

Balancing readability with intellectual rigor, this is an essential guide to understanding the complex relationship between psychology, science, and pseudoscience. At a time when unempirical data and evidence is increasingly purported as justification for scientific claims in the public consciousness, Hughes considers its impact upon the very philosophy behind the scientific principles behind the methods that produce research findings. Further, he examines the controversial research practices and biases in the psychological field that threaten the integrity of its claims. This book undertakes a fascinating contemplation and sagacious analysis of the historical and contemporary debates regarding psychological methods and research. Written to suit 3rd year undergraduate students and MA/MSc students in psychology as well as academics and the more general reader interested in these subject issues.

In late nineteenth-century America, Simon Newcomb was the nation's most celebrated scientist and--irascibly, doggedly, tirelessly--he made the most of it. Officially a mathematical astronomer heading a government agency, Newcomb spent as much of his life out of the observatory as in it, acting as a spokesman for the nascent but restive scientific community of his time.
Newcomb saw the "scientific method" as a potential guide for all disciplines and a basis for all practical action, and argued passionately that it was of as much use in the halls of Congress as in the laboratory. In so doing, he not only sparked popular support for American science but also confronted a wide spectrum of social, cultural, and intellectual issues. This first full-length study of Newcomb traces the development of his faith in science and ranges over topics of great public debate in the Gilded Age, from the reform of economic theory to the recasting of the debate between science and religion. Moyer's portrait of a restless, eager mind also illuminates the bustle of late nineteenth-century America.

From the 19th century the philosophy of science has been shaped by a group of influential figures. Who were they? Why do they matter? This introduction brings to life the most influential thinkers in the philosophy of science, uncovering how the field has developed over the last 200 years. Taking up the subject from the time when some philosophers began to think of themselves not just as philosophers but as philosophers of science, a team of leading contemporary philosophers explain, criticize and honour the giants. Now updated and revised throughout, the second edition includes: * Easy-to-follow overviews of pivotal thinkers including John Stuart Mill, Rudolf Carnap, Thomas Kuhn, Karl Popper, and many more * Coverage of central issues such as experience and necessity, logical empiricism, falsifiability, paradigms, the sociology of science, realism, and feminist critiques * An afterword looking ahead to emerging research trends * Study questions and further reading lists at the end of each chapter Philosophy of Science: The Key Thinkers demonstrates how the ideas and arguments of these figures laid the foundations of our understanding of modern science.

This book deals with a topic that has been largely neglected by philosophers of science to date: the ability to refer and analyze in tandem. On the basis of a set of philosophical case studies involving both problems in number theory and issues concerning time and cosmology from the era of Galileo, Newton and Leibniz up through the present day, the author argues that scientific knowledge is a combination of accurate reference and analytical interpretation. In order to think well, we must be able to refer successfully, so that we can show publicly and clearly what we are talking about. And we must be able to analyze well, that is, to discover productive and explanatory conditions of intelligibility for the things we are thinking about. The book's central claim is that the kinds of representations that make successful reference possible and those that make successful analysis possible are not the same, so that significant scientific and mathematical work typically proceeds by means of a heterogeneous discourse that juxtaposes and often superimposes a variety of kinds of representation, including formal and natural languages as well as more iconic modes. It demonstrates the virtues and necessity of heterogeneity in historically central reasoning, thus filling an important gap in the literature and fostering a new, timely discussion on the epistemology of science and mathematics.

Paul Abela presents a powerful, experience-sensitive form of realism about the relation between mind and world, based on an innovative interpretation of Kant. Abela breaks with tradition in taking seriously Kant's claim that his Transcendental Idealism yields a form of empirical realism, and giving a realist analysis of major themes of the Critique of Pure Reason. Abela's blending of Kantian scholarship with contemporary epistemology offers a new way of resolving philosophical debates about realism.

This book enriches our views on representation and deepens our understanding of its different aspects. It arises out of several years of dialog between the editors and the authors, an interdisciplinary team of highly experienced researchers, and it reflects the best contemporary view of representation and reality in humans, other living beings, and intelligent machines. Structured into parts on the cognitive, computational, natural sciences, philosophical, logical, and machine perspectives, a theme of the field and the book is building and presenting networks, and the editors hope that the contributed chapters will spur understanding and collaboration between researchers in domains such as computer science, philosophy, logic, systems theory, engineering, psychology, sociology, anthropology, neuroscience, linguistics, and synthetic biology.

The book examines the emerging approach of using qualitative methods, such as interviews and field observations, in the philosophy of science. Qualitative methods are gaining popularity among philosophers of science as more and more scholars are resorting to empirical work in their study of scientific practices. At the same time, the results produced through empirical work are quite different from those gained through the kind of introspective conceptual analysis more typical of philosophy. This volume explores the benefits and challenges of an empirical philosophy of science and addresses questions such as: What do philosophers gain from empirical work? How can empirical research help to develop philosophical concepts? How do we integrate philosophical frameworks and empirical research? What constraints do we accept when choosing an empirical approach? What constraints does a pronounced theoretical focus impose on empirical work? Nine experts discuss their thoughts and empirical results in the chapters of this book with the aim of providing readers with an answer to these questions.

This book explores the work of Thomas Seebohm (1934-2014), a leading phenomenologist and hermeneuticist. It features papers that offer a critical and constructive dialogue about Seebohm's analyses and their implications for the sciences. The net result is an in-depth study and a helpful overview of Seebohm's general approach and his specific views on various areas of modern science. The contributors focus especially upon his final text, History as a Science and the System of the Sciences. They view this as the culmination and summary of his historical and phenomenological investigations into the foundations, nature, and limits of modern sciences. This includes not just history but the Geisteswissenschaften more generally, along with the social and natural sciences as well. The essays in this volume reflect that range. This volume presents insightful discussions about the nature and legitimacy of the human sciences as sciences and the unique character of the social sciences. It will be of interest not just as a matter of historical scholarship, but also and above all as an important contribution to phenomenology and to the philosophy of science and the sciences as such. It deserves attention by scholars from any philosophical tradition interested in thinking about the foundations of their disciplines and a philosophy of science that includes, but is not limited to, the natural sciences.

This book presents a collection of authoritative contributions on the concept of time in early twentieth-century philosophy. It is structured in the form of a thematic atlas: each section is accompanied by relevant elementary logic maps that reproduce in a "spatial" form the directionalities (arguments and/or discourses) reported on in the text. The book is divided into three main sections, the first of which covers phenomenology and the perception of time by analyzing the works of Bergson, Husserl, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze, Guattari and Derrida. The second section focuses on the language and conceptualization of time, examining the works of Cassirer, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Lacan, Ricoeur and Foucault, while the last section addresses the science and logic of time as they appear in the works of Guillaume, Einstein, Reichenbach, Prigogine and Barbour. The purpose of the book is threefold: to provide readers with a comprehensive overview of the concept of time in early twentieth-century philosophy; to show how conceptual reasoning can be supported by accompanying linguistic and spatial representations; and to stimulate novel research in the humanistic field concerning the complex role of graphic representations in the comprehension of concepts.

This book systematically creates a general descriptive theory of scientific change that explains the mechanics of changes in both scientific theories and the methods of their assessment. It was once believed that, while scientific theories change through time, their change itself is governed by a fixed method of science. Nowadays we know that there is no such thing as an unchangeable method of science; the criteria employed by scientists in theory evaluation also change through time. But if that is so, how and why do theories and methods change? Are there any general laws that govern this process, or is the choice of theories and methods completely arbitrary and random? Contrary to the widespread opinion, the book argues that scientific change is indeed a law-governed process and that there can be a general descriptive theory of scientific change. It does so by first presenting meta-theoretical issues, divided into chapters on the scope, possibility and assessment of theory of scientific change. It then builds a theory about the general laws that govern the process of scientific change, and goes into detail about the axioms and theorems of the theory.

The cover of Lifeconscious helps to explain its topic in a nutshell. The background shows a cliff face that reveals the catastrophic boundary between two historical epochs. In this case the Valles Caldera super volcanic eruption 1.4 million years ago. The thin boundary line separating the two epochs is plainly visible and provides stark evidence that this is just one of many catastrophes of biblical proportions that life has had to overcome during our Earth's turbulent history. Lifeconscious will reveal how nature can generate New Species through assimilation and not through the tedious genetic mutations that evolution preaches. The inset picture of the Venus of Willendorf harks back to a time when Man was a hunter/gatherer and when Women were still regarded in high esteem as the mysterious providers of human life. Lifeconscious will demonstrate how life is an unending linear transference of species-specific memories from females to their unborn young. It will finally provide answers to the puzzling questions of What is instinct?, How are new species generated? and Why can't evolution explain the existence of living fossils?. novel light.

Sudduth provides a critical exploration of classical empirical arguments for survival arguments that purport to show that data collected from ostensibly paranormal phenomena constitute good evidence for the survival of the self after death. Utilizing the conceptual tools of formal epistemology, he argues that classical arguments are unsuccessful.

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.

Robert Grosseteste (1168/75-1253), Bishop of Lincoln from 1235-1253, is widely recognized as one of the key intellectual figures of medieval England and as a trailblazer in the history of scientific methodology. Few of his numerous philosophical and scientific writings circulated as widely as the Compotus, a treatise on time reckoning and calendrical astronomy apparently written during a period of study in Paris in the 1220s. Besides its strong and long-lasting influence on later writers, Grossteste's Compotus is particularly noteworthy for its innovatory approach to the theory and practice of the ecclesiastical calendar-a subject of essential importance to the life of the Latin Church. Confronting traditional computistical doctrines with the lessons learned from Graeco-Arabic astronomy, Grosseteste offered his readers a critical and reform-oriented take on the discipline, in which he proposed a specific version of the Islamic lunar as a substitute for the failing nineteen-year cycle the Church still employed to calculate the date of Easter. This new critical edition of Grosseteste's Compotus contains the Latin text with an en-face English translation. It is flanked by an extensive introduction and chapter commentary, which will provide valuable new insights into the text's purpose and disciplinary background, its date and biographical context, its sources, as well as its reception in later centuries.

This unique volume introduces and discusses the methods of validating computer simulations in scientific research. The core concepts, strategies, and techniques of validation are explained by an international team of pre-eminent authorities, drawing on expertise from various fields ranging from engineering and the physical sciences to the social sciences and history. The work also offers new and original philosophical perspectives on the validation of simulations. Topics and features: introduces the fundamental concepts and principles related to the validation of computer simulations, and examines philosophical frameworks for thinking about validation; provides an overview of the various strategies and techniques available for validating simulations, as well as the preparatory steps that have to be taken prior to validation; describes commonly used reference points and mathematical frameworks applicable to simulation validation; reviews the legal prescriptions, and the administrative and procedural activities related to simulation validation; presents examples of best practice that demonstrate how methods of validation are applied in various disciplines and with different types of simulation models; covers important practical challenges faced by simulation scientists when applying validation methods and techniques; offers a selection of general philosophical reflections that explore the significance of validation from a broader perspective. This truly interdisciplinary handbook will appeal to a broad audience, from professional scientists spanning all natural and social sciences, to young scholars new to research with computer simulations. Philosophers of science, and methodologists seeking to increase their understanding of simulation validation, will also find much to benefit from in the text.