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Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > Philosophy of science
This book explores the modern physicist Niels Bohr's philosophical thought, specifically his pivotal idea of complementarity, with a focus on the relation between the roles of what he metaphorically calls "spectators" and "actors." It seeks to spell out the structural and historical complexity of the idea of complementarity in terms of different modes of the 'spectator-actor' relation, showing, in particular, that the reorganization of Bohr's thought starting from his 1935 debate with Einstein and his collaborators is characterized by an extension of the dynamic conception of complementarity from non-physical contexts to the very field of quantum theory. Further, linked with this analysis, the book situates Bohr's complementarity in contemporary philosophical context by examining its intersections with post-Heideggerian hermeneutics as well as Derridean deconstruction. Specifically, it points to both the close affinities and the differences between Bohr's idea of the 'actor-spectator' relation and the hermeneutic notion of the relation between "belonging" and "distanciation."
This book gives a state-of-the-art survey of current research in logic and philosophy of science, as viewed by invited speakers selected by the most prestigious international organization in the field. In particular, it gives a coherent picture of foundational research into the various sciences, both natural and social. In addition, it has special interest items such as symposia on interfaces between logic and methodology, semantics and semiotics, as well as updates on the current state of the field in Eastern Europe and the Far East.
to the Moral Challenges H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. and Aaron E. Hinkley 1 Taking Finitude Seriously in a Chinese Cultural Context Across the world, health care policy is a moral and political challenge. Few want to die young or to suffer, yet not all the money in the world can deliver physical immortality or a life free of suffering. In addition, health care needs differ. As a result, unless a state coercively forbids those with the desire and means to buy better basic health care to do so, access to medicine will be unequal. No co- try can afford to provide all with the best of care. In countries such as China, there are in addition stark regional differences in the quality and availability of health care, posing additional challenges to public policy-making. Further, in China as elsewhere, the desire to lower morbidity and mortality risks has led to ever more resources being invested in health care. When such investment is supported primarily by funds derived from taxation, an increasing burden is placed on a country's economy. This is particularly the case as in China with its one-child policy, where the proportion of the elderly population consuming health care is rising. Thesepolicychallengesarecompoundedbymoraldiversity. Defacto, humansdo not share one morality. Instead, they rank cardinal human goods and right-making conditions in different orders, often not sharing an af?rmation of the same goods or views of the right.
This work is for scholars, researchers and students in history and philosophy of science focusing on Logical Empiricism and analytic philosophy (of science). It provides historical and systematic research and deals with the influence and impact of the Vienna Circle/Logical Empiricism on today's philosophy of science. It also explores the intellectual context of this scientific philosophy and focuses on main figures and peripheral adherents.
This is the first of two volumes comprising the papers submitted for publication by the invited participants to the Tenth International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, held in Florence, August 1995. The Congress was held under the auspices of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science, Division of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science. The invited lectures published in the two volumes demonstrate much of what goes on in the fields of the Congress and give the state of the art of current research. The two volumes cover the traditional subdisciplines of mathematical logic and philosophical logic, as well as their interfaces with computer science, linguistics and philosophy. Philosophy of science is broadly represented, too, including general issues of natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. The papers in Volume One are concerned with logic, mathematical logic, the philosophy of logic and mathematics, and computer science.
Humanity reaps the many advantages of science while bemoaning the frequent misapplications and abuses of modern technology. Yet far too many of us admit to possessing little if any real knowledge of what scientists actually do, why they do it, or whether they should be otherwise occupied in more productive pursuits. Nonscientists need to appreciate the nature, purpose, and goals of science. Conversely, the narrow focus of many science enthusiasts fails to recognize that science cannot help but interact with sources of knowledge beyond its realm, placing scientific endeavors within a swirling caldron of competing knowledge claims. In Understanding Science noted author and researcher Arthur N. Strahler, whose career in science spans more than half a century, fills this double void by offering insights into both the philosophy and the sociology of science. Part One presents a basic outline of the concepts and issues that have occupied scientists for years: the Nature of Science: Laws, Explanations, Theories, and Hypotheses; Prediction, Testing, Corroboration, and Falsification; the Complex/Historical Sciences; Determinism, Randomness, Chaos, and Quantum Mechanics; the New Philosophy of Science; and Pseudoscience, both specific cases and the phenomenon in general. Part Two concentrates on science as it interacts with and is distinguished from other knowledge fields. Here readers begin to see the religious, political, cultural, and social forces within which science developed and out of which it carved its special identity: the Major Classes of Knowledge; the Nature and Place of Logic and Mathematics; Religion and the God Concept; Ethics, Aesthetics, and Ideologies; How Science Impacts theReligious/Ethical Systems; and Is Creationism Religion or Pseudoscience? Unless each of us is willing to set aside our respective fears to gain a better understanding of what science is and how it can be carefully distinguished from other types of beliefs and claims, the ignorance, confusion, and distortion that has tainted society's view of science will remain a fundamental obstacle to gaining the knowledge that will help us solve pressing problems of daily life. Understanding Science offers new hope that this goal is within reach.
Philosophical understandings of Nature and Human Nature. Classical Greek and modern West, Christian, Buddhist, Taoist, by 14 authors, including Robert Neville, Stanley Rosen, David Eckel, Livia Kohn, Tienyu Cao, Abner Shimoney, Alfred Tauber, Krzysztof Michalski, Lawrence Cahoone, Stephen Scully, Alan Olson and Alfred Ferrarin. Dedicated to the phenomenological ecology of Erazim Koh k, with 10 of his essays and a full bibliography. Overall theme: on the question of the moral sense of nature.
This edited collection showcases some of the best recent research in the philosophy of science. It comprises of thematically arranged papers presented at the 5th conference of the European Philosophy of Science Association (EPSA15), covering a broad variety of topics within general philosophy of science, and philosophical issues pertaining to specific sciences. The collection will appeal to researchers with an interest in the philosophical underpinnings of their own discipline, and to philosophers who wish to study the latest work on the themes discussed.
This is a collection of some works of Polish philosophers and physicists on philosophical problems of time and spacetime. Without restricting the thematic scope of the papers, the issue conceming objectivity of time flow runs as a uniting thread through most of them. Partly it is discussed directIy, and partly the authors focus on themes which are of paramount importance for one's attitude to that question. In the first six papers the authors deal with their topics against the background of contemporary physics, its theories, its difficulties and discussed conjectures. For the paper of S. Snihur that background is provided by everyday worId-outlook, and the author discusses the problem of existence and character of the future in the light of basic principles of cIassical logic. The paper of A. P61tawski, about the views of the outstanding polish philosopher Roman Ingarden, enriches the thematic scope of the coIIection introducing into it some questions from philosophical anthropology and ethics. JERZY GOLOSZ MOTION, SPACE, TIME*. Abstract. The paper discusses the properties of spacetime we study by analyzing the phenomenon of motion. Of special interest are the spacetime symmetries. the spacetime structures and the ontological status of spacetime. These problems are considered on the grounds of the c1assical theories of motion contained in Newtonian physics, special and general theory of relativity. The controversy between an absolute and a relational conception of motion and its ontological implications are also analyzed.
The splendid achievements of Japanese mathematics and natural sciences during the second half of our 20th century have been a revival, a Renaissance, of the practical sciences developed along with the turn toward Western thinking in the late 19th century. The equally admirable results of Japanese philosophers (and historians) of science in our time followed upon a period less congenial to Western interests in the philosophical questions linked to modern science; and this reluctance to confront the epistemology, not even the humane significance, of the sciences went along with devotion to other Western trends. Thus, with the 'new' Japan of the Meiji restoration of 1868, and the early introduction of Western philosophy in the subsequent decade by Nishi Amane, a period of intellectual attraction to utilitarian, positivist, evolutionary, even materialist outlooks was soon replaced by devotion to scholarly work on Kant and Hegel, on ethical and general philosophical idealism. These studies often could emulate the critical spirit (the philosopher Onishe Hajime, praised for his own critical independence, was known as the Japanese Kant) but the neo Kantian and neo-Hegelian developments were not much affected by either empirical sciences or theoretical speculations about Nature. The pre-eminent philosopher of Japan ofthe first half of our century was Nishida Kitaro, with a pioneering treatise A Study of the Good, who, with his leading student Tanabe Hajime, formed the 'Kyoto School' of pre-war philosophy."
In three volumes, a distinguished group of scholars from a variety of disciplines in the natural and social sciences, the humanities and the arts contribute essays in honor of Robert S. Cohen, on the occasion of his 70th birthday. The range of the essays, as well as their originality, and their critical and historical depth, pay tribute to the extraordinary scope of Professor Cohen's intellectual interests, as a scientist-philosopher and a humanist, and also to his engagement in the world of social and political practice. The essays presented in Physics, Philosophy, and the Scientific Community (Volume I of Essays in Honor of Robert S. Cohen) focus on philosophical and historical issues in contemporary physics: on the origins and conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics, on the reception and understanding of Bohr's and Einstein's work, on the emergence of quantum electrodynamics, and on some of the sharp philosophical and scientific issues that arise in current scientific practice (e.g. in superconductivity research). In addition, several essays deal with critical issues within the philosophy of science, both historical and contemporary: e.g. with Cartesian notions of mechanism in the philosophy of biology; with the language and logic of science - e.g. with new insights concerning the issue of a physicalistic' language in the arguments of Neurath, Carnap and Wittgenstein; with the notion of elementary logic'; and with rational and non-rational elements in the history of science. Two original contributions to the history of mathematics and some studies in the comparative sociology of science round off this outstanding collection.
The rise of experimental philosophy is generating pressing methodological questions for philosophers. Can findings from experimental studies hold any significance for philosophy as a discipline? Can philosophical theorizing be improved through consideration of such studies? Do these studies threaten traditional philosophical methodology? Advances in Experimental Philosophy and Philosophical Methodology addresses these questions, presenting a variety of views on the potential roles experimental philosophy might play in philosophical debate. Featuring contributors from experimental philosophy, as well as those who have expressed criticism of the experimental philosophy movement, this volume reflects on the nature of philosophy itself: its goals, its methods, and its possible future evolution. Tackling two major themes, contributors discuss the recent controversy over the degree to which intuition plays a major role in philosophical methodology and the characterization of the role of the experimental philosophy project. They also look at the relationship between so-called 'positive' and 'negative' projects and examine possible links between experimental and mainstream philosophical problems. Close discussion of these themes contributes to the overall goal of the volume: an investigation into the current significance and possible future applications of experimental work in philosophy.
This book is primarily about the methodological questions involved in attempts to understand two of the most peculiar phenomena in physics, both occurring at the lowest of temperatures. Superconductivity (the disappearance of electrical resistance) and superfluidity (the total absence of viscosity in liquid helium) are not merely peculiar in their own right. Being the only macroscopic quantum phenomena they also manifest a sudden and dramatic change even in those properties which have been amply used within the classical framework and which were thought to be fully understood after the advent of quantum theory. A few years ago we set ourselves the task of carrying out a methodological study of the "most peculiar" phenomena in physics and trying to understand the process by which an observed (rather than predicted) new phenomenon gets "translated" into a physical problem. We thought the best way of deciding which phenomena to choose was to rely on our intuitive notion about the "degrees of peculiarity" developed, no doubt, during the past ten years of active research in theoretical atomic and elementary particle physics. While the merits of the different candidates were compared, we were amazed to realize that neither the phenomena of the very small nor those of the very large could compete with the phenomena of the very cold. These were truly remarkable phenomena if for no other reason than for the difficulties encountered in merely describing them.
The bulk of the present book has not been published previously though Chapters II and IV are based in part on two earlier papers of mine: "The Influence of Harald H 1lffding's Philosophy on Niels Bohr's Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics," which appeared in Danish Yearbook of Philosophy, 1979, and "The Bohr-H 1lffding Relationship Reconsidered," published in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 1988. These two papers comple ment each other, and in order to give the whole issue a more extended treatment I have sought, in the present volume by drawing on relevant historical material, to substantiate the claim that H 1lffding was Bohr's mentor. Besides containing a detailed account of Bohr's philosophy, the book, at the same time, serves the purpose of making H 1lffding' s ideas and historical significance better known to a non-Danish readership. During my work on this book I have consulted the Royal Danish Library; the National Archive of Denmark and the Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen, in search of relevant material. I am grateful for permission to use and quote material from these sources. Likewise, I am indebted to colleagues and friends for commenting upon the manuscript: I am especially grateful to Professor Henry Folse for our many discussions during my visit to New Orleans in November-December 1988 and again here in Elsinore in July 1990."
Is a genuine logic of scientific discovery possible? In the essays collected here, Hintikka not only defends an affirmative answer; he also outlines such a logic. It is the logic of questions and answers. Thus inquiry in the sense of knowledge-seeking becomes inquiry in the sense of interrogation. Using this new logic, Hintikka establishes a result that will undoubtedly be considered the fundamental theorem of all epistemology, viz., the virtual identity of optimal strategies of pure discovery with optimal deductive strategies. Questions to Nature, of course, must include observations and experiments. Hintikka shows, in fact, how the logic of experimental inquiry can be understood from the interrogative vantage point. Other important topics examined include induction (in a forgotten sense that has nevertheless played a role in science), explanation, the incommensurability of theories, theory-ladenness of observations, and identifiability.
This collection offers a new understanding of the epistemology of measurement. The interdisciplinary volume explores how measurements are produced, for example, in astronomy and seismology, in studies of human sexuality and ecology, in brain imaging and intelligence testing. It considers photography as a measurement technology and Henry David Thoreau's poetic measures as closing the gap between mind and world. By focusing on measurements as the hard-won results of conceptual as well as technical operations, the authors of the book no longer presuppose that measurement is always and exclusively a means of representing some feature of a target object or entity. Measurement also provides knowledge about the degree to which things have been standardized or harmonized - it is an indicator of how closely human practices are attuned to each other and the world.
Freud forjo dos conceptos -psicoanalisis y metapsicologia- para nombrar una y la misma entidad de conocimiento. El psicoanalisis le da especificidad a la metapsicologia en la valoracion de su incidencia clinica, verificando sus principios metodologicos, su rango de competencia y los limites de su campo explicativo. A contrapelo, la metapsicologia define el espectro categorial del psicoanalisis al especificar sus postulados y las relaciones logicas o cronologicas que rigen sus enunciados. En respuesta al descredito de orden epistemico que las disciplinas oficiales dispensan al corpus freudiano, el presente trabajo sostiene que es posible fundamentar la nocion de una epistemologia del psicoanalisis.
This volume reflects the 'philosophy of science in practice' approach and takes a fresh look at traditional philosophical problems in the context of natural, social, and health research. Inspired by the work of Nancy Cartwright that shows how the practices and apparatuses of science help us to understand science and to build theories in the philosophy of science, this volume critically examines the philosophical concepts of evidence, laws, causation, and models and their roles in the process of scientific reasoning. Each chapter is an important one in the philosophy of science, while the volume as a whole deals with these philosophical concepts in a unified way in the context of actual scientific practice. This volume thus aims to contribute to this new direction in the philosophy of science.
Vinciane Despret is a Belgian philosopher whose work proposes new questions and approaches to human-animal relations. Of central importance to her thought is an intellectual and cultural proposal to allow animals to show their agency and allow them to be interesting. With genuine curiosity, Despret looks at how humans and animals transform one another through daily encounters, and she explores these metamorphoses through an engagement with the history of philosophy, literature, science, field research, and art. In a playful though serious tone, Despret claims that animals are always more interesting than we give them credit for, and that the achievements of animals are never far from our own. This book was originally published as a special issue of Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities.
Holism and reductionism are traditionally seen as incompatible views or approaches to nature. Here Looijen argues that they should rather be seen as mutually dependent and hence co-operating research programmes. He sheds some interesting new light on the emergence thesis, its relation to the reduction thesis, and on the role and status of functional explanations in biology. He discusses several examples of reduction in both biology and ecology, showing the mutual dependence of holistic and reductionist research programmes. Ecologists are offered separate chapters, clarifying some major, yet highly and controversial ecological concepts, such as `community', `habitat', and `niche'. The book is the first in-depth study of the philosophy of ecology. Readership: Specialists in the philosophy of science, especially the philosophy of biology, biologists and ecologists interested in the philosophy of their discipline. Also of interest to other scientists concerned with the holism-reductionism issue.
This book is dedicated to the Soviet theoretician Yakov Ilich Frenkel (1894 - 1952), whose work in solid and liquid state physics is considered to be the golden foundation of twentieth century physics. Best known are the Frenkel pairs (defects), kinetic theory of liquids, theory of mobile dislocations (Frenkel- Kontorova solitons). Today, the electron theory of solids is inconceivable without excitons - the quasiparticles he introduced in 1930. Frenkel also contributed important concepts to classical electrodynamics (which now go under Feynmana s appellation "Frenkela s Fields") and to nuclear physics (the Bohr-Frenkel drop model). The book surveys the genesis and ramifications of Yakov Frenkela s scientific achievements. Special attention is paid to Frenkela s civic convictions, his fight against official Soviet philosophy for the acceptance and development of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics in the Soviet Union of the 1920sa "1940s, a crucial thirty-year period in the history of Russian physics following the October Revolution. Much of the book is based on a wealth of archival documents, personal reminiscences and of Frenkela s letters. Thanks to his trenchant observations, a vivid picture emerges of scientists, universities and cultures in Europe, the United States and various cities of the Soviet Union. The book is richly illustrated by unique photos and copies of drawings and portraits from Frenkela s own hand.
Among the many books on Galileo Galilei only very few deal directly and in depth with his scientific accomplishments proper. This is one of them and among the correspondingly sparse literature the author of this work distinguishes himself by focusing on mechanics, in particular on the fundamental concept of motion and percussion - having performed crucial original experiments and in Galileos spirit. Indeed, while the author lets Galilei speak for himself when he explains his experiments and findings, he also makes full use of our present day knowledge of physics to make the reader better understand the perspective. The result of this very fine understanding is an unsurpassingly authoritative account on some of the foundations of preclassical mechanics as laid down by the great Pisan scientist, widely regarded as the first experimental physicist in the modern sense. This book will not only be an indispensable source of reference for historians of sciences but appeal to anyone interested in the foundations of experimental physics in general and of mechanics in particular."
Dovring explores the limits of science as causes of ignorance. Some topics examined in these essays are problems with our ways of knowing and the impact of emotion on objectivity. He argues that reality consists of designs--of things and processes. While most designs we might think of cannot exist, those that can exist add up to a tool box of creation which contains the detailed laws of nature, many of them synergisms. Reality must conform to this web of necessities, hence the danger of unchecked virtual reality. These lines of thought are then applied to evolution as creation and history. In a final essay, Dovring explores topics upon which science should concentrate. This book will be of interest to scientists as well as the lay public interested in the theory of science and questions of truth and faith.
Wittgenstein criticised prevailing attitudes toward the sciences. The target of his criticisms was 'scientism': what he described as 'the overestimation of science'. This collection is the first study of Wittgenstein's anti-scientism - a theme in his work that is clearly central to his thought yet strikingly neglected by the existing literature. The book explores the philosophical basis of Wittgenstein's anti-scientism; how this anti-scientism helps us understand Wittgenstein's philosophical aims; and how this underlies his later conception of philosophy and the kind of philosophy he attacked. An outstanding team of international contributors articulate and critically assess Wittgenstein's views on scientism and anti-scientism, making Wittgenstein and Scientism essential reading for students and scholars of Wittgenstein's work, on topics as varied as the philosophy of mind and psychology, philosophical practice, the nature of religious belief, and the place of science in modern culture. Contributors: Jonathan Beale, William Child, Annalisa Coliva, David E. Cooper, Ian James Kidd, James C. Klagge, Daniele Moyal-Sharrock, Rupert Read, Genia Schoenbaumsfeld, Severin Schroeder, Benedict Smith, and Chon Tejedor.
Although produced in controversy, this book is not a controversial work. The calming effects of the years that have passed since the tumultuous days in Lubeck are enough to guarantee that these pages will accurately trace the coming and going of opinions, the battle for the truth and the recognition of error. In only a few passages, especially in Part Six, will one be able to tell from the tone of the book that it comes out of this struggle. For these I ask the indulgence of my reader, since they contain explanations the extent of which probably does not correspond either to the difficulty of the questions treated or to their influence. But in such passages the extent of treatment could not - as was otherwise the case - be made to depend solely on a judgment as to the value and significance of the investigations presented. There considerations of defense, more than concern for symmetry, had to determine the structure. |
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