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Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > Philosophy of science
It is ten years since Adolf Griinbaum published the first edition
of this book. It was promptly recognized to be one of the few major
works in the philosophy of the natural sciences of this generation.
In part, this is so because Griinbaum has chosen a problem basic
both to philosophy and to the natural sciences - the nature of
space and time; and in part, this is so because he so admirably
exemplifies that Aristotelian devotion to the intimate and mutual
dependence of actual science and philosophical understanding. More
than this, however, the quality of his work derives from his
achievement in combining detail with scope. The problems of space
and time have been among the most difficult in contemporary and
classical thought, and Griinbaum has been responsible to the full
depth and complexity of these difficulties. This revised and
enlarged second edition is a work in progress, in the tradition of
reflective analysis of modern science of such figures as Ehrenfest
and Reichenbach. In publishing this work among the Boston Studies
in the Philosophy of Science, we hope to contribute to and
encourage that broad tradition of natural philosophy which is
marked by the close collaboration of philoso phers and scientists.
To this end, we have published the proceedings of our Colloquia, of
meetings and conferences here and abroad, as well as the works of
single authors."
Historians of Latin American philosophy have paid relatively little
attention to the development of philosophical analysis in Latin
America. There are two reasons for this neglect: First, they have
been primarily concerned with the forma tive period of
philosophical development, in particular with the so called
"founders" of La ti n American philosophy. And second.
philosophical analysis did not become a noticeable philosophical
trend in Latin America until recent years. True. a nunber of Latin
American philosophers took notice of Moore. Russell. the members of
the Vienna Circle and other important figures in the analytic
movement qui te early. But these were isolated instances that
lacked the sustained effort and broad base indispensible to make a
serious impact in the development of Latin American philosophy.
That has changed now. There are not only good numbers of
philosophers who work within the analytic tradition, but also some
journals and institutes dedicated to the analytic mode of
philosophizing. It is. therefore. most appropriate to publish a
collection of articles which would introduce the reader of
philosophy to the most representative analytic material produced so
far in Latin America. Indeed. it is not only appropriate. but also
necessary. since most of the published analytic literature to date
is scattered in various journals, sometimes of difficult access.
Moreover, not all that has been published is representative of the
best already produced and of the potential that the movement has in
Latin America.
The death of Imre Lakatos on February 2, 1974 was a personal and
philosophical loss to the worldwide circle of his friends,
colleagues and students. This volume reflects the range of his
interests in mathematics, logic, politics and especially in the
history and methodology of the sciences. Indeed, Lakatos was a man
in search of rationality in all of its forms. He thought he had
found it in the historical development of scientific knowledge, yet
he also saw rationality endangered everywhere. To honor Lakatos is
to honor his sharp and aggressive criticism as well as his humane
warmth and his quick wit. He was a person to love and to struggle
with. PAUL K. FEYERABEND ROBERT S. COHEN MARX W. WARTOFSKY TABLE OF
CONTENTS Preface VII JOHN WORRALL / Imre Lakatos (1922-1974):
Philosopher of Mathematics and Philosopher of Science JOSEPH AGASSI
/ The Lakatosian Revolution 9 23 D. M. ARMSTRONG / Immediate
Perception w. W. BAR TLEY, III/On Imre Lakatos 37 WILLIAM BERKSON /
Lakatos One and Lakatos Two: An Appreciation 39 I. B. COHEN /
William Whewell and the Concept of Scientific Revolution 55 L.
JONATHAN COHEN / How Can One Testimony Corroborate Another? 65 R.
S. COHEN / Constraints on Science 79 GENE D'AMOUR/ Research
Programs, Rationality, and Ethics 87 YEHUDA ELKANA / Introduction:
Culture, Cultural System and Science 99 PA UL K.
Australia and New Zealand boast an active community of scholars
working in the field of history, philosophy and social studies of
science. Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science
aims to provide a distinctive publication outlet for their work.
Each volume comprises a group of thematically-connected essays
edited by scholars based in Australia or New Zealand with special
expertise in that particular area. In each volume, a majority ofthe
contributors are from Australia or New Zealand. Contributions from
elsewhere are by no means ruled out, however, and are actively
encouraged wherever appropriate to the balance of the volume in
question. Earlier volumes in the series have been welcomed for
significantly advancing the discussion of the topics they have
dealt with. I believe that the present volume will be greeted
equally enthusiastically by readers in many parts of the world. R.
W. Home General Editor Australasian Studies in History And
Philosophy of Science viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The majority of the
papers in this collection had their origin in the 2001 Australasian
Association for History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science
annual conference, held at the University of Melbourne, where
streams of papers on the themes of scientific realism and
commonsense were organised.
Depending on how one construes the kinship relations, technology
has been either the stepchild of philosophy or its grandfather. In
either case, technology has not been taken into the bosom of the
family, but has had to wait for attention, care and feeding, while
the more unclear elements - science, art, politics, ethics - were
being nurtured (or cleaned up). Don Ihde puts technology in the
middle of things, and develops a philosophy of technology that is
at once distinctive, revealing and thought provoking. Typically,
philosophy of technology has existed at, or beyond, the margins of
the philosophy of science, and therefore the question of technology
has come to be posed (when it is) either by historians of
technology or by social critics. The philosophy of technology, as
analysis and critique of the concepts, methodologies, implicit
epistemologies and ontologies of technological praxis and thought,
has remained underdeveloped. When philosophy does turn its
attention to the insistent presence of technology, it inevitably
casts the question in one or another of the dominant modes of
philosophical interpretation and reconstruction. Thus, the logic of
technological thinking and practice has been a subject of some
systematic work (e. g., in the Praxiology of Kotarbinski and
Kotarbinska, among others). And the question of technology's
relation to science has been posed in the framework of the
nomological model of explanation in the sciences - e. g."
These essays on Finalization in Science - The Social Orientation of
Scientific Progress comprise a remarkable, problematic and
controversial book. The authors propose a thesis about the social
direction of scientific research which was the occasion of a lively
and often bitter debate in Germany from 1976 to 1982. Their
provocative thesis, briefly, is this: that modern science
converges, historically, to the development of a number of 'closed
theories', i. e. stable and relatively completed sciences, no
longer to be improved by small changes but only by major changes in
an entire theoretical structure. Further: that at such a stage of
'mature theory', the formerly viable norm of intra-scientific
autonomy may appropriately be replaced by the social direction' of
further scientific research (within such a 'mature' field) for
socially relevant or, we may bluntly say, 'task-oriented' purposes.
This is nothing less than a theory for the planning and social
directing of science, under certain specific conditions.
Understandably, it raised the sharp objections that such an
approach would subordinate scientific inquiry as a free and
untrammeled search for truth to the dictates of social relevance
and dominant interests, even possibly to dictation and control for
particularistic social and political interests.
This book examines the latest manifestations of resource
competition. The energy transition and the digitalization of the
global economy are both accelerating even as geopolitics driven by
Sino-American hyper-competition become increasingly contentious.
The volume brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars,
policy makers, institutional stakeholders, and industry experts to
analyze not only the transition itself, but also the implications
that the need for uninterrupted access to unprecedented levels of
raw materials generates. By framing the challenges ahead for global
society, governance, industry, international power politics, and
the environment, the book asks hard questions about the choices
that need to be made to reach net zero by mid-century. Moreover, it
sheds light on different facets of the growing risks to what have
been global interdependent supply chains in a way that is nuanced,
balanced, and practical, thus pushing back on some of the most
sensational headlines that breed confusion and may lead
policymakers to make more narrow and less effective decisions. The
volume is an outcome of "Rich Rocks, the Climate Crisis and the
Tech-imperium" a Summer Institute at Caltech and the Huntington
that took place in July 2021.
This is the second of two volumes containing papers submitted by
the invited speakers to the 11th international Congress of Logic,
Methodology and Philosophy of Science, held in Cracow in 1999,
under the auspices of the International Union of History and
Philosophy of Science, Division of Logic, Methodology and
Philosophy of Science. The invited speakers are the leading
researchers and accordingly the book presents the current state of
the intellectual discourse in the respective fields.
Two articles by Lewis Feuer caught my attention in the '40s when 1
was wondering, asa student physicist, about the relations of
physics to philosophy and to the world in turmoil. One was his
essay on 'The Development of Logical Empiricism' (1941), and the
other his critical review of Philipp Frank's biography of Einstein,
'Philosophy and the Theory of Relativity' (1947). How extraordinary
it was to find so intelligent, independent, critical, and humane a
mind; and furthermore he went further, as I soon realized when I
looked for his name on other publications. I recall arguing with
myself over his exploration of 'Indeterminacy and Economic
Development' (1948), and even more when I read his 'Dialectical
Materialism and Soviet Science' (1949). More papers, and then the
fascinating, sometimes irritating, always insightful, books. His
monograph on Psychoanalysis and Ethics 1955, the beautiful
sociological and humanist study of Spinoza and the Rise of
Liberalism (1958), his essays on 'The Social Roots of Einstein's
Theory of Relativity' (1971) together with the book on Einstein and
the Genera tions of Science (1974), the splendid reader from the
works of Marx and Engels, Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy
(1959) which was a major text of the '60s, the stimulating essays
on the social formation which seems to have been required for a
modern scientific movement to develop, set forth most convincingly
in The Scientific Intellectual (1963)."
This book seeks to arrive at a better understanding of the
relationships between the objective and subjective aspects of time.
It discusses the existence of fluent time, a controversial concept
in many areas, from philosophy to physics. Fluent time is
understood as directional time with a past, a present and a future.
We experience fluent time in our lives and we adopt a temporal
perspective in our ways of knowing and acting. Nevertheless, the
existence of fluent time has been debated for both philosophical
and scientific reasons, thus creating a rift between the subjective
and objective aspects of time. Starting from the basic notion of
points of view, or perspectives, this book explores the
relationships between objective or external time, as it has been
conceptualized by science, and subjective or internal time, which
is involved in our lived experiences. It establishes a general
framework encompassing the nature, structure and mode of existence
of points of view, in which the objective and subjective aspects of
time can be integrated. The book mainly addresses researchers and
postgraduates in philosophy and logic. Additionally, it offers
inspiration for physicists and computer scientists involved in the
modeling and simulation of complex behaviors for which the
representation of internal time should be considered together with
the notion of objective, external time.
This volume constitutes the Proceedings and Discussions of the 1968
Salzburg Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science. The Colloquium
was held at the Institut fUr Wissenschaftstheorie of the
Internationales Forschungszentrum fUr Grundfragen der
Wissenschaften, Salzburg, Austria, from August 28 to August 31,
1968, under the joint auspices of the Division of Logic,
Methodology and Philosophy of Science of the International Union of
History and Philosophy of Science, and the Institut fur
Wissenschaftstheorie of the Internationales Forschungs- zentrum,
Salzburg. The Colloquium was organized by an executive committee
consisting ofY. Bar-Hillel (President), M. Black, J. Hintikka, B.
Juhos, M. Strauss, and P. Weingartner (Secretary). The Colloquium
was generously subsidised by the International Union of History and
Philosophy of Science, and by the Internationales For-
schungszentrum, Salzburg. The Colloquium was divided into three
main sections: Induction and Probability (Chairman: 1. Hintikka),
Foundations of Physics (Chairman: M. Strauss), and Science and
Ethics: The Moral Responsibility of the Scientist (Chairman: M.
Black). This volume contains all papers presented at the
Colloquium. Six of those papers concerning Induction and
Probability, have, with slight changes, already been published in
Synthese 20, 1969. Although the articles of the section Science and
Ethics were only read at the International Congress of Philosophy
in Vienna on September 3, 1968, the discussion on them took place
in Salzburg two days ago. This was possible, because early drafts
of all papers had been sent to each participant, in order to
prepare appropriate discussions.
The decision to undertake this volume was made in 1971 at Lake Como
during the Varenna summer school ofthe Italian Physical Society,
where Professor Leon Rosenfeld was lecturing on the history of
quantum theory. We had long been struck by the unique blend of
epistemological, histori cal and social concerns in his work on the
foundations and development of physics, and decided to approach him
there with the idea of publishing a collection of his papers. He
responded enthusiastically, and agreed to help us select the
papers; furthermore, he also agreed to write a lengthy introduction
and to comment separately on those papers that he felt needed
critical re-evaluation in the light of his current views. For he
was still vigorously engaged in both theoretical investigations of,
and critical not reflections on the foundations of theoretical
physics. We certainly did conceive of the volume as a memorial to a
'living saint', but rather more practically, as a useful tool to
place in the hands of fellow workers and students engaged in
wrestling with these difficult problems. All too sadly, fate has
added a memorial aspect to our labors. We agreed that in order to
make this book most useful for the con temporary community of
physicists and philosophers, we should trans late all non-English
items into English."
Philosophy of biology has a long and honourable history. Indeed,
like most of the great intellectual achievements of the Western
World, it goes back to the Greeks. However, until recently in this
century, it was sadly neglected. With a few noteworthy exceptions,
someone wishing to delve into the subject had to choose between
extremes of insipid vitalism on the one hand, and sterile
formalizations of the most elementary biological principles on the
other. Whilst philosophy of physics pushed confidently ahead, the
philosophy of biology languished. In the past decade, however,
things have changed dramatically. A number of energetic and
thoughtful young philosophers have made real efforts to master the
outlines and details of contemporary biology. They have shown that
many stimulating problems emerge when analytic skills are turned
towards the life-sciences, particularly if one does not feeI con
strained to stay only with theoretical parts of biology, but can
range over to more medical parts of the spectrum. At the same time,
biology itself has had one of the most fruitful yet turbulent
periods in its whole history, and more and more biologists have
grown to see that many of the problems they face take them beyond
the narrow confines of empiric al science: a broader perspective is
needed."
Why is there a world? Does it reflect the presence of God in any
way? Did the world spontaneously come into existence or is there a
creator? How will it end? Does God Exist? Do religions give a
coherent view of His existence and nature? Can we enter into
relation with Him? Robert Crawford tries to answer these and other
questions by arguing that religion and science complement one
another and, while they use different sources and methods, insights
can be gleaned from both concerning our nature, the world, and God.
Major attention is given to Christianity because modern science
arose in that context but the discussion includes the teachings of
five other religions in the hope that we can also learn from them.
This book focuses on various concepts of space and their historical
evolution. In particular, it examines the variations that have
modified the notions of place, orientation, distance, vacuum,
limit, bound and boundary, form and figure, continuity and
contingence, in order to show how spatial characteristics are
decisive in a range of contexts: in the determination and
comprehension of exteriority; in individuation and identification;
in defining the meaning of nature and of the natural sciences; in
aesthetical formations and representations; in determining the
relationship between experience, behavior and environment; and in
the construction of mental and social subjectivity. Accordingly,
the book offers a comprehensive review of concepts of space as
formulated by Kant, Husserl, Heidegger, Einstein, Heisenberg,
Penrose and Thorne, subsequently comparing them to notions
developed more recently, in the current age, which Foucault dubbed
the age of space. The book is divided into four distinct yet deeply
interconnected parts, which explore the space of life, the space of
experience, the space of science and the space of the arts.
Margarita Diaz-Andreu offers an innovative history of archaeology
during the nineteenth century, encompassing all its fields from the
origins of humanity to the medieval period, and all areas of the
world. The development of archaeology is placed within the
framework of contemporary political events, with a particular focus
upon the ideologies of nationalism and imperialism. Diaz-Andreu
examines a wide range of issues, including the creation of
institutions, the conversion of the study of antiquities into a
profession, public memory, changes in archaeological thought and
practice, and the effect on archaeology of racism, religion, the
belief in progress, hegemony, and resistance.
In an age characterized by impersonality and a fear of
individuality this book is indeed unusual. It is personal,
individualistic and idiosyncratic - a record of the scientific
adventure of a single mind. Most scientific writing today is so
depersonalized that it is impossible to recognize the man behind
the work, even when one knows him. Costa de Beauregard's scientific
career has focused on three domains - special relativity,
statistics and irreversibility, and quantum mechanics. In Time, the
Physical Magnitude he has provided a personal vade mecum to those
problems, concepts, and ideas with which he has been so long
preoccupied. Some years ago we were struck by a simple and profound
observa tion of Mendel Sachs, the gist of which follows. Relativity
is based on very simple ideas but, because it requires highly
complicated mathe matics, people find it difficult. Quantum
mechanics, on the other hand, derives from very complicated
principles but, since its mathematics is straightforward, people
feel they understand it. In some ways they are like the bourgeois
gentilhomme of Moliere in that they speak quantum mechanics without
knowing what it is. Costa de Beauregard recognizes the complexity
of quantum mechanics. A great virtue of the book is that he does
not hide or shy away from the complexity. He exposes it fully while
presenting his ideas in a non-dogmatic way."
For centuries, inconsistencies were seen as a hindrance to good
reasoning, and their role in the sciences was ignored. In recent
years, however, logicians as well as philosophers and historians
have showed a growing interest in the matter. Central to this
change were the advent of paraconsistent logics, the shift in
attention from finished theories to construction processes, and the
recognition that most scientific theories were at some point either
internally inconsistent or incompatible with other accepted
findings. The new interest gave rise to important questions. How is
logical anarchy' avoided? Is it ever rational to accept an
inconsistent theory? In what sense, if any, can inconsistent
theories be considered as true?
The present collection of papers is the first to deal with this
kind of questions. It contains case studies as well as
philosophical analyses, and presents an excellent overview of the
different approaches in the domain.
The essays in this collection have been written for Gerd Buchdahl,
by colleagues, students and friends, and are self-standing pieces
of original research which have as their main concern the
metaphysics and philosophy of science of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. They focus on issues about the development of
philosophical and scientific thought which are raised by or in the
work of such as Bernoulli, Descartes, Galileo, Kant, Leibniz,
Maclaurin, Priestly, Schelling, Vico. Apart from the initial
bio-bibliographical piece and those by Robert Butts and Michael
Power, they do not discuss Buchdahl or his ideas in any systematic,
lengthy, or detailed way. But they are collected under a title
which alludes to the book, Metaphysics and the Philosophy of
Science: The Classical Origins, Descartes to Kant (1969), which is
central in the corpus of his work, and deal with the period and
some of the topics with which that book deals.
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