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On September 14, 2015 at 09:50:45 UTC the two detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory simultaneously observed a transient gravitational-wave signal. The signal sweeps upwards in frequency from 35 to 250 Hz with a peak gravitational-wave strain of 1.0 × 10−21. It matches the waveform predicted by general relativity for the inspiral and merger of a pair of black holes and the ringdown of the resulting single black hole. These observations demonstrate the existence of binary stellar-mass black hole systems. This is the first direct detection of gravitational waves and the first observation of a binary black hole merger. +
An account of Al-Kindi's life and philosophy. +
The paper discusses Descartes vortex theory of planetary motion, and how it fared among subsequent thinkers. +
How do scientists know—and justify—that they have erred? The question virtually
bristles with paradox. Error seems the very antithesis of knowledge. How could one justify such a "negative" discovery? Oddly perhaps, to know that a claim deemed right in one context is wrong requires justification. I focus here on this dimension of the scientific enterprise, the ascertaining of error, and its relation to the general problem of characterizing reliable knowledge. +
Scientists, philosophers and theologians have wrestled repeatedly with the question of whether knowledge is similar or different in their various understandings of the world and God. Although agreement is still elusive, the epistemology of critical realism, associated with Ian Barbour, John Polkinghorne and Arthur Peacocke, remains widely credible. Relying on the lifetime work of philosopher Ernan McMullin, this book expands our understanding of critical realism beyond a permanent stand-off between the subjective and objective, whether in science or theology. Critical realism illuminates the subject and the objectively known simultaneously. Responding to criticisms made against it, this book defends critical realism in science and theology with a specific role to play in our understanding of God. +
In a series of publications, [[Hasok Chang]] makes the case that activities carried out by epistemic agents form the basis of the scientific enterprise. This paper provides an action-based scientonomic perspective of scientific practice. I define ''epistemic action'' as an action of an epistemic agent that involves an epistemic element and highlight the difference between global and local actions. The availability of a local action to an epistemic agent amounts to the agent employing the norm that the local action is permissible/desirable. To unearth the mechanism by which local actions become available to epistemic agents, I derive ''the local action availability theorem'', according to which, a local epistemic action becomes available to an agent only when its permissibility is derivable from a non-empty subset of other elements of the agent’s mosaic, i.e., from that agent’s employed norms and accepted theories. This framework is then applied to the emergence of the local action of determining the composition of chemical substances by weighing as practiced by Lavoisier and his followers; it is shown that the respective norm became employed in accord with the local action availability theorem. +
This paper argues that the traditional scientonomic portrayal of theories of classical physics (e.g. Newtonian mechanics, thermodynamics) as merely ''used'' but no longer ''accepted'' is too simplistic. To that end, I consider the current status of the meteorological theory, which is accepted as the best available description of atmospheric phenomenon despite the fact that it is founded on the principles of classical physics, including those of Newtonian mechanics. This apparent paradox is resolved if the distinction between a theory’s ''ontology'' and its ''phenomenological'' laws is properly appreciated. The phenomenological laws of meteorology are accepted by the scientific community as the best available description of atmospheric phenomena. Yet, this acceptance does not imply that the classical ''ontology'' implicit in the current meteorological theory is also accepted. Thus, the modern meteorological theory (as well as many tenets of classical physics) can be said to be accepted as the best available description of the observable atmospheric phenomena even though its classical ontology is no longer accepted. +
To many, Aristotle is the last great fi gure in the distinguished philosophical tradition
of Greece that is thought to begin with Thales (ca. 600 BCE). Of course, Greek philosophy
did not end with Aristotle; it continued for several centuries in the various schools –
those of the Epicureans, Skeptics, and Stoics as well as Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s
own Peripatetic School – that fl ourished in Athens and elsewhere up to the early centuries
of the Byzantine Empire. Yet there is considerable truth in the opinion of the
many, if viewed as a claim about great individual fi gures in the Greek philosophical
tradition. For Aristotle was the last great individual philosopher of ancient times, one
of the three thinkers – the others being Socrates (470–399 BCE) and Plato (427–347
BCE) – that comprise what many consider to be the greatest philosophical trio of all time.
Their philosophical careers span more than a hundred years, and all three were major
fi gures in the lively philosophical scene of fi fth- and fourth-century Athens. It was a
unique moment in the history of philosophy, one that saw Socrates engaging in discussions
with Plato – by far the most distinguished of his followers – and Plato instructing
and debating with Aristotle – by far the most eminent student to graduate from and do
research in his own school, the Academy. +
The present volume does not provide a survey of all of Aristotle’s thought, and it was
not intended to do so. Its aim is to treat some central topics of his philosophy in as much
depth as is possible within the space of a short chapter. Ancient and later biographers
and historians of philosophy attribute to Aristotle a large number of works, two-thirds
of which have not survived. Even what has survived is an astounding achievement,
both in its size and scope. Aristotle’s extant works add up to more than two thousand
printed pages and range over an astonishingly large number of topics – from the highly
abstract problems of being, substance, essence, form, and matter to those relating solely
to the natural world, and especially to living things (e.g., nutrition and the other
faculties of the soul, generation, sleep, memory, dreaming, movement, and so on),
the human good and excellences, the political association and types of constitutions,
rhetoric, tragedy, and so on.
Clearly, not all the topics Aristotle examines in his works could be discussed in a
single volume, and choices had to be made as to which ones to include. The choices
were guided by an intuitive consideration – e.g., the centrality a topic has in the totality
of the Aristotelian corpus (e.g., substance, essence, cause, teleology) or in a single,
major work (e.g., the categories, the soul, and the generation of animals are the central
topics in three different Aristotelian treatises). These considerations produced a first list.
Still, the list was too long for a single volume, and had to be shortened. The topics that
made the final list seemed to the editor to be the ones that any volume with the objectives
of this one has to include. Others might have come up with different lists, but they
would not be radically different from this. The overwhelming majority of the topics
discussed below would be on every list that was aiming to achieve the objectives of this
volume. Individually, each one of these topics receives an extensive treatment in
Aristotle’s works, and the views he articulates on them, when put together, give a good
sense of the kinds of problems that exercised Aristotle’s mind and the immense and
lasting contributions he made in his investigations of them.
The contents of the volume are divided into five parts, with part I covering Aristotle’s
life and certain issues about the number, edition, and chronology of his works. The
division of the remaining chapters is based on the way Aristotle frequently characterizes
groups of inquiries in terms of their goals. Thus, part II consists of a number of
chapters discussing topics from the treatises that have been traditionally called Organon,i.e., those studying the instruments or tools for reasoning, demonstrating and, in
general, attaining knowledge and truth. Aristotle does not label these works (Categories,
On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Topics, On Sophistical Refutations)
Organon, but in several passages in his extant works he indicates that he views them
as the instruments of inquiry and knowledge. The division of the remaining chapters
into three parts – Theoretical, Practical, and Productive Knowledge – is, of course,
based on the way Aristotle himself frequently divides the various inquiries on the basis
of their ultimate goals – knowledge, action, and production. The chapters included in
each one of these parts are further subdivided into groups on the basis of the subfield
of Aristotelian philosophy to which a topic or the work(s) treating it belong – Metaphysics
(seven chapters), Physics (three), Psychology (three), Biology (three) in part III (theoretical
knowledge); Ethics (eight) and Politics (five) in part IV (practical knowledge);
and Rhetoric (two) and Art (two) in part V (productive knowledge). Of course, several
topics (e.g., cause, teleology, substance) are discussed in many different Aristotelian
treatises, with some of them falling into different groups with respect to their ultimate
goals – e.g., substance is explored in both the Categories (Organon) and the Metaphysics
(theoretical knowledge).
The contributors to the volume are many, and no attempt was made to impose a
uniform style with respect to writing, presentation, or argumentation. Each contributor
was left free to use her/his favoured approach, except in the way references to Aristotle’s
works or citations of specific passages in them are made – a uniform system has been
adopted. Although in some instances the whole title of a work (e.g., Politics) is given,
most frequently an abbreviation is used (e.g., Pol: see list of abbreviations). Citations of
passages in the Aristotelian corpus are made by giving: (1) the title of the specific work,
(e.g., Pol or An for de Anima); (2) the Book for those Aristotelian treatises that are divided
into Books in Roman numerals (e.g., I, II) – except for Met where Books are identified
by uppercase Greek letters (e.g., Γ, Θ) and lowercase alpha (α) for the second Book; (3)
the chapter within the Book or treatise in Arabic numerals; (4) and the Bekker page
and line number – e.g., An II.1 412a3, or Met Γ.4 1008b15. Each chapter includes a
short bibliography listing the sources cited in it and in some cases additional works on
the topic discussed that might be of interest to the reader. Space limitations did not
permit the inclusion of a comprehensive bibliography on Aristotle.
Preparing this homage to David Keyt has been a labor of love for the editors and contributors alike. The volume contains fifteen essays by sixteen scholars including students, colleagues, and friends (the latter category being all inclusive!). All of the authors make important original contributions to the study of ancient Greek philosophy, and we wish to thank them all for agreeing to participate in this project, for their cooperation with the editing, and for the high quality of their essays. We are also grateful for their patience and good cheer throughout an unexpectedly protracted publication process. T he papers by Gerasimos Santas, Nils Rauhut, Mark McPherran, Charles Young, and Fred D. Miller, Jr. were delivered originally at a conference (aka “the Keytfest”) held at the University of Washington in Seattle in 2007 commemorating David Keyt’s fi ftieth year as a professor of philosophy. Kenneth Clatterbaugh, Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Washington, was very supportive of the program, and Bev Wessel provided valuable administrative assistance. Daniel Fisher, a student of David Keyt, offered generous fi nancial support. Richard Parker, another former student, served as quipster and consummate master of ceremonies. W e are pleased to thank a number of people who have been very helpful with the editing and publication of this volume including Professor Stephen Hetherington, the editor of Springer’s Philosophical Studies Series; Ingrid van Laarhoven; Christi Lue; Ties Nijssen; Hendrikje Tuerlings; Professor Nicholas D. Smith, who helped to fi nd a suitable publisher for the volume; and an anonymous reviewer who provided helpful comments. James Dabgotra ably assisted with the fi rst round of editing, and Pamela Phillips did an excellent job copyediting the entire typescript and preparing it for the publisher. We also gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation for the original conference and for the editing of the volume. Finally, we thank David Keyt for his assistance throughout the planning and preparation of the volume and especially for his willingness to contribute a fascinating memoir of his academic career which, in addition to delightful anecdotes about his encounters with notable scholars, offers illuminating insights into his own work and also into the recent history of the subdiscipline of ancient philosophy. With affection and admiration, we the editors and all the contributors dedicate this volume to David Keyt, in recognition of his major contributions to the study of ancient philosophy, and on behalf of the many students, colleagues, and friends whose lives he has touched and enriched over the past half century.
This Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article provides an historical overview of philosophical conceptions of the methods of science. The first section covers scientific methods, focusing on avowed methodologies prior to the twentieth century, from Plato and Aristotle to William Whewell and John Stuart Mill Mostly avowed methodologies are discussed. The logical positivists and their critics are then covered, including Popper's falsificationism. +
The Modes of Scepticism is one of the most important and influential of all ancient philosophical texts. The texts made an enormous impact on Western thought when they were rediscovered in the 16th century and they have shaped the whole future course of Western philosophy. Despite their importance, the Modes have been little discussed in recent times. This book translates the texts and supplies them with a discursive commentary, concentrating on philosophical issues but also including historical material. The book will be of interest to professional scholars and philosophers but its clear and non-technical style makes it intelligible to beginners and the interested layman. +
Peter Anstey presents a thorough and innovative study of John Locke's views on the method and content of natural philosophy. Focusing on Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding, but also drawing extensively from his other writings and manuscript remains, Anstey argues that Locke was an advocate of the Experimental Philosophy: the new approach to natural philosophy championed by Robert Boyle and the early Royal Society who were opposed to speculative philosophy. On the question of method, Anstey shows how Locke's pessimism about the prospects for a demonstrative science of nature led him, in the Essay, to promote Francis Bacon's method of natural history, and to downplay the value of hypotheses and analogical reasoning in science. But, according to Anstey, Locke never abandoned the ideal of a demonstrative natural philosophy, for he believed that if we could discover the primary qualities of the tiny corpuscles that constitute material bodies, we could then establish a kind of corpuscular metric that would allow us a genuine science of nature. It was only after the publication of the Essay, however, that Locke came to realize that Newton's Principia provided a model for the role of demonstrative reasoning in science based on principles established upon observation, and this led him to make significant revisions to his views in the 1690s. On the content of Locke's natural philosophy, it is argued that even though Locke adhered to the Experimental Philosophy, he was not averse to speculation about the corpuscular nature of matter. Anstey takes us into new terrain and new interpretations of Locke's thought in his explorations of his mercurialist transmutational chymistry, his theory of generation by seminal principles, and his conventionalism about species. +
Both a history and a metahistory, Representing Electrons focuses on the development of various theoretical representations of electrons from the late 1890s to 1925 and the methodological problems associated with writing about unobservable scientific entities.
Using the electron - or rather its representation - as a historical actor, Theodore Arabatzis illustrates the emergence and gradual consolidation of its representation in physics, its career throughout old quantum theory, and its appropriation and reinterpretation by chemists. As Arabatzis develops this novel biographical approach, he portrays scientific representations as partly autonomous agents with lives of their own. Furthermore, he argues that the considerable variance in the representation of the electron does not undermine its stable identity or existence.
Raising philosophical issues of contentious debate in the history and philosophy of science -
namely, scientific realism and meaning change - Arabatzis addresses the history of the electron across disciplines, integrating historical narrative with philosophical analysis in a book that will be a touchstone for historians and philosophers of science and scientists alike. +
This special issue presents selected contributions to the conference “Integrated History and Philosophy of Science” (&HPS3) held at Indiana University in September 2010. The introduction revisits a previous special issue on History and Philosophy of Science, published in Perspectives on Science (2002), and reflects on the recent development of HPS as a field. Ten years ago, scholars expressed concern about the growing distance between mainstream history of science and mainstream philosophy of science. Today, we have good reason to be optimistic. The papers assembled in this special issue demonstrate that we now have a whole spectrum of combinations of historical, philosophical, and other perspectives to study science, ranging from augmenting historical studies by philosophical perspectives and vice versa to historicist reflection on methodological, epistemological, or scientific concepts and practices. This plurality of approaches to combining the historical and the philosophical perspectives on science is a hopeful sign that integrated HPS is here to stay. +
Some philosophers of science suggest that philosophical assumptions must
influence historical scholarship, because history (like science) has no neutral data and
because the treatment of any particular historical episode is going to be influenced to
some degree by one's prior philosophical conceptions of what is important in science.
However, if the history of science must be laden with philosophical assumptions, then how
can the history of science be evidence for the philosophy of science? Would not an
inductivist history of science confirm an inductivist philosophy of science and a
conventionalist history of science confirm a conventionalist philosophy of science? I
attempt to resolve this problem; essentially, I deny the claim that the history of science
must be influenced by one's conception of what is important in science - one's general
philosophy of science. To accomplish the task I look at a specific historical episode,
together with its history, and draw some metamethodological conclusions from it. The
specific historical episode I examine is Descartes' critique of Galileo's scientific methodology. +
The Oxford Translation of Aristotle was originally published in 12 volumes between 1912 and 1954. It is universally recognized as the standard English version of Aristotle. This revised edition contains the substance of the original Translation, slightly emended in light of recent scholarship; three of the original versions have been replaced by new translations; and a new and enlarged selection of Fragments has been added. The aim of the translation remains the same: to make the surviving works of Aristotle readily accessible to English speaking readers. +
William Paley (Natural Theology, 1802) developed the argument-from-design. The complex structure of the human eye evinces that it was designed by an intelligent Creator. The argument is based on the irreducible complexity (“relation”) of multiple interacting parts, all necessary for function. Paley adduces a wealth of biological examples leading to the same conclusion; his knowledge of the biology of his time was profound and extensive. Charles Darwin’s ''Origin of Species'' is an extended argument demonstrating that the “design” of organisms can be explained by natural selection. Moreover, the dysfunctions, defects, waste, and cruelty that prevail in the living world are incompatible with a benevolent and omnipotent Creator. They come about by a process that incorporates chance and necessity, mutation and natural selection. In addition to science, there are other ways of knowing, such as art, literature, philosophy, and religion. Matters of value, meaning, and purpose transcend science. +
B
This article argues that the limited influence of Ludwik Fleck's ideas on philosophy of science is due not only to their indirect dissemination by way of Thomas Kuhn, but also to an incommensurability between the standard conceptual framework of history and philosophy of science and Fleck's own more integratedly historico-social and praxis-oriented approach to understanding the evolution of scientific discovery. What Kuhn named "paradigm" offers a periphrastic rendering or oblique translation of Fleck's Denkstil/Denkkollektiv , a derivation that may also account for the lability of the term "paradigm". This was due not to Kuhn's unwillingness to credit Fleck but rather to the cold war political circumstances surrounding the writing of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions . Following a discussion of Fleck's anatomical allusions, I include a brief discussion of Aristotle (on menstruation and darkened mirrors) and conclude with a reference to the productivity of error in Mach and Nietzsche. +
An authoritative critical edition, based on fresh collation of the seventeenth century texts and documented in an extensive textual apparatus, of Francis Bacon's The Advancement of Learning, the principal philosophical work in English announcing his comprehensive programme to restore and advance learning +
This volume inaugurates a new critical edition of the writings of the great English philosopher and sage Francis Bacon (1561-1626) – the first such complete edition for more than a hundred years. It contains six of Bacon’s Latin scientific works, each accompanied by entirely new facing-page translations which, together with the extensive introduction and commentaries, offer fresh insights into one of the great minds of the early seventeenth century. Volume VI includes Bacon’s speculative writings between c. 1611-c. 1619, including his Phaenomena universi, Descriptio globi intellectuali, Thema coeli, De principiis atque originibus. +
This is the first critical edition since the nineteenth century of Bacon’s principal philosophical work in English, The Twoo Bookes of Francis Bacon. Of the proficience and advancement of Learning, divine and humane – traditionally known as The Advancement of Learning. This authoritative critical edition is based upon the collation and analysis of the original editions. Its comprehensive introduction examines Bacon’s appraisal of the current state of learning and his efforts to involve his contemporaries in his programme to reform and advance learning. Extensive commentary explores Bacon’s sources and early modern contexts for Bacon’s most important philosophical work in English. +
This volume belongs to the first new critical edition of the works of Francis Bacon (1561-1626) to have been produced since the nineteenth century. The edition presents the works in broadly chronological order and according to the best principles of modern textual scholarship. The seven works in the present volume belong to the final completed stages (Parts III-V) of Bacon’s hugely ambitious six-part sequence of philosophical works, collectively entitled Instauratio magna (1620-6). All are presented in the original Latin with new facing-page translations. Three of the seven texts (substantial works in two cases, and all sharing a startlingly improbable textual history) are published and translated here for the first time: these are an early version of the Historia densi, the ‘lost’ Abecedarium, and the Historia de animato & inanimato. Another – the Prodromi sive anticipationes philosophiae secundae – has likewise never been translated before. Together with their commentaries and the introduction they open the way to important new understandings of Bacon’s mature philosophical thought. +
Bacon’s essays reflect the experience and wide reading of a Renaissance man – philosopher, historian, judge, politician, adviser to the Prince – above all, astute observer of human nature. With uncompromising candour, he exposes man as he is, not as he ought to be, examining such givens of Renaissance power as negotiating for position, expediting a personal suit, speaking effectively, and the role of dissimulation in social and political situations. He scrutinizes judicial prerogatives and probes the causes and dangers of atheism and superstition. Even such topics as boldness or love or deformity have a practical bent. In Bacon’s own phrase, these essays ‘come home to Mens Businesse and Bosomes.’ It is especially through their matchless style that they come home–with imaginative vigour, concrete language, and the colloquial force of individual sentences. An introduction places the essays in their original context, examines their evolution over Bacon’s lifetime, and elucidates their form and prose style; a commentary examines his sources and relates essays to his other writings; a glossary and index are also included. +
Volume XI of The Oxford Francis Bacon comprises the first new critical edition of Bacon’s most important philosophical work, the Novum Organum, for a hundred years. One of the foundation documents of early-modern philosophy, Novum Organum is edited in accordance with modern textual-critical principles for the first time. Graham Rees presents the only edition ever to include the original Latin text with a brand new, facing-page translation, and a thorough Introduction and detailed commentary of the text. The edition represents a major step towards the reinstatement of Bacon as a central figure in the history of early-modern philosophy, and will be essential reading for anyone studying the history of science and ideas in the seventeenth-century. +
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) was a genuine midwife of modernity. He was one of the first thinkers to visualise a future which would be guided by a cooperative science-based vision of bettering human welfare. In this the first critical edition of his greatest philosophical work since the nineteenth-century, we find facing-page Latin translations and a thorough and detailed Introduction to the text. The text includes the original Latin with a facing-page translation, and has been edited in accordance with the highest standards of modern textual-critical principles, with a detailed and thorough introduction. +
This volume belongs to the critical edition of the complete works of Francis Bacon (1561-1626), an edition that presents the works in broadly chronological order and in accordance with the principles of modern textual scholarship. This volume contains critical editions of five varied works Bacon composed during the 1620s. The most significant and substantial of these five works is his biography of Henry VII (The historie of the raigne of King Henry the seventh) but the volume testifies as well to Bacon’s continuing robust allegiance to his youthful vaunt that all knowledge was his province, for it also includes his sketch for a biography of Henry VIII, An advertisement touching an holy war (a thoughtful debate over the prospect of holy war in his own time), Apophthegmes (a lively collection of witty anecdotes, classical to early modern), and his select verse translations from the psalms. In each case an authoritative text has been established based upon fresh collation of the relevant manuscripts and of multiple copies of the seventeenth editions, and subjected to a thorough bibliographical analysis of the treatment of Bacon’s texts in the early modern printing-house. The Introductions discuss the occasion and context for each work, evaluate his creative transmutation of his sources, and weigh their contemporary reception. A comprehensive commentary identifies and parses Bacon’s use of source material, from his refinement of published literary and historical sources and contemporary MSS to the political white papers composed while he served as counsellor to King James. An extensive glossary is integrated into this commentary. An Appendix provides full bibliographical descriptions of all of the textual witnesses, manuscript and printed edition. +
Harvey Siegel's (1985) attempts to revive the traditional epistemological formulation of the rationality of science. Contending that "a general commitment to evidence" is constitutive of method and rationality in science, Siegel advances its compatibility with specific, historically attuned formulations of principles of evidential support as a virtue of his aprioristic candidate for science's rationality. In point of fact, this account is compatible with virtually any formulation of evidential support, which runs afoul of Siegel's claim that scientific beliefs must be evaluated with respect to their rationality. The unwelcome consequence of Siegel's view is that most any belief, scientific or pseudoscientific, can be defended as rational. Indeed, if we want to furnish a warrant for rational choice, we must turn to the very historically informed principles of evidential support that are dismissed by Siegel as providing a misleading portrait of science's rationality. +
All students of physics need to understand the basic concepts of electricity and magnetism. E&M is central to the study of physics, and central to understanding the developments of the last two hundred years of not just science, but technology and society in general. But the core of electricity and magnetism can be difficult to understand - many of the ideas are counterintuitive and difficult to appreciate. This volume in the Greenwood Guides to Great Ideas in Science series traces the central concepts of electricity and magnetism from the ancient past to the present day, enabling students to develop a deeper understanding of how the science arose as it has. +
Covering physics, astronomy, chemistry, the various branches of biology, and geology, this book is the perfect introduction to the history of science. A compilation of interesting readings, Scientific Revolutions reflects the richness and diversity of scientific culture and practice. Its primary focus is on the extraordinary bursts of scientific activity that propel science in new and different directions. Useful as a reference work for readers interested in the sciences. +
Intriguingly different in approach from conventional works in the same area of inquiry, this study deals with the central problems and concerns of the sociology of knowledge as it has traditionally been conceived of. In other words, it is concerned with the relationship of knowledge, social interests and social structure, and with the various attempts which have been made to analyse the relationship.
Barry Barnes takes the classic writings in the sociology of knowledge – by Marx, Lukács, Weber, Mannheim, Goldmann, Habermas and others – and uses them as resources in coming to grips with what he regards as the currently most interesting and significant questions in this area. This approach reflects one of the principal themes of the book itself. Knowledge, it is argued, is best treated as a resource available to those possessing it. This is the best perspective from which to understand its relationship to action and its historical significance; it is a perspective which avoids the problems of holding that knowledge is derivative, as well as those generated by the view that knowledge is a strong determinant of consciousness. the result is an unusual textbook, particularly valuable when read in conjunction with the original works it discusses. +
The central thesis of this book is that sociological analysis is necessary for understanding scientific knowledge, though other fields, such as psychology and philosophy are also needed. Such knowledge is attained through historical case studies. The sociology of scientific knowledge is one part of a larger project to understand science itself in scientific terms. +
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. +
Recent developments in theoretical scientonomy coupled with a reflection on the practice of the Encyclopedia of Scientonomy all suggest that the ontology of scientific change currently accepted in scientonomy has serious flaws. The new ontology, suggested in this paper, solves some of the issues permeating the current ontology. Building on [[Modification:Sciento-2018-0002|Rawleigh’s suggestion]], it considers a ''theory'' as an attempt to answer a certain ''question''. It also introduces the category of ''definition'' as a subtype of theory. It also reveals that ''methods'' and ''methodologies'' of the currently accepted ontology do not differ from the perspective of their propositional content and, thus, belong to the same class of epistemic elements. This is captured in the new definition of ''method'' as a set of criteria for theory evaluation. It is also argued that ''methods'' are a subtype of ''normative theories''. It is shown that ''normative theories'' of all types, including methods, ethical norms, and aesthetic norms, can be both ''accepted and employed''. Finally, a new definition of ''scientific mosaic'' is suggested to fit the new ontology. +
Incomplete and imprecise temporal data is abundant in various branches of science and technology as well as everyday life (e.g., “''A'' began after 1066 but before 1069 and ended after 1245”, “''B'' took place no later than 156 BC”). While point-circles and lines/bars have been traditionally used to depict precise temporal points and intervals, it is unclear how imprecise and incomplete temporal data can be effectively visualized or even represented. This paper suggests an intuitive diagrammatic notation for visualizing both imprecise and incomplete temporal information. It suggests using traditional whiskers with edges to depict temporal imprecision and whiskers without edges to depict incomplete temporal entities. This notation can be easily incorporated into linear temporal visualizations, such as historical timelines, Gantt charts, and timetables, to identify gaps in temporal information. The paper lays down the diagrammatic elements of the notation and illustrates their applicability to all standard relations between temporal entities. It also shows how these elements can be combined to produce complex timelines. Some possible future directions are also outlined. +
Despite a growing body of literature that attempts to draw a line between legitimate and illegitimate forms of presentism in academic history, ‘avoid presentism’ is still often preached as the first rule of historiography. Distinct from other forms of presentism is ''selective presentism'' – the practice of taking some present-day activity, event, idea, or problem as a starting point in our selection of historical facts. Throughout the paper I examine the relation of some of the most popular selection criteria – ''selection by actor intentionality'', ''selection by later effect'', and ''selection by problem'' – to presentist practices and draw three conclusions. First, each of these selection criteria can produce presentist or non-presentist histories depending on the past of which specific activity, idea, or problem the historian is interested in. Second, the historiographic legitimacy of these selection criteria is independent from their presentist or non-presentist applications; importantly, selective presentism is not among the ‘bad’ forms of presentism and is not to be avoided. Finally, various selection criteria are best understood as complementary; pluralist history invites a variety of selection criteria that help shed light on different aspects of the past, and thus – collectively – enrich our understanding of it. +
Canonical discussions in the philosophy of science distinguish between acceptance and pursuit as epistemic stances that are customarily taken towards theories by epistemic agents (Laudan 1977; Wykstra 1980; Whitt 1990; Achinstein 1993; Barseghyan & Shaw 2017). Since a theory can be conceived as an attempt to answer a question (Jardine 2000; Rescher 2000; Rawleigh 2018) it is reasonable to inquire into the types of stances that epistemic agents can take towards questions. This paper explores the notion of ''question pursuit'' by differentiating it from related epistemic stances of ''theory pursuit'' and ''question acceptance''. The analysis of the extant academic literature reveals that in most cases the phrase ‘question pursuit’ and its cognates refer to a search for an answer to a question. The paper provides a definition of the term that reflects this common usage and draws five conclusions. First, question pursuit is different from question acceptance, for it is possible for an epistemic agent to accept a question without finding it pursuitworthy. Second, question pursuit and question acceptance are related semi-orthogonally: in order to be considered pursuitworthy a question must, at minimum, be accepted, but not all accepted questions are pursuitworthy. Third, question pursuit is irreducible to theory pursuit; finding a question pursuitworthy is not expressible in terms of finding some theory pursuitworthy. Fourth, a pursuit of a theory cannot be expressed as a pursuit of a same-order question, but only as a pursuit of a question about that theory, i.e. a higher-level question. Fifth, to have a chance to be considered pursuitworthy by an agent, a question must meet some minimal necessary preconditions: it should be accepted by that agent and the agent should either lack an accepted answer to the question or have reasons to suspect that the accepted answer might be improved upon. +
The paper presents a new scientonomic account of ''question dynamics''. To explain the process of question acceptance and rejection, we begin by introducing the notion of ''epistemic presupposition'' and show how it’s different from the notion of ''logical presupposition''. With the notion of epistemic presupposition at hand, we formulate ''the law of question acceptance'', a new scientonomic axiom, which states that a question becomes accepted only if all of its epistemic presuppositions are accepted, and it is accepted that the question is answerable. We then show how the process of question rejection can be explained by means of ''the question rejection theorem'', which states that a question becomes rejected when other elements that are incompatible with the question become accepted. To deduce this theorem in the usual scientonomic fashion (from the first law and the compatibility corollary), we first ascertain that the notion of compatibility/incompatibility is applicable to questions and show that one can legitimately speak of both question-theory and question-question incompatibility. We conclude by providing a quick illustration of the historical applicability of this new framework and suggest a number of questions for future research. +
The current scientonomic discourse focuses largely on theories and methods of natural, social, and formal ''sciences'', while the role of ''technological'' knowledge in the process of scientific change is virtually neglected. This neglect, we argue, has to do with the scientonomic distinction between two epistemic stances – ''acceptance'' of a theory as the best available description of its domain and its ''use'' in practical applications. The view that is implicit in contemporary ''scientonomy'' is that sciences alone can produce ''accepted'' knowledge, while technologies are all about knowledge ''use''. In contrast, we argue that there is ''accepted'' propositional technological knowledge which plays an indispensable role in the process of scientific change. We demonstrate that technological disciplines do not merely ''use'' theories but also produce ''accepted'' theories, such as “''x'' is an effective treatment for medical condition ''y''”, “''z'' is a viable technology for bridge-building”, and “''p'' is a statistically valid technique for assessing public opinion about ''q''”. There are both theoretical and historical reasons to believe that changes in technological knowledge exhibit the same patterns as changes in natural, social, and formal sciences. In addition, technological knowledge is intrinsically intertwined with scientific knowledge as accepted scientific and technological theories often jointly shape employed methods. +
In this paper, we demonstrate how a systematic ''taxonomy of stances'' can help elucidate two classic debates of the historical turn—the Lakatos–Feyerabend debate concerning theory rejection and the Feyerabend–Kuhn debate about pluralism during normal science. We contend that Kuhn, Feyerabend, and Lakatos were often talking at cross-purposes due to the lack of an agreed upon taxonomy of stances. Specifically, we provide three distinct stances that scientists take towards theories: ''acceptance'' of a theory as the best available description of its domain, ''use'' of a theory in practical applications, and ''pursuit'' (elaboration) of a theory. We argue that in the Lakatos–Feyerabend debate, Lakatos was concerned with ''acceptance'' whereas Feyerabend was mainly concerned with ''pursuit''. Additionally, we show how Feyerabend and Kuhn’s debate on the role of pluralism/monism in normal science involved a crucial conflation of all three stances. Finally, we outline a few general lessons concerning the process of scientific change. +
Many have struggled to identify the proper way(s) that normative philosophical claims about science can benefit from history. The primary worry here has been that deriving philosophical ‘oughts’ from historical facts would commit the naturalistic fallacy (Schickore, 2011). The task of this paper is to introduce a novel solution to this problem. Specifically, we claim that the emerging field of scientonomy provides a promising avenue for how philosophy of science may benefit from the history of science. By taking descriptive findings and coupling them with additional normative premises, philosophers of science can draw normative methodological conclusions which can guide future scientific practices. Moreover, it is sometimes thought that philosophical claims about science are invariably local due to the diversity of scientific practices. While acknowledging this disunity, we show how a general theory of scientific change is possible and how it can be used to inform normative philosophy of science. Thus, we aim to outline a viable path for integrated history and philosophy of science that does not relinquish normativity and avoids the problem of cherry-picking which has plagued general accounts of science (Chang, 2011; Mizrahi, 2015). +
During the so-called ‘historical turn’ in the philosophy of science, philosophers and historians boldly argued for general patterns throughout the history of science. From Kuhn’s landmark ''Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' until the ''Scrutinizing Science'' project led by Larry Laudan, there was optimism that there could be a general theoretical approach to understanding the process of scientific change. This optimism gradually faded as historians and philosophers began to focus on the details of specific case studies located within idiosyncratic historical, cultural, and political contexts, and abandoned attempts to uncover general patterns of how scientific theories and methods change through time. Recent research has suggested that while we have learned a great deal about the diversity and complexity of scientific practices across history, the push to abandon hope for a broader understanding of scientific change was premature. Because of this, philosophers, historians, and social scientists have become interested in reviving the project of understanding the mechanism of scientific change while respecting the diversity and complexity that has been unveiled by careful historical research over the past few decades.
The chapters in this volume consider a particular proposal for a general theory of how scientific theories and methods change over time, first articulated by Hakob Barseghyan in ''The Laws of Scientific Change'' and since developed in a series of papers by a variety of members of the scientonomy community. The chapters consider a wide range of issues, from conceptual and historical challenges to the posited intellectual patterns in the history of science, to the possibility of constructing a general theory of scientific change, to begin with. Offering a new take on the project of constructing a theory of scientific change and integrating historical, philosophical, and social studies of science, this volume will be of interest to historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science.
This resource provides a comprehensive introduction to the key issues in the history and philosophy of science. How do scientific theories and method change through time? Is there a universal and unchangeable method of science? What demarcates science from non-science? Can scientific theories provide true descriptions of the world? Is there scientific progress? What are the major worldviews in the history of science? This first half of this text considers pivotal questions of the philosophy of science, while the latter half of the text traces the genealogy of contemporary scientific worldview through key historical questions. +
This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th International Conference on the Theory and Application of Diagrams, Diagrams 2021, held virtually in September 2021.
The 16 full papers and 25 short papers presented together with 16 posters were carefully reviewed and selected from 94 submissions. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: design of concrete diagrams; theory of diagrams; diagrams and mathematics; diagrams and logic; new representation systems; analysis of diagrams; diagrams and computation; cognitive analysis; diagrams as structural tools; formal diagrams; and understanding thought processes. +
A variety of scientific disciplines have set as their task explaining mental activities, recognizing that in some way these activities depend upon our brain. But, until recently, the opportunities to conduct experiments directly on our brains were limited. As a result, research efforts were split between disciplines such as cognitive psychology, linguistics, and artificial intelligence that investigated behavior, while disciplines such as neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and genetics experimented on the brains of non-human animals. In recent decades these disciplines integrated, and with the advent of techniques for imaging activity in human brains, the term cognitive neuroscience has been applied to the integrated investigations of mind and brain. This book is a philosophical examination of how these disciplines continue in the mission of explaining our mental capacities. +
This paper proposes a novel semantic analysis of the quantificational variability data discovered by Berman (1991). We suggest that the adverb of quantification in those data quantifies over semantic questions. Its domain is a division of the original question into subquestions, where a legitimate division into subquestions is one in which each member contributes towards the answer to the original question, and together the answers to all subquestions provide the complete answer to the original question. Thus the question itself is associated with a part/whole structure, based on information. We show that there are quantificational variability effects in which the matrix verb is exclusively question‐embedding. These data pose a problem for other theories of quantificational variability in questions (specifically Berman 1991 and Lahiri 2002) and motivate our analysis. There are other desirable consequences of our theory, including flexibility in what counts as a subquestion and flexibility in what counts as a complete answer. Beyond quantificational variability, associating questions with a part/whole structure receives independent motivation from questions that occur in collective and cumulative embedded contexts. +
Weak emergence has been offered as an explanation of the ubiquitous notion of emergence used in complexity science. After outlining the problem of emergence and comparing weak emergence with the tow other main objectivist approaches to emergence, this paper explains a version of weak emergence an illustrates it with cellular automata. Then it explains the sort of downward causation and explanatory autonomy involved in weak emergence. +
Hume’s theory of causation is one of the most famous and influential parts of his philosophy. When compared with the accounts provided by earlier philosophers whom Hume studied, such as Rene Descartes (1596–1650), John Locke (1632–1704), and Nicolas Malebranche(1638–1715), his theory is revolutionary. It is also controversial, and has been interpreted in a number of different ways. This is not surprising, because Hume’s ideas about causation are not only challenging in themselves, but also lie at the heart of much of the rest of his thought. As a result, interpretations of Hume on causation influence, and are influenced by, interpretations of his general philosophical aims, methods, and purposes. +
Edited by Colin Murray Turbayne in 1957. Originally published 1710.
In this book, Berkeley defends idealism by attacking the materialist alternative. +
A number of important theorists in ancient Greek natural philosophy held
that the universe is composed of physical ‘atoms’, literally ‘uncuttables’.
Some of these figures are treated in more depth in other articles in this
encyclopedia: the reader is encouraged to consult individual entries on
Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius. These philosophers
developed a systematic and comprehensive natural philosophy accounting
for the origins of everything from the interaction of indivisible bodies, as
these atoms—which have only a few intrinsic properties like size and
shape—strike against one another, rebound and interlock in an infinite
void. This atomist natural philosophy eschewed teleological explanation
and denied divine intervention or design, regarding every composite of
atoms as produced purely by material interactions of bodies, and
accounting for the perceived properties of macroscopic bodies as produced
by these same atomic interactions. Atomists formulated views on ethics,
theology, political philosophy and epistemology consistent with this
physical system. This powerful and consistent materialism, somewhat
modified from its original form by Epicurus, was regarded by Aristotle as
a chief competitor to teleological natural philosophy. +
The Greek tradition regarded Leucippus as the founder of atomism in
ancient Greek philosophy. Little is known about him, and his views are
hard to distinguish from those of his associate Democritus. He is
sometimes said to have been a student of Zeno of Elea, and to have
devised the atomist philosophy in order to escape from the problems
raised by Parmenides and his followers. +
Democritus, known in antiquity as the ‘laughing philosopher’ because of
his emphasis on the value of ‘cheerfulness,’ was one of the two founders
of ancient atomist theory. He elaborated a system originated by his teacher Leucippus into a materialist account of the natural world. The atomists held that there are smallest indivisible bodies from which everything else is composed, and that these move about in an infinite void. Of the ancient materialist accounts of the natural world which did not rely on some kind of teleology or purpose to account for the apparent order and regularity found in the world, atomism was the most influential. Even its chief critic, Aristotle, praised Democritus for arguing from sound considerations appropriate to natural philosophy. +
An analysis of the work and legacy of Thomas Kuhn. +
The article gives an overview of Thomas Kuhn's work, life, and intellectual influence on multiple fields. Kuhn began his career in physics, and acquired an interest in the history and philosophy of science through his undergraduate teaching in the history of science at Harvard. His work on a book about the Copernican revolution led him to develop a new view of science, which he published in his ''Structure of Scientific Revolutions''. The initial reception of Kuhn's work by philosophers, was hostile, although they recognized its importance. His use of historical and psychological ideas was unfamiliar to them. This hostility moderated once they gained a better understanding of them, and once he clarified some of his ideas in subsequent work. The book met a more friendly initial reception among sociologists, who saw in it a way to understand science in terms familiar to their discipline. +
For Hume, understanding the workings of the mind is the key to understanding everything else. There is a sense, therefore, in which to write about Hume’s philosophy of mind is to write about all of his philosophy. With that said, I shall nonetheless focus here on those specific doctrines that belong to what we today call the philosophy of mind, given our somewhat narrower conception of that subject. It should also be remembered that Hume describes his inquiry into the nature and workings of the mind as a science. This is an important clue to understanding both the goals and the results of that inquiry, as well as the methods Hume uses in pursuing it. As we will see, there is a thread running from Hume’s project of founding a science of the mind to that of the so-called cognitive sciences of the late twentieth century. For both, the study of the mind is in important respects just like the study of any other natural phenomenon. While it would be an overstatement to say that Hume’s entire interest lies in the construction of a science in this sense – he has other, more traditionally “philosophical,” concerns – recognizing the centrality of this scientific aim is essential for understanding him. +
Comprehensive perspective on scientific change from a sociological perspective. +
Bruno Latour is a vehement critic of the sociology of knowledge in general, and the Strong Program in particular. For those who are familiar with his books Science in Action (Latour, 1987), The Pasteurization of France (Latour, 1988) and We Have Never Been Modern (Latour, 1993) the pivotal role played by these criticisms in Latour's writing will be evident. To those who only know his work by repute, or who have only read the first edition of Latour and Woolgar's Laboratory Life (Latour and Woolgar, 1979), presenting him as a critic of the sociology of knowledge may seem surprising. Latour's work and the Strong Program in the sociology of knowledge are frequently classed together under the label of ‘social constructivism', and this creates the impression that the two enterprises must be fundamentally similar. This is reinforced by the fact that Latour wants to go further than sociologists of knowledge, whose work is said to represent something of a half-way house. He thinks sociologists are insufficiently radical in their critique of science (Latour, 1992, p. 273). Nevertheless, in reality, the two approaches are deeply opposed. In Latour's eyes the sociology of knowledge has been a failure, and it will continue to fail unless it adopts an entirely new approach which will qualitatively change its character +
John Herschel's natural philosophy, as summarized in his Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy , has long been considered a continuation of Francis Bacon's New Organon; commentators have frequently interpreted both as promoting a naive, inductivist methodology. I argue rather that Herschel promotes a more warranted and more sophisticated account. A careful reading of the Discourse, as well as of his more specialized essays, shows instead that Herschel explicitly encourages and defends the use of hypothetical reasoning. Such a methodology also describes his own extensive investigations that range over much of the spectrum of the physical sciences in the early nineteenth century. In developing this methodology, Herschel also drew on textual resources of Bacon, Isaac Newton, Roger Boscovich, Dugald Stewart, and others; most importantly, he was especially indebted to the investigations, views, and methods of his astronomer father, William Herschel. In particular, John Herschel applied his synthesis of these ideas to the empirical confirmation of his father's wide-ranging and speculative theories. In both the Discourse and in his other works, such as the Treatise on Astronomy, John Herschel promotes the use of hypotheses and of deductive methods as the tools used by experts, portraying inductive methods as the means by which sciences begin or as the most appropriate approach employed by amateurs. I also show how events of his life, including the socio-political context of early-nineteenth-century Britain, shaped Herschel's expression of his natural philosophy. Herschel's central role in the rise of science and of the philosophy of science in the nineteenth century make it imperative that we obtain a more accurate understanding of the doctrines he disseminated to practitioners of science and to popular audiences of the Victorian era. This volume provides the beginning of this broader task +
Formal logic descriptions and application. +
The heart of the eighteenth century Enlightenment is the loosely organized activity of prominent French thinkers of the mid-decades of the eighteenth century, the so-called “philosophes” (e.g., Voltaire, D’Alembert, Diderot, Montesquieu). The philosophes constituted an informal society of men of letters who collaborated on a loosely defined project of Enlightenment exemplified by the project of the Encyclopedia. However, there are noteworthy centers of Enlightenment outside of France as well. There is a renowned Scottish Enlightenment (key figures are Frances Hutcheson, Adam Smith, [[David Hume]], Thomas Reid), a German Enlightenment (die Aufklärung, key figures of which include Christian Wolff, Moses Mendelssohn, G.E. Lessing and [[Immanuel Kant]]), and there are also other hubs of Enlightenment and Enlightenment thinkers scattered throughout Europe and America in the eighteenth century. +
This collection of new essays interprets and critically evaluates the philosophy of Paul Feyerabend. It offers innovative historical scholarship on Feyerabend's take on topics such as realism, empiricism, mimesis, voluntarism, pluralism, materialism, and the mind-body problem, as well as certain debates in the philosophy of physics. It also considers the ways in which Feyerabend's thought can contribute to contemporary debates in science and public policy, including questions about the nature of scientific methodology, the role of science in society, citizen science, scientism, and the role of expertise in public policy. The volume will provide readers with a comprehensive overview of the topics which Feyerabend engaged with throughout his career, showing both the breadth and the depth of his thought. +
The Fifth International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science was held at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, 27 August to 2 September 1975. 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, and was sponsored by the National Research Council of Canada and the University of Western Ontario. As those associated closely with the work of the Division over the years know well, the work undertaken by its members varies greatly and spans a number of fields not always obviously related. In addition, the volume of work done by first rate scholars and scientists in the various fields of the Division has risen enormously. For these and related reasons it seemed to the editors chosen by the Divisional officers that the usual format of publishing the proceedings of the Congress be abandoned in favour of a somewhat more flexible, and hopefully acceptable, method of presentation. Accordingly, the work of the invited participants to the Congress has been divided into four volumes appearing in the University of Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science. The volumes are entitled, Logic, Foundations of Mathematics and Computability Theory, Foundational Problems in the Special Sciences, Basic Problems in Methodology and Linguistics, and Historical and Philosophical Dimensions of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science. +
C
A summary of Émile Durkheim's ideas. +
We summarize here the main arguments, basic research lines, and results on the foundations of the logics of formal inconsistency. These involve, in particular, some classes of well-known paraconsistent systems. We also present their semantical interpretations by way of possible-translations semantics and their applications to human reasoning and machine reasoning.1 +
The Cognitive Basis of Science concerns the question ''What makes science possible?'' Specifically, what features of the human mind and of human culture and cognitive development permit and facilitate the conduct of science? The essays in this volume address these questions, which are inherently interdisciplinary, requiring co-operation between philosophers, psychologists, and others in the social and cognitive sciences. They concern the cognitive, social, and motivational underpinnings of scientific reasoning in children and lay persons as well as in professional scientists. The editors’ introduction lays out the background to the debates, and the volume includes a consolidated bibliography that will be a valuable reference resource for all those interested in this area. The volume will be of great importance to all researchers and students interested in the philosophy or psychology of scientific reasoning, as well as those, more generally, who are interested in the nature of the human mind. +
One hundred years after Albert Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves, scientists have finally spotted these elusive ripples in space-time. +
This paper explores the process of the assessment and eventual acceptance of the existence of dark matter by the Western astronomy community in the period between 1930s and 1980s. By applying the framework of theoretical scientonomy, I trace the acceptance of two anomalous phenomena: the high mass-to-light ratio observed in galactic clusters, first documented by Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky in 1933, and the flat rotation curves of galaxies first observed by American astronomers Vera Rubin and Kent Ford in 1970. I also highlight how the community accepted two second-order propositions stating the inconsistency of these phenomena with the rest of the astronomical mosaic. I show that the acceptance of the existence of dark matter resulted from the acceptance of the existence of these anomalous phenomena and took place between 1982-1985, rather than in the mid-1970s as was previously assumed. +
The topic of unity in the sciences includes the following questions: Is there
one privileged, most basic kind of material, and if not, how are the
different kinds of material in the universe related? Can the various natural
sciences (physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology) be unified into a single
overarching theory, and can theories within a single science (e.g., general
relativity and quantum theory in physics) be unified? Does the unification
of these parts of science involve only matters of fact or are matters of
value involved as well? What about matters of method, material,
institutional, ethical and other aspects of intellectual cooperation?
Moreover, what kinds of unity in the sciences are there, and is unification
merely a relation between concepts or terms (i.e., a matter of semantics),
or is it also a relation between the theories, people, objects, or objectives
that they are part of? And is the relation one of reduction, translation,
explanation, logical inference, collaboration or something else? +
What is consciousness? How do physical processes in the brain give rise to the self-aware mind and to feelings as profoundly varied as love or hate, aesthetic pleasure or spiritual yearning? These questions today are among the most hotly debated issues among scientists and philosophers, and we have seen in recent years superb volumes by such eminent figures as Francis Crick, Daniel C. Dennett, Gerald Edelman, and Roger Penrose, all firing volleys in what has come to be called the consciousness wars. Now, in The Conscious Mind, philosopher David J. Chalmers offers a cogent analysis of this heated debate as he unveils a major new theory of consciousness, one that rejects the prevailing reductionist trend of science, while offering provocative insights into the relationship between mind and brain.
Writing in a rigorous, thought-provoking style, the author takes us on a far-reaching tour through the philosophical ramifications of consciousness. Chalmers convincingly reveals how contemporary cognitive science and neurobiology have failed to explain how and why mental events emerge from physiological occurrences in the brain. He proposes instead that conscious experience must be understood in an entirely new light--as an irreducible entity (similar to such physical properties as time, mass, and space) that exists at a fundamental level and cannot be understood as the sum of its parts. And after suggesting some intriguing possibilities about the structure and laws of conscious experience, he details how his unique reinterpretation of the mind could be the focus of a new science. Throughout the book, Chalmers provides fascinating thought experiments that trenchantly illustrate his ideas. For example, in exploring the notion that consciousness could be experienced by machines as well as humans, Chalmers asks us to imagine a thinking brain in which neurons are slowly replaced by silicon chips that precisely duplicate their functions--as the neurons are replaced, will consciousness gradually fade away? The book also features thoughtful discussions of how the author's theories might be practically applied to subjects as diverse as artificial intelligence and the interpretation of quantum mechanics.
All of us have pondered the nature and meaning of consciousness. Engaging and penetrating, The Conscious Mind adds a fresh new perspective to the subject that is sure to spark debate about our understanding of the mind for years to come.
What is temperature, and how can we measure it correctly? These may seem like simple questions, but the most renowned scientists struggled with them throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. In Inventing Temperature, Chang examines how scientists first created thermometers; how they measured temperature beyond the reach of standard thermometers; and how they managed to assess the reliability and accuracy of these instruments without a circular reliance on the instruments themselves.
In a discussion that brings together the history of science with the philosophy of science, Chang presents the simple yet challenging epistemic and technical questions about these instruments, and the complex web of abstract philosophical issues surrounding them. Chang's book shows that many items of knowledge that we take for granted now are in fact spectacular achievements, obtained only after a great deal of innovative thinking, painstaking experiments, bold conjectures, and controversy. Lurking behind these achievements are some very important philosophical questions about how and when people accept the authority of science. +
Any database project needs to be based on an ontology that is suitable for its subject matter. For the scientonomy project, it is important to conceive a good ontology of the human actions that constitute scientific practice, which allows rigorously conceived activity-based analyses of science. Mainstream philosophers of science have offered very precise analyses of scientific knowledge, but only in terms of beliefs and their assessments. Recent historians of science have been more attentive to the activities undertaken by scientists, but only offered imprecise analyses of them. Scientonomers have a chance to get the ontology right from this early stage of their enterprise. In this paper I make some programmatic proposals on the ontology of scientific work, in terms of epistemic activities and systems of practice. I also offer a framework for conceptualizing epistemic agents, and some clues on the ontology of the processes of inquiry. Scientonomy as the general “science of science” should not have an overly limited ontology. In particular, I suggest that the “scientific mosaic” should include a diverse array of elements and consider other aspects of methodology in addition to theory-assessment. +
Locke's philosophy, as edited by Chappell. +
From dust jacket notes: "...In the first major popular biography of Sir Isaac Newton in 50 years, historian Gale E. Christianson paints a compelling portrait of this seminal thinker -- a towering genius who, in the words of Albert Einstein, 'stands before us, strong, certain, and alone.' Drawing on the full body of Newton papers (nearly four million words), this majestic work details Newton's life in its entirety: from an introspective boyhood in rural Lincolnshire, to Cambridge, where he came to question the very order of things, to the heretical religious ideas that would ultimately absorb him more than science itself, to celebrity as leonine Master of the Mint and President of the Royal Society. Throughout, Newton emerges as a passionate recluse, given to sleepless nights working alone with little more nourishment than bread and wine. As the legend unfolds, so , too, do Newton's epoch-making discoveries in mathematics, physics, optics, and astronomy. At 23 he had already established the elements of differential calculus. Soon after he created the reflecting telescope and described the properties of light. At 45 Newton secured his reputation by publishing the Principia Mathematica, a treatise on universal gravitation that would alter forever man's vision of the cosmos...." +
Biological brains are increasingly cast as ‘prediction machines’: evolved organs
whose core operating principle is to learn about the world by trying to predict their
own patterns of sensory stimulation. This, some argue, should lead us to embrace
a brain-bound ‘neurocentric’ vision of the mind. The mind, such views suggest,
consists entirely in the skull-bound activity of the predictive brain. In this paper I
reject the inference from predictive brains to skull-bound minds. Predictive brains,
I hope to show, can be apt participants in larger cognitive circuits. The path is
thus cleared for a new synthesis in which predictive brains act as entry-points for
‘extended minds’, and embodiment and action contribute constitutively to knowing
contact with the world. +
An argument for the central importance of testimony in establishing, and transmitting, scientific knowledge. +
Within the last ten years, the interest of historians and philosophers of science in the epistemological writings of the Polish medical microbiologist Ludwik Fleck (1896-1961), who had up to then been almost completely unknown, has advanced with great strides. His main writings on epistemological questions were published in the mid-1930's, but they remained almost unnoticed. Today, however, one may rightly call Fleck a 'classical' figure both of episte mology and of the historical sociology of science, one whose works are comparable with Popper's Logic of Scientific Discovery or Merton's pioneer ing study of the relations among economics, Puritanism, and natural science, both also originally published in the mid-1930's. The story of this book of 'materials on Ludwik Fleck' is also the story of the reception of Ludwik Fleck. In this volume, some essential materials which have been produced by that reception have been gathered together. We will sketch both the reception and the materials. +
Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) was one of the greatest scientists of all time, a thinker of extraordinary range and creativity who has left enduring legacies in mathematics and the natural sciences. In this volume a team of distinguished contributors examine all the main aspects of Newton's thought, including not only his approach to space, time, mechanics, and universal gravity in his Principia, his research in optics, and his contributions to mathematics, but also his more clandestine investigations into alchemy, theology, and prophecy, which have sometimes been overshadowed by his mathematical and scientific interests. +
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. +
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) was one of the great thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and is known as the last “universal genius”. He made deep and important contributions to the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, logic, philosophy of religion, as well as mathematics, physics, geology, jurisprudence, and history. The aim of this entry is primarily to introduce Leibniz's life and summarize and explicate his views in the realms of metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophical theology. +
The concept of emergence has seen a significant resurgence in philosophy and the sciences, yet debates regarding emergentist and reductionist visions of the natural world continue to be hampered by imprecision or ambiguity. Emergent phenomena are said to arise out of and be sustained by more basic phenomena, while at the same time exerting a "top-down" control upon those very sustaining processes. To some critics, this has the air of magic, as it seems to suggest a kind of circular causality. Other critics deem the concept of emergence to be objectionably anti-naturalistic. Objections such as these have led many thinkers to construe emergent phenomena instead as coarse-grained patterns in the world that, while calling for distinctive concepts, do not "disrupt" the ordinary dynamics of the finer-grained (more fundamental) levels. Yet, reconciling emergence with a (presumed) pervasive causal continuity at the fundamental level can seem to deflate emergence of its initially profound significance. This basic problematic is mirrored by similar controversy over how best to characterize the opposite systematizing impulse, most commonly given an equally evocative but vague term, "reductionism." The original essays in this volume help to clarify the alternatives: inadequacies in some older formulations and arguments are exposed and new lines of argument on behalf the two visions are advanced. +
In the introduction to the Cambridge Companion to Descartes editor John Cottingham reviews the highlights of Descartes' life and philosophy. +
This is a further volume in a series of companions to major philosophers. Each volume contains specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars together with a substantial bibliography and will serve as a reference work for students and nonspecialists. One aim of the series is to dispel the intimidation such readers often feel when faced with the work of a difficult and challenging thinker.
Descartes occupies a position of pivotal importance as one of the founding fathers of modern philosophy; he is, perhaps, the most widely studied of all philosophers. In this authoritative collection an international team of leading scholars in Cartesian studies present the full range of Descartes' extraordinary philosophical achievement. His life and the development of his thought, as well as the intellectual background to and reception of his work, are treated at length. At the core of the volume are a group of chapters on his metaphysics: the celebrated "Cogito" argument, the proofs of God's existence, the "Cartesian circle" and the dualistic theory of the mind and its relation to his theological and scientific views. Other chapters cover the philosophical implications of his work in algebra, his place in the seventeenth-century scientific revolution, the structure of his physics, and his work on physiology, psychology, and ethics.
New readers and nonspecialists will find this the most comprehensive and accessible guide to Descartes currently available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Descartes. +
In Science as Social Knowledge, Helen Longino offers a contextual analysis ofevidential relevance. She claims that this "contextual empiricism" reconciles the objectivity of science with the claim that science is socially constructed. I argue that while her account does offer key insights into the role that values play in science, her claim that science is nonetheless objective is problematic. +
The Presocratics were 6th and 5th century BCE Greek thinkers who
introduced a new way of inquiring into the world and the place of human
beings in it. They were recognized in antiquity as the first philosophers
and scientists of the Western tradition. This article is a general
introduction to the most important Presocratic philosophers and the main
themes of Presocratic thought. More detailed discussions can be found by
consulting the articles on these philosophers (and related topics) in the
SEP (listed below). The standard collection of texts for the Presocratics is
that by H. Diels revised by W. Kranz (abbreviated as DK). In it, each
thinker is assigned an identifying chapter number (e.g., Heraclitus is 22,
Anaxagoras 59); then the reports from ancient authors about that thinker's
life and thought are collected in a section of “testimonies” (A) and
numbered in order, while the passages the editors take to be direct
quotations are collected and numbered in a section of “fragments” (B).
Alleged imitations in later authors are sometimes added in a section
labeled C. Thus, each piece of text can be uniquely identified: DK
59B12.3 identifies line 3 of Anaxagoras fragment 12; DK 22A1 identifies
testimonium 1 on Heraclitus. +
D
Hume follows Newton in replacing the mechanical philosophy's demonstrative ideal of science by the Principia's ideal of inductive proof(especially as formulated in Newton's Rule Ill); in this respect, Hume differs sharply from Locke. Hume is also guided by Newton's own criticisms of the mechanical philosophers' hypotheses. The first stage of Hume's skeptical argument concerning causation targets central tenets of the mechanical philosophers' (in particular, Locke's) conception of causation, all of which
rely on the a priori postulation of a hidden configuration of primary qualities. The skeptical argument concerning the causal inductive inference (with its implicit principle that nature is, in Newton's words, "ever consonant with itself") then raises doubts about what Hume himself regards as our very best inductive method. Hume's own "Rules" (T 1.3.15) further substantiate his reliance on Newton. Finally, Locke's distinction between "Knowledge" and "Probability" ("Opinion") does not leave room for Hume's Newtonian notion of inductive proof. +
Kant famously attempted to “answer” what he took to be Hume's skeptical view of causality, most explicitly in the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783); and, because causality, for Kant, is a central example of a category or pure concept of the understanding, his relationship to Hume on this topic is central to his philosophy as a whole. Moreover, because Hume's famous discussion of causality and induction is equally central to his philosophy, understanding the relationship between the two philosophers on this issue is crucial for a proper understanding of modern philosophy more generally. Yet ever since Kant offered his response to Hume the topic has been subject to intense controversy. There is no consensus, of course, over whether Kant's response succeeds, but there is no more consensus about what this response is supposed to be. There has been sharp disagreement concerning Kant's conception of causality, as well as Hume's, and, accordingly, there has also been controversy over whether the two conceptions really significantly differ. There has even been disagreement concerning whether Hume's conception of causality and induction is skeptical at all. We shall not discuss these controversies in detail; rather, we shall concentrate on presenting one particular
perspective on this very complicated set of issues. We shall clearly
indicate, however, where especially controversial points of interpretation
arise and briefly describe some of the main alternatives. +
A comprehensive comparison between the theories, methodologies, and scientific view of John Locke, David Hume, and Isaac Newton. +
Scientonomy seems to hold conflicting views about the historicity of scientific method. On the one hand, it is said that scientific methods are immanent to scientific mosaics and therefore change through time. On the other hand, the distinction between substantive and procedural methods seems to suggest that there are transcendent, unchangeable methods. I argue that this contradiction can be resolved by re-evaluating the role of problems: by integrating problems as constitutive elements of scientific mosaics, scientonomy can work towards a theory of scientific change without relying on the presupposition that some normative aspects of science must not change. In that perspective, norms originate in the relation between a problem, which creates a need for theoretical innovation, and a method, which creates an actual means to solve a problem. A problem-based scientonomy would then have to build a genealogical, rather than normative, approach to the source of scientificity by describing the progression from mysteries to scientific problems. Moreover, because they do not come from nowhere but express actual interactions with the world, problems can help us understand the relation between scientific change and other kinds of change. The primacy of actual problems over rational norms points to the immanence of reason: reason should be conceived as an evolutive feature of human communities. Finally, the relation between a theory of scientific change, evolutionary epistemology, and a general theory of change is investigated. +
In 1979 astronomer Carl Sagan popularized the aphorism "extraordinary
claims require extraordinary evidence" (ECREE). But Sagan never defined the term
"extraordinary". Ambiguity in what constitutes "extraordinary" has led to misuse of the
aphorism. ECREE is commonly invoked to discredit research dealing with scientific
anomalies, and has even been rhetorically employed in attempts to raise doubts
concerning mainstream scientific hypotheses that have substantive empirical support.
The origin of ECREE lies in eighteenth-century Enlightenment criticisms of miracles.
The most important of these was Hume’s essay On Miracles. Hume precisely defined
an extraordinary claim as one that is directly contradicted by a massive amount of
existing evidence. For a claim to qualify as extraordinary there must exist overwhelming
empirical data of the exact antithesis. Extraordinary evidence is not a separate
category or type of evidence–it is an extraordinarily large number of observations.
Claims that are merely novel or those which violate human consensus are not properly
characterized as extraordinary. Science does not contemplate two types of evidence.
The misuse of ECREE to suppress innovation and maintain orthodoxy should be
avoided as it must inevitably retard the scientific goal of establishing reliable
knowledge. +
Although the basis of modern biology is Cartesian, Descartes's theories of biology have been more often ridiculed than studied. Yet, Dennis Des Chene demonstrates, the themes, arguments, and vocabulary of his mechanistic biology pervade the writings of many seventeenth-century authors. In his illuminating account of Cartesian physiology in its historical context, Des Chene focuses on the philosopher's innovative reworking of that field, including the nature of life, the problem of generation, and the concepts of health and illness. Des Chene begins by surveying works that Descartes would likely have encountered, from late Aristotelian theories of the soul to medical literature and treatises on machines. The Cartesian theory of vital operations is examined with particular attention to the generation of animals. Des Chene also considers the role of the machine-model in furnishing a method in physiology, the ambiguities of the notion of machine, and of Descartes's problem of simulation. Finally, he looks at the various kinds of unity of the body, both in itself and in its union with the soul. Spirits and Clocks continues Des Chene's highly regarded exploration―begun in his previous book, Life's Form―of the scholastic and Cartesian sciences as well as the dialogue between these two worldviews. +
Tr./Ed. Jonathan Bennett. Originally published in 1641.
Written as a series of reflections over several days, Descartes elaborates on his epistemological and metaphysical system first laid out in Discourse on the Method in 1637. +
Tr./Ed. Jonathan Bennett. Originally published in 1637.
If this discourse seems too long to be read at a sitting you may divide it into six parts. In 1 you will find various considerations regarding the sciences; in 2 the main rules of the method that the author has sought; in 3 some of the moral rules he has derived from this method; in 4 the arguments by which he proves the existence of God and the human soul, on which his metaphysics is based; in 5 the order of the questions in physics that he has investigated, particularly the explanation of the movement of the heart and of some other problems in the medical sphere, and also the difference between our soul and that of the lower animals; and in 6 the things he believes are needed if we are to go further than he has in the investigation of nature, and his reasons for writing this discourse +
Tr./Ed. Jonathan Bennett. Originally produced between 1643 and 1649.
A collection of translated text and summaries of the correspondences between Rene Descartes and Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia between 1643 and 1649. +
''Principles of Philosophy'' (Latin: ''Principia philosophiae'') is a book by René Descartes. In essence it is a synthesis of the ''Discourse on Method'' and ''Meditations on First Philosophy''. It was written in Latin, published in 1644 and dedicated to Elisabeth of Bohemia, with whom Descartes had a long-standing friendship. A French version (''Les Principes de la Philosophie'') followed in 1647. It set forth the principles of nature—the Laws of Physics—as Descartes viewed them. Most notably, it set forth the principle that in the absence of external forces, an object's motion will be uniform and in a straight line. Newton borrowed this principle from Descartes and included it in his own Principia; to this day, it is still generally referred to as Newton's First Law of Motion. The book was primarily intended to replace the Aristotelian curriculum then used in French and British universities. The work provides a systematic statement of his metaphysics and natural philosophy, and represents the first truly comprehensive, mechanistic account of the universe. +
We offer a new account of the role of values in theory choice that captures a temporal dimension to the values themselves.We argue that nonepistemic values sometimes serve as “inquiry tickets,” justifying scientists’ pursuit of certain questions in the short run, while the answers to those questions mitigate transient underdetermination in the long run. Our account of inquiry tickets shows that the role of nonepistemic values need not be restricted to belief or acceptance in order to be relevant to hypothesis choice: the relevance of nonepistemic values to a particular cognitive attitude with respect to ''h'' varies over time. +
This article is a brief summary of the history of the Philosophy of Science Association from its founding until 1970. The Philosophy of Science Association began in 1933 and published a quarterly called 'Philosophy of Science'. In the late 1950's the association underwent a major reorganization due to declining membership. Its early meetings were held in association with the American Society for the Advancement of Science, but it began to hold independent meetings in 1968. +
George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, was one of the great philosophers of
the early modern period. He was a brilliant critic of his predecessors,
particularly Descartes, Malebranche, and Locke. He was a talented
metaphysician famous for defending idealism, that is, the view that reality
consists exclusively of minds and their ideas. Berkeley's system, while it
strikes many as counter-intuitive, is strong and flexible enough to counter most objections. His most-studied works, the Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (Principles, for short) and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (Dialogues), are beautifully written and dense with the sort of arguments that delight contemporary
philosophers. He was also a wide-ranging thinker with interests in religion (which were fundamental to his philosophical motivations), the psychology of vision, mathematics, physics, morals, economics, and medicine. Although many of Berkeley's first readers greeted him with incomprehension, he influenced both Hume and Kant, and is much read (if little followed) in our own day. +
"This volume assembles twelve texts published between 1892 and 1915... The editors allow one to see the genesis of the ideas of Duhem, philosopher and historian, of the variety of his styles, and sometimes also the limits of his work... A useful index, probably unique in the field of Duhemian studies, completes the book... The English-language public may be assured an exemplary translation and a reliable critical apparatus." -Jean Gayon, ''Revue d'Histoire des Sciences'' +
John Locke (1632-1704) one of the greatest English philosophers of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, argued in his masterpiece, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, that our knowledge is founded in experience and reaches us principally through our senses; but its message has been curiously misunderstood. In this book John Dunn shows how Locke arrived at his theory of knowledge, and how his exposition of the liberal values of toleration
and responsible government formed the backbone of enlightened European thought of the eighteenth century. +
A description of Aristotle's life and philosophy. +
E
In a complete theory there is an element corresponding to each element of reality. A sufficient condition for the reality of a physical quantity is the possibility of predicting it with certainty, without disturbing the system. In quantum mechanics in the case of two physical quantities described by non-commuting operators, the knowledge of one precludes the knowledge of the other. Then either (1)the description of reality given by the wave function in quantum mechanics is not complete or (2) these two quantities cannot have simultaneous reality. Consideration of the problem of making predictions concerning a system on the basis of measurements made on another system that had previously interacted with it leads to the result that if (1) is false then (2) is also false. One is thus led to conclude that the description of reality as given by a wave function is not complete. +
Encyclopaedia Britannica is the oldest English language encyclopedia still in production. +
The nature of species is controversial in biology and philosophy. Biologists disagree on the definition of the term ‘species,’ and philosophers disagree over the ontological status of species. Yet a proper understanding of species is important for a number of reasons. Species are the fundamental taxonomic units of biological classification. Environmental laws are framed in terms of species. Even our conception of human nature is affected by our understanding of species. In this entry, three issues concerning species are discussed. The first is the ontological status of species. The second is whether biologists should be species pluralists or species monists. The third is whether the theoretical term ‘species’ refers to a real category in nature. +
F
There are good reasons to think that there was a body of truths generally accepted by the scientific community under Abbasid rule during the middle ages. However, the indicators initially established by the scientonomy community to guide us in reconstructing past mosaics are not applicable in the case of the medieval Arabic scientific mosaic. Instead, by attending to the particular way that knowledge was disseminated in this community, we can see the primacy of the concepts passed down in authoritative texts. It is proposed here that a good way of determining which texts, and therefore theories, were widely accepted would be by tracking the unique record of licenses to teach [''ʾijāzāt''] particular texts that exist from this period. +
As the theory of the atom, quantum mechanics is perhaps the most successful theory in the history of science. It enables physicists, chemists, and technicians to calculate and predict the outcome of a vast number of experiments and to create new and advanced technology based on the insight into the behavior of atomic objects. But it is also a theory that challenges our imagination. It seems to violate some fundamental principles of classical physics, principles that eventually have become a part of western common sense since the rise of the modern worldview in the Renaissance. The aim of any metaphysical interpretation of quantum mechanics is to account for these violations.
The Copenhagen interpretation was the first general attempt to understand the world of atoms as this is represented by quantum mechanics. The founding father was mainly the Danish physicist Niels Bohr, but also Werner Heisenberg, Max Born and other physicists made important contributions to the overall understanding of the atomic world that is associated with the name of the capital of Denmark.
In fact Bohr and Heisenberg never totally agreed on how to understand the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics, and neither of them ever used the term “the Copenhagen interpretation” as a joint name for their ideas. In fact, Bohr once distanced himself from what he considered to be Heisenberg's more subjective interpretation (APHK, p.51). The term is rather a label introduced by people opposing Bohr's idea of complementarity, to identify what they saw as the common features behind the Bohr-Heisenberg interpretation as it emerged in the late 1920s. Today the Copenhagen interpretation is mostly regarded as synonymous with indeterminism, Bohr's correspondence principle, Born's statistical interpretation of the wave function, and Bohr's complementarity interpretation of certain atomic phenomena. +
This collection of six symposia, with 24 prominent philosophers and scientists participating, concentrates on many of the most significant issues and controversies at the frontiers of philosophical and scientific enlightenment. The discussions clarify basic issues and problems and go on to suggest new avenues for their resolution. Each contribution is original; none has been published before. These fascinating give-and-take sessions among eminent thinkers simulate the reader to do his own thinking about fundamental problems in the logic and methodology of science. Among the problems discussed are the epistemological foundations of science, the logic of quantum theory, philosophy of space and time, and methodology of psychology. - from dust jacket. +
Feyerabend formulated these theses in rough draft for a conference planned for 20 March 1973, where he was to criticize Lakatos's defense of "Law and Order" from an anarchist point of view. The theses were enclosed with a letter to Lakatos dated February 1973. A slightly revised form of these theses has appeared as [[Feyerabend (1975d)]], pp. 176-81. +
Paul Feyerabend’s globally acclaimed work, which sparked and continues to stimulate fierce debate, examines the deficiencies of many widespread ideas about scientific progress and the nature of knowledge. Feyerabend argues that scientific advances can only be understood in a historical context. He looks at the way the philosophy of science has consistently overemphasized practice over method, and considers the possibility that anarchism could replace rationalism in the theory of knowledge. +
Over the past thirty years Paul Feyerabend has developed an extremely distinctive and influential approach to problems in the philosophy of science. The most important and seminal of his published essays are collected here in two volumes, with new introductions to provide an overview and historical perspective on the discussions of each part. Volume 1 presents papers on the interpretation of scientific theories, together with papers applying the views developed to particular problems in philosophy and physics. The essays in volume 2 examine the origin and history of an abstract rationalism, as well as its consequences for the philosophy of science and methods of scientific research. Professor Feyerabend argues with great force and imagination for a comprehensive and opportunistic pluralism. In doing so he draws on extensive knowledge of scientific history and practice, and he is alert always to the wider philosophical, practical and political implications of conflicting views. These two volumes fully display the variety of his ideas, and confirm the originality and significance of his work. +
Over the past thirty years Paul Feyerabend has developed an extremely distinctive and influential approach to problems in the philosophy of science. The most important and seminal of his published essays are collected here in two volumes, with new introductions to provide an overview and historical perspective on the discussions of each part. Volume 1 presents papers on the interpretation of scientific theories, together with papers applying the views developed to particular problems in philosophy and physics. The essays in volume 2 examine the origin and history of an abstract rationalism, as well as its consequences for the philosophy of science and methods of scientific research. Professor Feyerabend argues with great force and imagination for a comprehensive and opportunistic pluralism. In doing so he draws on extensive knowledge of scientific history and practice, and he is alert always to the wider philosophical, practical and political implications of conflicting views. These two volumes fully display the variety of his ideas, and confirm the originality and significance of his work. +
Modern philosophy of science has paid great attention to the understanding of scientific "practice", in contrast to the earlier concentration on scientific "method". This work, which has contributed to this debate, shows the deficiencies of some widespread ideas about the nature of knowledge. He argues that the only feasible explanations of scientific successes are historical explanations and that anarchism must now replace rationalism in the theory of knowledge. The third edition of this text contains a new preface and additional reflections which take account both of recent debates on science and on the impact of scientific products and practices on the human community. While disavowing populism or relativism, Feyerabend continues to insist that the voice of the inexpert must be heard. Thus many environmental perils were first identified by non-experts against prevailing assumptions in the scientific community. +
This third volume of Paul Feyerabend's philosophical papers, which gathers together work originally published between 1960 and 1980, offers a range of his characteristically exciting treatments of classic questions in the philosophy of science, including theoretical pluralism, the relationship between theory and observation, the distinction between science and myth, the role of science in society, and the vexed question of the nature of scientific method. The volume is completed by a substantial introduction and a comprehensive list of Feyerabend's works. +
Paul Feyerabend’s globally acclaimed work, which sparked and continues to stimulate fierce debate, examines the deficiencies of many widespread ideas about scientific progress and the nature of knowledge. Feyerabend argues that scientific advances can only be understood in a historical context. He looks at the way the philosophy of science has consistently overemphasized practice over method, and considers the possibility that anarchism could replace rationalism in the theory of knowledge.
This updated edition of the classic text includes a new introduction by Ian Hacking, one of the most important contemporary philosophers of science. Hacking reflects on both Feyerabend’s life and personality as well as the broader significance of the book for current discussions. +
This collection of the writings of Paul Feyerabend is focused on his philosophy of quantum physics, the hotbed of the key issues of his most debated ideas. Written between 1948 and 1970, these writings come from his first and most productive period. These early works are important for two main reasons. First, they document Feyerabend's deep concern with the philosophical implications of quantum physics and its interpretations. These ideas were paid less attention in the following two decades. Second, the writings provide the crucial background for Feyerabend's critiques of Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn. Although rarely considered by scholars, Feyerabend's early work culminated in the first version of Against Method. These writings guided him on all the key issues of his most well-known and debated theses, such as the incommensurability thesis, the principles of proliferation and tenacity, and his particular version of relativism, and more specifically on quantum mechanics. +
"Hume is our Politics, Hume is our Trade, Hume is our Philosophy, Hume is our Religion.” This statement by nineteenth century philosopher James Hutchison Stirling reflects the unique position in intellectual thought held by Scottish philosopher David Hume. Part of Hume’s fame and importance owes to his boldly skeptical approach to a range of philosophical subjects. In epistemology, he questioned common notions of personal identity, and argued that there is no permanent “self” that continues over time. He dismissed standard accounts of causality and argued that our conceptions of cause-effect relations are grounded in habits of thinking, rather than in the perception of causal forces in the external world itself. He defended the skeptical position that human reason is inherently contradictory, and it is only through naturally-instilled beliefs that we can navigate our way through common life. In the philosophy of religion, he argued that it is unreasonable to believe testimonies of alleged miraculous events, and he hints, accordingly, that we should reject religions that are founded on miracle testimonies. Against the common belief of the time that God’s existence could be proven through a design or causal argument, Hume offered compelling criticisms of standard theistic proofs. He also advanced theories on the origin of popular religious beliefs, grounding such notions in human psychology rather than in rational argument or divine revelation. The larger aim of his critique was to disentangle philosophy from religion and thus allow philosophy to pursue its own ends without rational over-extension or psychological corruption. +
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP) (ISSN 2161-0002) was founded in 1995 to provide open access to detailed, scholarly information on key topics and philosophers in all areas of philosophy. The Encyclopedia receives no funding, and operates through the volunteer work of the editors, authors, volunteers, and technical advisers. At present, the IEP has over a million visitors per month, and about 20 million page views per year. The Encyclopedia is free of charge and available to all users of the Internet world-wide. The staff of 30 editors and approximately 300 authors hold doctorate degrees and are professors at universities around the world, most notably from English-speaking countries.
The purpose of the IEP is to provide detailed, scholarly information on key topics and philosophers in all areas of philosophy. The Encyclopedia's articles are written with the intention that most of the article can be understood by advanced undergraduates majoring in philosophy and by other scholars who are not working in the field covered by that article. The IEP articles are written by experts but not for experts in analogy to the way the Scientific American magazine is written by scientific experts but not primarily for scientific experts. A critical feature of the IEP is its status as a freely accessible and not-for-profit resource, which the General Editors, present and future, will seek to perpetuate. As such, the IEP will not be used to make a profit in any manner, such as by re-publishing articles or by charging for access to its articles or by posting advertising. No person at the IEP will receive any financial compensation for any IEP work. No for-profit organization will have any financial stake in the IEP, nor can a for-profit organization advertise within the IEP. +
In the May 15, 1935 issue of Physical Review Albert Einstein co-authored a paper with his two postdoctoral research associates at the Institute for Advanced Study, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen. The article was entitled “Can Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?” (Einstein et al. 1935). Generally referred to as “EPR”, this paper quickly became a centerpiece in the debate over the
interpretation of the quantum theory, a debate that continues today. The paper features a striking case where two quantum systems interact in such a way as to link both their spatial coordinates in a certain direction and also their linear momenta (in the same direction). As a result of this “entanglement”, determining either position or momentum for one system would fix (respectively) the position or the momentum of the other. EPR use this case to argue that one cannot maintain both an intuitive condition of local action and the completeness of the quantum description by means of the wave function. This entry describes the argument of that 1935 paper, considers several different versions and reactions, and explores the ongoing significance of the issues they raise. +
The article starts from the specific difficulties of applying quantitative analysis to the humanities and the general resistance to such analysis in the Federal Republic of Germany. It gives a survey of the attempts to apply bibliometric methods in English Studies, the only subject investigated so far. The highly individual nature of research in the humanities is stressed and differences in subfields are illustrated. There is little influence of departmental size or age on the publication behaviour of individuals. More studies of citation behaviour are needed for a reliable evaluation of the impact of research in the humanities. +
Pierre Gassendi (b. 1592, d. 1655) was a French philosopher, scientific
chronicler, observer, and experimentalist, scholar of ancient texts and
debates, and active participant in contemporary deliberations of the first
half of the seventeenth century. His significance in early modern thought
has in recent years been rediscovered and explored, towards a better
understanding of the dawn of modern empiricism, the mechanical
philosophy, and relations of modern philosophy to ancient and medieval
discussions. While Gassendi is perhaps best known in history of
philosophy for his disputes with Descartes, his relations with other major
figures, including Kepler, Galileo, Mersenne, Beeckman, and Hobbes,
represented even more important transactions of ideas. And while
Gassendi also sought to communicate anew the ideas of Epicurus, the
Stoics, and other earlier thinkers, his resulting amalgam of perspectives
provides a modern view of his own making, one of the touchstones of
philosophy and science in his times: our access to knowledge of the
natural world is dependent on the constraints and licenses that follow from
our epistemic grasp being limited to information provided by senses. +
Until quite lately the following conviction prevailed among scientists, expressed in Poincaré’s sentence: “if a research worker had infinite time at his disposal, it would suffice to tell him: Look, but look well”. Our entire knowledge would allegedly emerge out of the description of his observations of all events. +
The fundamental error in many discussions from the field of epistemology is the (more or less open) manipulation of the symbolic epistemological subject, known as ‘human spirit’, ‘human mind’, ‘research worker’ or simply ‘man’ (‘John’, ’Socrates’), which has no concrete living position, which does not basically undergo changes even in the course of centuries and which represents every ‘normal’ man regardless of the surroundings and the epoch. Thus it is to be absolute, unchanging and general. +
In perhaps the most original and suggestive section of his book on The Conceptual Development of Quantum Mechanics Max Jammer contended "that certain philosophical ideas of the late nineteenth century not only prepared the intellectual climate for, but contributed decisively to, the formation of the new conceptions of the modern quantum theory"; specifically, "contingentism, existentialism, pragmatism, and logical empiricism, rose in reaction to traditional rationalism and conventional metaphysics. . . . Their affirmation of a concrete conception of life and their rejection of an abstract intellectualism culminated in their doctrine of free will, their denial of mechanical determinism or of metaphysical causality. United in rejecting causality though on different grounds, these currents of thought prepared, so to speak, the philosophical background for modern quantum mechanics. They contributed with suggestions to the formative stage of the new conceptual scheme and subsequently promoted its acceptance." +
Although Sweden is a small country, in the eighteenth century it enjoyed notable scientific prosperity, with a number of internationally esteemed figures. This paper attempts to reconstruct Swedish science during that period. +
An article in the January 8, 1986 issue of The New York Times dramatically announced, "Hints of Fifth Force in Nature Challenge Galileo's Findings". Just four years later, many of those who had worked on the concept concluded that "the Fifth Force is dead". Reading like a detective story, The Rise and Fall of the Fifth Force discloses the curious history of the quick advance and swift demise of the "Fifth Force" - a proposed modification of Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation and one of the most publicized physics hypotheses in recent memory. While discussing the origin and fate of this short-lived concept, The Rise and Fall of the Fifth Force delivers a fascinating analysis of the ways in which scientific hypotheses in general are promulgated and pursued. What leads to the formulation of a hypothesis? How and why does a hypothesis become considered worthy of further investigation? These are some of the questions that The Rise and Fall of the Fifth Force pursues while unraveling the dynamics of this scientific search. Taking aim at the "social constructivist" view of science, which posits social and professional interests as the primary engine behind hypothesis-making, Allan Franklin proposes an "evidence model" of science. He emphasizes the crucial role that experimental evidence plays in the discovery, pursuit, and justification of scientific proposals and suggests a distinction between the reasons for scientific pursuit and the reasons used to justify hypotheses. Buttressing Franklin's model, The Rise and Fall of the Fifth Force provides a unique comparison of the published record and the private e-mail correspondence of the three major authors of the Fifth Force hypothesis during the first six months following the publication of their proposal. A fascinating inquiry into a scientific hypothesis and the forces that first advanced and then rejected it, The Rise and Fall of the Fifth Force is an outstanding account for physicists, historians and philosophers of science, and all readers interested in what makes science tick.
One of the most salient lessons from HPS as a discipline is that science is a living, breathing endeavor; one whose rules and values are constantly changing. As such, there is an essential tension between the hope for a coherent, unified conception of scientific rationality on the one hand, and the recognition of the diversity of perspectives which fit into the framework called science. The big question, of which I hope to answer a small part, is: how can rationality and relativism be reconciled with one another? To do this, I present a rational reconstruction of a theory of scientific change which resembles Barseghyan’s theory of scientific change. I interpret scientific knowledge modally; the scientific mosaic of a community at a particular time is taken to represent the actual instantiation of a collection of possible scientific changes, all linked to one another through a Kripkean semantics of possible worlds. I then draw a correspondence between accepted scientific theories and employed methods with logical axioms and rules of inference respectively and use this to construct a logical framework for studying the modality of scientific knowledge. I use this framework to obtain a notion of scientific rationality which is contextually localized, but still presents a clear direction of scientific development at every individual time step. +
The current formulation of ''the zeroth law'' (the law of compatibility) is marred with a number of theoretical problems, which necessitate its reformulation. In this paper, we propose that ''compatibility'' is an independent stance that can be taken towards epistemic elements of all types. We then provide a new definition of ''compatibility criteria'' to reflect this change. We show that the content of the zeroth law is deducible from our definition of ''compatibility''. Instead of a static law of compatibility, we propose a new dynamic ''law of compatibility'' that explains how the stance of compatibility obtains. Unlike the zeroth law, this new law has empirical content, as it forbids certain conceivable scenarios. Having established these notions, we propose a classification space that exhaustively covers all the possible states a theory may occupy and all the transitions it may undergo during its lifecycle. +
This paper applies Patton and Al-Zayadi’s scientonomic framework for understanding disciplines to a case study of the development of the chemical discipline ("chymistry") from the 17th century through the early 18th century in Western Europe. Using evidence from the tradition of textbook publication that emerged in the seventeenth-century chymistry, we reconstruct the top-level of the question hierarchy of chymistry. Analyzing how these questions and their associated theories were received, we first show how, starting in the 1660s, alchemy transitioned from a synonym of chymistry to chymistry’s subdiscipline with a more limited scope. We identify that the rejection of alchemy's core questions occurred in the 1720s based on the reception of these questions in scientific publications and by academic institutions. Hence, we conclude that the subdiscipline of alchemy became rejected in the 1720s. In order to conduct our case-study, we closely follow Newman and Principe's research on early modern alchemy and chymistry in our reconstruction of the episode. However, using the scientonomic framework in analyzing this case study reveals the specific dynamics of this instance of sub-discipline rejection. Our deepened understanding of this hallmark historical episode of disciplinary rejection indicates the value of Patton and Al-Zayadi’s theoretical framework for observational scientonomic research. +
The paper presents the transcript of the discussions during the first scientonomy workshop that took place on February 25, 2023. The participants discussed and voted on several modifications concerning the scientonomic workflow ([[Modification:Sciento-2019-0007|Sciento-2019-0007]], [[Modification:Sciento-2019-0001|Sciento-2019-0001]], [[Modification:Sciento-2019-0002|Sciento-2019-0002]], [[Modification:Sciento-2019-0003|Sciento-2019-0003]], [[Modification:Sciento-2019-0004|Sciento-2019-0004]], [[Modification:Sciento-2019-0005|Sciento-2019-0005]], [[Modification:Sciento-2019-0006|Sciento-2019-0006]]) as well as two modifications concerning the idea of scientificity as an epistemic stance ([[Modification:Sciento-2018-0013|Sciento-2018-0013]]) and the respective law of theory demarcation ([[Modification:Sciento-2018-0014|Sciento-2018-0014]]). +
It is now part and parcel of the official philosophical wisdom that models are essential to the acquisition and organisation of scientific knowledge. It is also generally accepted that most models represent their target systems in one way or another. But what does it mean for a model to represent its target system? I begin by introducing three conundrums that a theory of scientific representation has to come to terms with and then address the question of whether the semantic
view of theories, which is the currently most widely accepted account of theories and models, provides us with adequate answers to these questions. After having argued in some detail that it does not, I briefly explain why other accounts of scientific modelling do not fit the bill either and conclude by pointing out in what direction a tenable account of scientific representation has to be sought. +
G
Physics and its foundations were central to Descartes' thought. Although today he is probably best known for his metaphysics of mind and body, or for his epistemological program, in the seventeenth century Descartes was at very least equally well known for his mechanistic physics and the mechanist world of geometrical bodies in motion which he played a large role in making acceptable to his contemporaries. In this essay I shall outline Descartes' mechanical philosophy in its historical context. After some brief remarks on the immediate background to Descartes' program for physics, and a brief outline of the historical development of his physics, we shall discuss the foundations of Descartes' physics, including his concepts of body and motion and his views on the laws of motion. +
Garber discusses the role of experimentation in the wider context of Descartes' philosophical system; the epistemic justification for propositions discovered by experimentation, the methodology of experimentation, and the role of empiricism within Cartesian apriorism. +
This paper explores the relationship between pluralism and scientonomy, i.e., the ways in which scientonomy is or is not pluralist. Scientonomy claims by its zeroth law (the compatibility law) that the elements of the mosaic must be mutually compatible at any time. However, when Harder (2013) proposed to change the law of compatibility, he did it by answering the question of whether two or more elements can coexist in the same mosaic. He said that they can. However, this answer requires a detailed analysis of compatibility’s meaning and its relation to the nature of the mosaic. That detailed analysis leads us to assess scientonomy by contrasting its pluralist and monist aspects. We will argue that Scientonomy embraces some aspects of monism, as well as some aspects of pluralism. As a result, we argue that an adequate form of pluralism is the so-called compatible pluralism of theories, seen from a perspective internal to a scientific mosaic. A second form of pluralism becomes evident from a perspective outside any particular mosaic. It is what we will call the pluralism of incompatible mosaics. To explore these topics, after a brief description of the problem, we will review the main features of the zeroth law. In section three, we will briefly review some forms of pluralism to argue why one of them fits scientonomy better. In the end, in section four, will discuss the variety of monist and pluralist features of scientonomy, focusing on pluralism. +
The year 1984 marked the centennial of the birth of George Alfred Leon Sarton, the
father of the history of science. Sarton was the author of numerous major works in the
field, including the three-volume, 4,236-page opus Introduction to the History of
Science, which many still consider one of the field’s most definitive and ambitious
works. Sarton also founded the field’s primary journal, Isis, which he edited for forty years. But in spite of the importance Sarton placed on the history of science, he considered the discipline a means, not an end. Sarton’s ultimate goal was an integrated philosophy of science that bridged the gap between the sciences and the
humanities-an ideal he called “the new humanism.” The forces and ideas that
molded this idealistic scholar were a unique confluence of his Old World bourgeois upbringing and the experiences under German occupation during World War I that
forced him to seek refuge in the United States +
After introducing several different approaches to distributed cognition, I consider the application of these ideas to modern science, especially the role of instrumentation and visual representations in science. I then examine several apparent difficulties with taking distributed cognition seriously. After arguing that these difficulties are only apparent, I note the ease with which distributed cognition accommodates normative concerns. I also present an example showing that understanding cognition as
distributed bridges the often perceived gap between cognitive and social theories of science. The paper concludes by suggesting some implications for the history of science and for the cognitive study of science in general. +
Giere argues for a reconciliation between history of science and philosophy of science on the grounds that philosophy of science must become theory of science, that is, a naturalized theory of how science works. Normative claims about how science should work can flow from a descriptive understanding of how it does work. Giere believes that such a theory of science can emerge from melding cognitive science with sociology of science. +
This work resulted from a workshop on the implications of the cognitive sciences for the philosophy of science held under the auspices of the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science. The workshop's theme was that the cognitive sciences - identified for the purposes of this project with three disciplinary clusters: artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, and cognitive neuroscience - have reached sufficient maturity that they are now a valuable resource for philosophers of science who are developing general theories of science as a human activity. The emergence of cognitive science has by no means escaped the notice of philosophers or philosophers of science. Within the philosophy of science one can detect an emerging speciality, the philosophy of cognitive science, which would be parallel to such specialities as the philosophy of physics or the philosophy of biology. But the reverse is also happening. That is, the cognitive sciences are beginning to have a considerable impact on the content and methods of philosophy, particularly the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind, but also on epistemology. The underlying hope is that the cognitive sciences might now come to play the sort of role within the philosophy of science that formal logic played for logical empiricism or that history of science played for the historical school. This development might permit the philosophy of science as a whole finally to move beyond the opposition between "logical" and "historical" approaches that has characterized the field since the 1960s. +
Among the many contested boundaries in science studies is that between
the cognitive and the social. Here, we are concerned to question this boundary from a perspective within the cognitive sciences based on the notion of distributed cognition. We first present two of many contemporary sources of the notion of distributed cognition, one from the study of artificial neural networks and one from cognitive anthropology. We then proceed to reinterpret two well-known essays by Bruno Latour, ‘Visualization and Cognition: Thinking with Eyes and Hands’ and ‘Circulating Reference: Sampling the Soil in the Amazon Forest’. In both cases we find the cognitive and the social merged in a system of distributed cognition without any appeal to agonistic encounters. For us, results do not come to be regarded as veridical because they are widely accepted; they come to be widely accepted because, in the context of an appropriate distributed cognitive system, their apparent veracity can be made evident to anyone with the capacity to understand the workings of the system. +
''Theory and Reality'' is an historical introduction to the philosophy of science. It begins with logical empiricism at the beginning of the twentieth century, and examines the problems of induction, then examines Popper's falsificationism. Kuhn and the historical dimensions of philosophy of science are examined, then the historicist philosophy of science of Lakatos and Laudan, and Feyerabend's epistemic anarchism. The sociology of scientific knowledge and Feminist philosophy of science are covered, then naturalism, realism, and Bayesian theories of evidence. +
Until recently, epistemology - the study of knowledge and justified belief - was heavily individualistic in focus. The emphasis was on evaluating doxastic attitudes (beliefs and disbeliefs) of individuals in abstraction from their social environment. The result is a distorted picture of the human epistemic situation, which is largely shaped by social relationships and institutions. Social epistemology seeks to redress this imbalance by investigating the epistemic effects of social interactions and social systems. +
Golinski argues for a social constructivist view of scientific knowledge. Thomas Kuhn's landmark ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' made science more approachable to sociological methods and naturalistic explanation. The social institutions responsible for the production of scientific knowledge, such as the professionalization of science, the research laboratory, and the scientific use of language and persuasion. +
This paper explores the thesis that Thomas Kuhn's work had the paradoxical effect of driving apart the fields history of science and philosophy of science. Although it served as a common reference point, scholars in different fields pursued its implications in very different directions. Although his work was popular with sociologists and post-modern cultural theorists, it did not win acceptance among the philosophers that he wished to appeal to, and historians were moving away from large scale overarching frameworks towards more specialized projects. +
The article is a collection of six essays by historians of science explaining their discipline. Gooding's contribution explains that historians of science are interested in the activities of scientific practitioners, the instruments and techniques they used to investigate nature, the ways they represented their findings and communicated them to others, the institutional arrangements they made to promote and finance science, and the development of their ideas and arguments as evidenced by their published works, manuscripts, and papers. +
H
In this volume Elizabeth Haldane gives a detailed account of Descartes' life, works, and historical context. +
According to the semantic view of scientific theories, theories are classes of models. I show that this view—if taken literally—leads to absurdities. In particular, this view equates theories that are distinct, and it distinguishes theories that are equivalent. Furthermore, the semantic view lacks the resources to explicate interesting theoretical
relations, such as embeddability of one theory into another. The untenability of the semantic view—as currently formulated—threatens to undermine scientific structuralism. +
The paper reviews the history of logical empiricism. The movement originated in the 1920's among the philosophers and scientists of the Vienna Circle, under the leadership of Moritz Schlick. It organized its first international conference in 1929, and obtained its own journal, Erkenntnis, in 1930. The logical empiricists sought to eliminate all metaphysics with the claim that science referred only to observations and the logical relationships between them. Some important principles include the principle of verification, which holds that only those propositions that can be verified have meaning. Observations were summarized in observation statements, thereby avoiding metaphysical questions about subjective experience. The logical empiricists sought a unitary logical language in which to express all of science. The movement met its demise due to a host of problems that proved impossible for it to solve. +
In this work, Hanson used insights from ordinary language philosophy, history of science, and psychology to argue that scientific thinking and observation is always theory-laden. He maintained that science would not be as rich and versatile as it is if it were not loaded with theory and expectation. He sought to elucidate the 'open' structure of scientific frameworks, as opposed to the rigid and closed definitional networks of geometry, formal logic, and mathematics. Hanson thought to challenge the logical positivist view of observation and to illuminate the process through which new conceptual frameworks in science are constructed. He is now regarded as an important forerunner of Thomas Kuhn's 'Structure of Scientific Revolutions'. +
Hardwig argues for the central importance of testimony in the acquisition of scientific knowledge. +
This book examines Newton’s argument for universal gravity and his
application of it to resolve the problem of deciding between geocentric and heliocentric world systems by measuring masses of the sun and planets. Newton’s inferences from phenomena realize an ideal of empirical success that is richer than prediction. To achieve this rich sort of empirical success a theory needs, not only to accurately predict the phenomena it purports to explain, but also, to have those phenomena accurately measure the parameters which explain them. Newton’s method aims to turn theoretical questions into ones which can be empirically answered by measurement from phenomena. Newton
employs theory-mediated measurements to turn data into far more
informative evidence than can be achieved by confirmation from
prediction alone. Propositions inferred from phenomena are provisionally accepted as guides to further research. This methodology, guided by its rich ideal of empirical success, supports a conception of scientific progress that does not require construing it as progress toward Laplace’s ideal limit of a final theory of everything and is not threatened by the classic argument against convergent realism. Newton’s method endorses the radical theoretical transformation from his theory to Einstein’s. It is strikingly realized in the development and application of testing frameworks for relativistic theories of gravity. In addition, it is very much at work in cosmology today. +
This is the first book to provide a comprehensive overview of the entire career of one of Britain's greatest men of letters. It sets in biographical and historical context all of Hume's works, from A Treatise of Human Nature to The History of England, bringing to light the major influences on the course of Hume's intellectual development, and paying careful attention to the differences between the wide variety of literary genres with which Hume experimented. The major events in Hume's life are fully described, but the main focus is on Hume's intentions as a philosophical analyst of human nature, politics, commerce, English history, and religion. Careful attention is paid to Hume's intellectual relations with his contemporaries. The goal is to reveal Hume as a man intensely concerned with the realization of an ideal of open-minded, objective, rigorous, dispassionate dialogue about all the principal questions faced by his age. +
In 1935 a Polish physician named Ludwik Fleck published a monograph in German entitled Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact. Although it addressed central issues in the philosophy of science, the book made virtually no impact. Most of the reviews it received appeared in medical journals or popular magazines. After the war it languished in obscurity, despite Kuhn's passing reference to it in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, until a German scholar rediscovered it in the early 1970s.
Recently, however, Fleck's work has been granted much more attention. In 1979 an English translation of his book was published, quickly followed by a reissue of the German edition, a dissertation on his life and work, a collection of his essays on sociology of knowledge, and a conference devoted to him. The explanation for this sudden interest is clear: Fleck anticipated fifty years ago many of the current arguments for a sociology of scientific knowledge, arguments which in Anglo-Saxon (and quite possibly German) scholarship have been derived largely from Kuhn.
In an essay of this scope it is impossible to do expository justice to the works under review. I will, therefore, draw upon these works in order to venture a judgement of Fleck's significance. My question is: how are we to welcome this prescient latecomer? Is he largely of historical interest? Or is his writing still of heuristic value for the sociology of knowledge? +
Descartes understood the subject matter of physics to encompass the whole of nature, including living things. It therefore comprised not only nonvital phenomena, including those we would now denominate as physical, chemical, minerological, magnetic, and atmospheric; it also extended to the world of plants and animals, including the human animal (with the exception of those aspects of human psychology that Descartes assigned solely to thinking substance). In the 1630s and 1640s Descartes formulated extensive accounts of the principal manifestations of animal life, including reproduction, growth, nutrition, the circulation of the blood, and especially sense-induced motion. In connection with the latter he discussed at length the bodily conditions for psychological phenomena, including sense perception, imagination, memory, and the passions. He also examined the mental aspects of these phenomena, sometimes by way of complementing his physiological discussions and sometimes as part of his investigation into the grounds of human knowledge. +
In the latter part of the nineteenth century, philosophers, physicists, and the new
psychologists agreed to this extent in their conceptions of the mind-body problem:
they all had a healthy respect for the integrity of both the mental and the physical
domains. Whatever their particular conunitments, whether phenomenalist, dualist,
or materialist, they all aCcepted the reality of both mental and physical phenomena
- where mental phenomena are, in the first instance, phenomenally characterized
and perhaps equated with the contents of consciousness, and physical phenomena
abstract from the knowing subject and sustain laws governing changes in spatiotemporally
characterized objects. This acceptance of the mental domain held for
physicists ~uch as Ludwig Boltzmann, Ernst Mach, and Hermann Hehnholtz no
less than philosopher psychologists such as Wtlhehn Wundt and W~ James
(despite their other differences). +
René Descartes (1596–1650) was a creative mathematician of the first order, an important scientific thinker, and an original metaphysician. During the course of his life, he was a mathematician first, a natural scientist or “natural philosopher” second, and a metaphysician third. In mathematics, he developed the techniques that made possible algebraic (or “analytic”) geometry. In natural philosophy, he can be credited with several specific achievements: co-framer of the sine law of refraction, developer of an important empirical account of the rainbow, and proposer of a naturalistic account of the formation of the earth and planets (a precursor to the nebular hypothesis). More importantly, he offered a new vision of the natural world that continues to shape our thought today: a world of matter possessing a few fundamental properties and interacting according to a few universal laws. This natural world included an immaterial mind that, in human beings, was directly related to the brain; in this way, Descartes formulated the modern version of the mind–body problem. In metaphysics, he provided arguments for the existence of God, to show that the essence of matter is extension, and that the essence of mind is thought. Descartes claimed early on to possess a special method, which was variously exhibited in mathematics, natural philosophy, and metaphysics, and which, in the latter part of his life, included, or was supplemented by, a method of doubt. +
The defining characteristic of an empirical statement is its capability of being tested by a confrontation with experimental findings, i.e. with the results of suitable experiments or 'focused' observations. This feature distinguishes statements which have empirical content both from the statements of the formal sciences, logic and mathematics which require no experimental tests for their validation, and from the formulations of transempirical metaphysics, which do not
admit of any. +
Integrated History and Philosophy of Science (iHPS) is commonly understood as the study of science from a combined historical and philosophical perspective. Yet, since its gradual formation as a research field, the question of how to suitably integrate both perspectives remains open. This volume presents cutting edge research from junior iHPS scholars, and in doing so provides a snapshot of current developments within the field, explores the connection between iHPS and other academic disciplines, and demonstrates some of the topics that are attracting the attention of scholars who will help define the future of iHPS. +
This web site, Twentieth-Century Philosophy of Science: A History, is a revised and enlarged edition of a 1995 print book titled History of Twentieth-Century Philosophy of Science, which is now out of print. This web site is also published as an e-book with the same title as the site, and is available at most Internet booksellers. The greatly expanded “Introduction” chapter set forth herein as “BOOK I” summarizes the fundamental principles of the contemporary pragmatist philosophy of science, and includes discussion of the recently emergent specialty “computational philosophy of science”. Each of the remaining chapters, BOOK II through BOOK VIII, focuses upon writers who have influenced the evolution of twentieth-century philosophy of science. +
This article provides a brief summary of the history of the History of Science Society. The society was founded by George Sarton in 1924 to secure the future of the journal 'Isis' that was founded in Belgium in 1918 it also currently publishes the journal 'Osiris'. Although its membership is international, it primarily represents North American historians of science. The article also summarizes the work of HSS's executive office. +
Let me begin with a convention. I will refer to the distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification as “the DJ distinction” (where I may note, for potentially misled younger readers, that this “DJ” has nothing to do with the music business). This paper is based on an older paper of mine (Hoyningen-Huene 1987). In the present paper, I will first recapitulate some of the topics of the older paper, and will contribute further considerations. Subsequently, I will discuss Thomas Kuhn’s ideas about justification in science. Thus will be clarified, in which sense precisely Kuhn opposed the DJ distinction. This is noteworthy, because in the 1960s and 1970s, many philosophers concluded from Kuhn’s opposition to the context distinction that he just did not understand what it was all about (and they inferred from this that he was just too uneducated as a philosopher to be taken seriously). +
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is a philosophical work by the Scottish philosopher David Hume. Through dialogue, three philosophers named Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes debate the nature of God's existence. Whether or not these names reference specific philosophers, ancient or otherwise, remains a topic of scholarly dispute. While all three agree that a god exists, they differ sharply in opinion on God's nature or attributes and how, or if, humankind can come to knowledge of a deity. In the Dialogues, Hume's characters debate a number of arguments for the existence of God, and arguments whose proponents believe through which we may come to know the nature of God. Such topics debated include the argument from design—for which Hume uses a house—and whether there is more suffering or good in the world (argument from evil). Hume started writing the Dialogues in 1750 but did not complete them until 1776, shortly before his death. They are based partly on Cicero's De Natura Deorum. The Dialogues were published posthumously in 1779, originally with neither the author's nor the publisher's name.[1] +
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding is a book by the Scottish empiricist philosopher David Hume, published in English in 1748.[1] It was a revision of an earlier effort, Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, published anonymously in London in 1739–40. Hume was disappointed with the reception of the Treatise, which "fell dead-born from the press,"[2] as he put it, and so tried again to disseminate his more developed ideas to the public by writing a shorter and more polemical work. The end product of his labours was the Enquiry. The Enquiry dispensed with much of the material from the Treatise, in favor of clarifying and emphasizing its most important aspects. For example, Hume's views on personal identity do not appear. However, more vital propositions, such as Hume's argument for the role of habit in a theory of knowledge, are retained. +
Formulation of distributed cognition based on a study of navigation of a US Navy ship. +
Technology, in all its forms, has had and continues to have an indisputable impact on society and culture. Philosophy of technology seeks to understand this impact and the meaning of technology for society and culture. Although its origins can be traced back to the Greeks, it wasn’t until the late 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century that it gained ground as a philosophical discipline. Now more than ever it is considered an essential philosophical enterprise.
‘The Budapest Workshop on Philosophy of Technology’ was a lively and successful event that sort to discuss, reflect on and apply this branch of philosophical inquiry to both historical and contemporary examples. Importantly, the contributors’ methodological approaches were influenced by, although not limited to, Michael Polanyi’s term ‘post-critical’. Moving beyond the rigidity of past approaches, the selected essays were driven by two lines of inquiry, what has been the historical role of technology in social and scientific change? And, how can a ‘post-critical’ approach enhance and extend our understanding of philosophy of technology?
This edited volume begins by exploring the role of technology in social and scientific developments from a historical perspective, before moving towards a discussion of philosophy of technology from a ‘Post-Critical’ epistemic stance. Free from the constraints of previous methodologies, the third part of this work engages with the term ‘Post-Critical’ in its broadest sense. The contributors to this section consider the phenomenology of the body and the influence of technology on our lives. Finally, the four concluding chapters of this book apply this philosophical approach to a wide range of contemporary problems from Decision Support Systems to Crisis Communication. +
I
Recent feminist philosophers of science have argued that feminist values can contribute to rational decisions about which scientific theories to accept. On this view, increasing the number of feminist scientists is important for ensuring rational and objective theory acceptance. The Underdetermination Thesis has played a key role in arguments for this view [Anderson (1995) Hypatia 10(3), 50–84; Hankinson Nelson (1990) Who knows? From Quine to a feminist empiricism. Temple University Press, Philadelphia; Longino (1990) Science as social knowledge. Princeton University Press, Princeton; Longino (2002) The fate of knowledge. Princeton University Press, Princeton; Kourany (2003) Philosophy of Science 70, 1–14]. This thesis is alleged to open an argumentative “gap” between evidence and theory acceptance and provide a rationale for filling the gap with feminist values. While I agree with the conclusion that feminist values can contribute to rational decisions about which theories to accept, I argue that the Underdetermination Thesis cannot support this claim. First, using earlier arguments [Laudan (1990) in: R. Giere (ed) Minnesota studies in the philosophy of science, vol 14, pp 267–297; Slezak (1991) International Studies in Philosophy of Science 5, 241–256; Pinnick (1994) Philosophy of Science 61, 664–657] I show that Underdetermination cannot, by itself, establish that feminist values should fill the gap in theory acceptance. Secondly, I argue that the very use of the Underdetermination Thesis concedes that feminist values are extra-scientific, a-rational, factors in theory acceptance. This concession denies feminists grounds to explain why their values contribute to rational scientific reasoning. Finally, I propose two alternative ways to explain how feminist values can contribute to rational theory acceptance that do not rely on Underdetermination. +
J
Jolley examines the reception of Descartes' philosophy within his contemporary scientific, academic, and religious communities. +
K
Explains Newton's entire experiment to prove it is possible to induct a general hypothesis without evidence. +
It has been about a century and half since the ideas that we now
associate with emergentism began taking shape.1 At the core of
these ideas was the thought that as systems acquire increasingly
higher degrees of organizational complexity they begin to exhibit
novel properties that in some sense transcend the properties of their
constituent parts, and behave in ways that cannot be predicted on
the basis of the laws governing simpler systems. It is now standard
to trace the birth of emergentism back to John Stuart Mill
and his distinction between “heteropathic” and “homopathic” laws,2
although few of us would be surprised to learn that the same
or similar ideas had been entertained by our earlier philosophical
forebears.3 Academic philosophers – like Samuel Alexander and
C.D. Broad in Britain, A.O. Lovejoy and Roy Wood Sellars in
the United States – played an important role in developing the
concept of emergence and the attendant doctrines of emergentism,
but it is interesting to note that the fundamental idea seems to have
had a special appeal to scientists and those outside professional
philosophy. These include the British biologist C. Lloyd Morgan,
a leading theoretician of the emergentist movement early in this
century, and, more recently, the noted neurophysiologist Roger W.
Sperry. +
During the last three decades, reflections on the growth of scientific knowledge have inspired historians, sociologists, and some philosophers to contend that scientific objectivity is a myth. In this book, Kitcher attempts to resurrect the notions of objectivity and progress in science by identifying both the limitations of idealized treatments of growth of knowledge and the overreactions to philosophical idealizations. Recognizing that science is done not by logically omniscient subjects working in isolation, but by people with a variety of personal and social interests, who
cooperate and compete with one another, he argues that, nonetheless, we may conceive the growth of science as a process in which both our vision of nature and our ways of learning more about nature improve. Offering a detailed picture of the advancement of science, he sets a new agenda for the philosophy of science and for other "science studies" disciplines. +
Ethnographic study of two scientific communities - high energy physics and molecular biology. +
Locke's philosophy of science consists largely in his metaphysical and epistemological views of material substances and their powers. Locke has been widely hailed for providing an epistemological foundation for the experimental science of his day, and his thought is closely aligned with that of its practitioners, elaborating certain themes present in sparer form in Boyle and Newton. But if his epistemology helps to usher in the age of science, he still belongs to the age of natural philosophy. And if he is a devotee of the new science, he often appears an uncertain one, recognizing profound difficulties in it. In consequence, Locke's work is characterized by tensions and nuances, providing a rich source for scholarly research and debate. +
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions posited a new, historically grounded way of understanding scientific knowledge. Kuhn spoke of ''scientific paradigms'', which are shared constellations of theoretical and metaphysical beliefs, values, methods, and instrumental techniques shared by a scientific discipline. A ''scientific revolution'' occurs when one paradigm is replaced with another. Because paradigms are holistic networks of theories, methods, and values, they are ''incommensurable'' meaning that the terms and categories of the old paradigm cannot be translated into those of the new. Adoption of a new paradigm thus appears to involve something akin to a gestalt shift. +
History, if viewed as a repository for more than anecdote or chronology, could produce a decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed. That image has previously been drawn, even by scientists themselves, mainly from the study of finished scientific achievements as these are recorded in the classics and, more recently, in the textbooks from which each new scientific generation learns to practice its trade. Inevitably, however, the aim of such books is persuasive and pedagogic; a concept of science drawn from them is no more likely to fit the enterprise that produced them than an image of a national culture drawn from a tourist brochure or a language text. This essay attempts to show that we have been misled by them in fundamental ways. Its aim is a sketch of the quite different concept of science that can emerge from the historical record of the research activity itself. +
A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, and we forget how provocative and challenging its ideas once were - and still are. ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' is that kind of book. When it was first published in 1962, it was a landmark event in the history and philosophy of science. Fifty years later, it still has many lessons to teach.
With ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'', Kuhn challenged long-standing linear notions of scientific progress, arguing that transformative ideas don’t arise from the day-to-day, gradual process of experimentation and data accumulation but that the revolutions in science, those breakthrough moments that disrupt accepted thinking and offer unanticipated ideas, occur outside of “normal science,” as he called it. Though Kuhn was writing when physics ruled the sciences, his ideas on how scientific revolutions bring order to the anomalies that amass over time in research experiments are still instructive in our biotech age.
This new edition of Kuhn’s essential work in the history of science includes an insightful introduction by Ian Hacking, which clarifies terms popularized by Kuhn, including paradigm and incommensurability, and applies Kuhn’s ideas to the science of today. Usefully keyed to the separate sections of the book, Hacking’s introduction provides important background information as well as a contemporary context. Newly designed, with an expanded index, this edition will be eagerly welcomed by the next generation of readers seeking to understand the history of our perspectives on science. +
This book contains the text of Thomas S. Kuhn’s unfinished book, ''The Plurality of Worlds: An Evolutionary Theory of Scientific Development'', which Kuhn himself described as a return to the central claims of ''The Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' and the problems that it raised but did not resolve. ''The Plurality of Worlds'' is preceded by two related texts that Kuhn publicly delivered but never published in English: his paper “Scientific Knowledge as Historical Product” and his Shearman Memorial Lectures, “The Presence of Past Science.” An introduction by the editor describes the origins and structure of ''The Plurality of Worlds'' and sheds light on its central philosophical problems.
Kuhn’s aims in his last writings are bold. He sets out to develop an empirically grounded theory of meaning that would allow him to make sense of both the possibility of historical understanding and the inevitability of incommensurability between past and present science. In his view, incommensurability is fully compatible with a robust notion of the real world that science investigates, the rationality of scientific change, and the idea that scientific development is progressive. +
L
Lakatos's PhD Thesis. +
For centuries knowledge meant proven knowledge - proven either by the power of the intellect or by the evidence of the senses. Wisdom and intellectual integrity demanded that one must desist from unproven utterances and minimize, even in thought, the gap between speculation and established knowledge. The proving power of the intellect or the senses was questioned by the sceptics more than two thousand years ago; but they were browbeaten into confusion by the glory of Newtonian physics. Einstein’s results again turned the tables and now very few philosophers or scientists still think that scientific knowledge is, or can be, proven knowledge. But few realize that with this the whole classical structure of intellectual values falls in ruins and has to be replaced: one cannot simply water down the ideal of proven truth - as some logical empiricists do - to the ideal of ''probable truth'' or - as some sociologists of knowledge do - to ''truth by (changing) consensus''. +
"Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind". Taking its cue from this paraphrase of Kant’s famous dictum, this paper intends to explain how the historiography of science should learn from the philosophy of science and vice versa. It will be argued that (a) philosophy of science provides normative methodologies in terms of which the historian reconstructs 'internal history' and thereby provides a rational explanation of the growth of objective knowledge; (b) two competing methodologies can be evaluated with the help of (normatively interpreted) history; (c) any rational reconstruction of history needs to be supplemented by an empirical (socio-psychological) 'external history'. +
Imre Lakatos' philosophical and scientific papers are published here in two volumes. Volume I brings together his very influential but scattered papers on the philosophy of the physical sciences, and includes one important unpublished essay on the effect of Newton's scientific achievement.
Imre Lakatos had an influence out of all proportion to the length of his philosophical career. This collection exhibits and confirms the originality, range and the essential unity of his work. It demonstrates too the force and spirit he brought to every issue with which he engaged, from his most abstract mathematical work to his passionate 'Letter to the director of the LSE'. Lakatos' ideas are now the focus of widespread and increasing interest, and these volumes should make possible for the first time their study as a whole and their proper assessment. +
Imre Lakatos' philosophical and scientific papers are published here in two volumes. Volume II presents his work on the philosophy of mathematics (much of it unpublished), together with some critical essays on contemporary philosophers of science and some famous polemical writings on political and educational issues.
Imre Lakatos had an influence out of all proportion to the length of his philosophical career. This collection exhibits and confirms the originality, range and the essential unity of his work. It demonstrates too the force and spirit he brought to every issue with which he engaged, from his most abstract mathematical work to his passionate 'Letter to the director of the LSE'. Lakatos' ideas are now the focus of widespread and increasing interest, and these volumes should make possible for the first time their study as a whole and their proper assessment. +
Two books have been particularly influential in contemporary philosophy of science: [[Karl Popper]]'s ''Logic of Scientific Discovery'', and [[Thomas Kuhn]]'s ''Structure of Scientific Revolutions''. Both agree upon the importance of revolutions in science, but differ about the role of criticism in science's revolutionary growth. This volume arose out of a symposium on Kuhn's work, with Popper in the chair, at an international colloquium held in London in 1965. The book begins with Kuhn's statement of his position followed by seven essays offering criticism and analysis, and finally by Kuhn's reply. The book will interest senior undergraduates and graduate students of the philosophy and history of science, as well as professional philosophers, philosophically inclined scientists, and some psychologists and sociologists. +
Written for a large public interested in renewing the understanding of scientific practice and its connection with the rest of society this book uses anecdotes, case studies, examples from many different periods and disciplines, to define rules of methods which can be used in following scientists around; the key role is given to non-humans, that is to associations that cut across the former divide between nature and society. It can be used as a general introduction to science studies. +
The book is made of two parts: the first one is a detailed exploration of the litterature around Pasteur’s rise from obscurity to fame and of the corresponding transformations of microbes from invisibility to prominence; the impossibility of a social explanation of science is then explored in a second part which provides the ontological basis for what has become known as "actor-network theory." +
A political philosophy enquiry into the limits of political ecology. If nature is not a part of reality but a Constitutional arrangement to make political life impossible, what would a politics be without nature ? If this question is raised then it becomes obvious that the various green movements are not modifying the modernist project but giving it, on the contrary, a new lease on life. To get out of this limitation, new institutions have to be devised —by following what ecological crisis are showing already in practice— that allows for scientific facts to be elaborated through due process. This book follows closely on Pandora’s Hope and We Have Never Been Modern. +
Reassembling the social is Latour's challenge to classical sociological understandings of the "social" and contends that there is not a necessary social ether which often influences human actions, but that by definition networks of human actions are the social aspect often erroneous identified. +
Belief is not a state of mind, but a result of the relationships between peoples; this has been known since Montaigne. The visitor knows, the visited believes; or quite the opposite, the visitor knew, the visited makes him understand that he only thought he knew. Let us apply this principle to the case of the Moderns. Everywhere they drop anchor they soon put up fetishes, that is to say that in all the peoples they encounter, they see worshippers of objects that are nothing. Since of course the Moderns have to explain away the strangeness of a worship that cannot be justified objectively, they endow the savages with a mental state that has internal instead of external references. As the wave of colonization advances, so does the world fill with believers. He who is modern believes what others believe. On the contrary, the agnostic does not ask himself whether to believe or not, but why the Moderns need belief so much before they can have a relationship with others. +
A philosophical answer to the science war debates with special emphasis on the new type of realism which has emerged, in spite of the claims to the contrary, from science studies. +
This highly original work presents laboratory science in a deliberately skeptical way: as an anthropological approach to the culture of the scientist. Drawing on recent work in literary criticism, the authors study how the social world of the laboratory produces papers and other "texts", and how the scientific vision of reality becomes that set of statements considered, for the time being, too expensive to change. The book is based on field work done by Bruno Latour in Roger Guillemin's laboratory at the Salk Institute and provides an important link between the sociology of modern sciences and laboratory studies in the history of science. +
"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'' +
This book consists of a collection of essays written between 1965 and 1981. Some have been published elsewhere; others appear here for the first time. Although dealing with different figures and different periods, they have a common theme: all are concerned with examining how the method of hy pothesis came to be the ruling orthodoxy in the philosophy of science and the quasi-official methodology of the scientific community. It might have been otherwise. Barely three centuries ago, hypothetico deduction was in both disfavor and disarray. Numerous rival methods for scientific inquiry - including eliminative and enumerative induction, analogy and derivation from first principles - were widely touted. The method of hypothesis, known since antiquity, found few proponents between 1700 and 1850. During the last century, of course, that ordering has been inverted and - despite an almost universal acknowledgement of its weaknesses - the method of hypothesis (usually under such descriptions as 'hypothetico deduction' or 'conjectures and refutations') has become the orthodoxy of the 20th century. Behind the waxing and waning of the method of hypothesis, embedded within the vicissitudes of its fortunes, there is a fascinating story to be told. It is a story that forms an integral part of modern science and its philosophy. +
Laudan constructs a fresh approach to a longtime problem for the philosopher of science: how to explain the simultaneous and widespread presence of both agreement and disagreement in science. Laudan critiques the logical empiricists and the post-positivists as he stresses the need for centrality and values and the interdependence of values, methods, and facts as prerequisites to solving the problems of consensus and dissent in science. +
With the decline of logical positivism after 1950, much work in the philosophy of science has careened toward an uncritical relativistic approach. Many scholars, faced with a choice between a narrowly restrictive positivism and an “anything goes” relativism, have sought to find a middle path in the debate.In this collection of papers, several of which appear here for the first time, Larry Laudan argues that resolving this dilemma involves not some centrist compromise position but rather a conception of scientific knowledge that goes beyond both positivism and relativism. This conception must begin with the rejection of assumptions about knowledge that these apparently opposed positions hold in common. Relativism, for Laudan, is a particularly self-defeating form of neopositivism.In showing the connections between these two approaches and clarifying the positions of such influential philosophers as Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend, Laudan does the great service of laying the foundation for an account of science that rejects the errors of positivism without providing aid and comfort to the enemies of reason. He also takes a fresh look at many other central issues of scientific philosophy, including the science/non-science demarcation, the underdetermination of theory by evidence, and the contested role of social factors in the legitimation of scientific knowledge. Beyond Positivism and Relativism is a major statement about the nature of science and evidence that will command the interest of philosophers of science, epistemologists, sociologists of knowledge, and all who are seriously concerned about science, scientific progress, and the implications for knowledge in many other fields. +
Science is accorded high value in our culture because, unlike many other intellectual endeavors, it appears capable of producing increasingly reliable knowledge. During the last quarter century a group of historians and philosophers of science (known variously as 'theorists of scientific change', the 'post-positivist school' or the 'historical school') has proposed theories to explain progressive change in science. Their concepts and models have received such keen attention that terms like 'paradigm' have passed from obscurity to common speech. In this volume, we subject key claims of some of the theorists of scientific change to just that kind of empirical scrutiny that has been so characteristic of science itself. Certain claims emerge unscathed - the existence and importance of large-scale theories (guiding assumptions) in the physical sciences for example. Others, such as the supposed importance of novel predictions or the alleged insignificance of anomalies, seem to be without foundation. We conclude that only by engaging in testing of this sort will the study of science be able to make progress. +
Over the past one hundred years psychology has evolved into a major scientific discipline. Nonetheless, psychology is presently in a state of considerable turmoil regarding its proper subject matter and method. Is psychology a natural science, a social science, or a hybrid of the two? What relation should psychology maintain with philosophy? These general questions, currently under debate, were addressed by Wilhelm Wundt, one of the founders of modern experimental psychology. This article
is an attempt to specify Wundt’s conceptualization of psychology and to place it in its historical context. Secondarily it also traces certain major developments since the time of Wundt. The conclusion that is reached is that the apparent contemporary "crisis" in psychology is really nothing new and that, in fact, the present condition of psychology does not necessarily constitute a crisis. In its broad outline at least, present-day psychology reflects the program which Wundt espoused one hundred
years ago. +
''New Essays on Human Understanding'' is a chapter-by-chapter rebuttal by Gottfried Leibniz of John Locke's major work, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. It is one of only two full-length works by Leibniz (the other being the Theodicy). It was finished in 1704 but Locke's death was the cause alleged by Leibniz to withhold its publication. The book appeared some sixty years later. Like many philosophical works of the time, it is written in dialogue form. +
The expression “continental rationalism” refers to a set of views more or
less shared by a number of philosophers active on the European continent
during the latter two thirds of the seventeenth century and the beginning of
the eighteenth. Rationalism is most often characterized as an
epistemological position. On this view, to be a rationalist requires at least
one of the following: (1) a privileging of reason and intuition over
sensation and experience, (2) regarding all or most ideas as innate rather
than adventitious, (3) an emphasis on certain rather than merely probable
knowledge as the goal of enquiry. While all of the continental rationalists
meet one or more of these criteria, this is arguably the consequence of a
deeper tie that binds them together—that is, a metaphysical commitment
to the reality of substance, and, in particular, to substance as an underlying
principle of unity. +
This landmark book represents the first attempt in two decades to survey the science of the ancient world, the first attempt in four decades to write a comprehensive history of medieval science, and the first attempt ever to present a full, unified account of both ancient and medieval science in a single volume. In ''The Beginnings of Western Science'', David C. Lindberg provides a rich chronicle of the development of scientific ideas, practices, and institutions from the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers to the late-medieval scholastics.
Lindberg surveys all the most important themes in the history of ancient and medieval science, including developments in cosmology, astronomy, mechanics, optics, alchemy, natural history, and medicine. He synthesizes a wealth of information in superbly organized, clearly written chapters designed to serve students, scholars, and nonspecialists alike. In addition, Lindberg offers an illuminating account of the transmission of Greek science to medieval Islam and subsequently to medieval Europe. And throughout the book he pays close attention to the cultural and institutional contexts within which scientific knowledge was created and disseminated and to the ways in which the content and practice of science were influenced by interaction with philosophy and religion. Carefully selected maps, drawings, and photographs complement the text.
Lindberg's story rests on a large body of important scholarship produced by historians of science, philosophy, and religion over the past few decades. However, Lindberg does not hesitate to offer new interpretations and to hazard fresh judgments aimed at resolving long-standing historical disputes. Addressed to the general educated reader as well as to students, his book will also appeal to any scholar whose interests touch on the history of the scientific enterprise. +
When it was first published in 1992, the book was lauded as the first successful attempt ever to present a unified account of both ancient and medieval science in a single volume. Chronicling the development of scientific ideas, practices, and institutions from pre-Socratic Greek philosophy to late-Medieval scholasticism, [[David Lindberg]] surveyed all the most important themes in the history of science, including developments in cosmology, astronomy, mechanics, optics, alchemy, natural history, and medicine. In addition, he offered an illuminating account of the transmission of Greek science to medieval Islam and subsequently to medieval Europe.
''The Beginnings of Western Science'' was, and remains, a landmark in the history of science, shaping the way students and scholars understand these critically formative periods of scientific development. It reemerges here in a second edition that includes revisions on nearly every page, as well as several sections that have been completely rewritten. For example, the section on Islamic science has been thoroughly retooled to reveal the magnitude and sophistication of medieval Muslim scientific achievement. And the book now reflects a sharper awareness of the importance of Mesopotamian science for the development of Greek astronomy. In all, the second edition of the book captures the current state of our understanding of more than two millennia of science and promises to continue to inspire both students and general readers. +
Can groups be rationa’l agents over and above their individual
members? We argue that group agents are distinguished by their
capacity to mimic the way in which individual agents act and that this
capacity must “supervene” on the group members’ contributions. But
what is the nature of this supervenience relation? Focusing on group
judgments, we argue that, for a group to be rational, its judgment on a
particular proposition cannot generally be a function of the members’
individual judgments on that proposition. Rather, it must be a function
of their individual sets of judgments across many propositions. So
knowing what the group members individually think about some
proposition does not generally tell us how the group collectively
adjudicates that proposition: the supervenience relation must be “setwise,”
not “proposition-wise.” Our account preserves the individualistic
view that group agency is nothing mysterious but also suggests that a
group agent may hold judgments that are not directly continuous with
its members’ corresponding individual judgments. +
''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'' is a work by John Locke concerning the foundation of human knowledge and understanding. It first appeared in 1689 (although dated 1690) with the printed title ''An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding''. He describes the mind at birth as a blank slate (tabula rasa, although he did not use those actual words) filled later through experience. The essay was one of the principal sources of empiricism in modern philosophy, and influenced many enlightenment philosophers, such as David Hume and George Berkeley.
Book I of the Essay is Locke's attempt to refute the rationalist notion of innate ideas. Book II sets out Locke's theory of ideas, including his distinction between passively acquired simple ideas, such as "red," "sweet," "round," etc., and actively built complex ideas, such as numbers, causes and effects, abstract ideas, ideas of substances, identity, and diversity. Locke also distinguishes between the truly existing primary qualities of bodies, like shape, motion and the arrangement of minute particles, and the secondary qualities that are "powers to produce various sensations in us" such as "red" and "sweet." These secondary qualities, Locke claims, are dependent on the primary qualities. He also offers a theory of personal identity, offering a largely psychological criterion. Book III is concerned with language, and Book IV with knowledge, including intuition, mathematics, moral philosophy, natural philosophy ("science"), faith, and opinion. +
Edited by Jonathan Bennett in 2015. Originally published in 1689.
A presentation of the ideas and arguments of the first book in Locke's ''Essay Concerning Human Understanding'', where he rejects the concept of innate notions. +
Edited by Jonathan Bennett in 2015. Originally published in 1689.
A presentation of the ideas and arguments in the second book of Locke's ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding'', where he offers a new method of humans' information acquisition. +
The third book of John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding originally published in 1689 as edited by Johnathan Bennett in 2015 +
The fourth book of John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, originally published in 1689 as edited by Jonathan Bennett in 2015. +
In this paper, I expand upon the research on authority delegation begun by Overgaard and myself in our 2016 paper [[Overgaard and Loiselle (2016)|''Authority Delegation'']]. I argue that ''singular authority delegation'' – in which a community delegates authority over a given topic to a single expert community – should be distinguished from cases of ''multiple authority delegation''. A community engages in multiple authority delegation ''iff'' that community delegates authority over a given topic to more than one expert community. Furthermore, multiple authority delegation can be further divided into two types: ''hierarchical'' and ''non-hierarchical''. I examine two cases of authority delegation in the art market and argue that these cases model instances of hierarchical authority delegation. +
The subject of this essay is the dependence of evidential relations on background beliefs and assumptions. In Part I, two ways in which the relation between evidence and hypothesis is dependent on such assumptions are discussed and it is shown how in the context of appropriately differing background beliefs what is identifiable as the same state of affairs can be taken as evidence for conflicting hypotheses. The dependence of evidential relations on background beliefs is illustrated by discussions of the Michelson-Morley experiment and the discovery of oxygen. In Part II, Hempel's analysis of confirmation and the contrasting model of theory acceptance provided by philosophers such as Kuhn and Feyerabend are discussed. It is argued that both are inadequate (on different grounds) and the problems addressed by each are shown to be more satisfactorily approached by means of the analysis developed in Part I. In Part III, it is argued that if there are objective criteria for deciding between competing theories, these cannot be simply that one theory has greater evidential support than another. Finally, some further methodological questions arising from the analysis are mentioned. +
"Discusses how human cultural and personal values relate to scientific practice (and indirectly to results of that practice), considering interferon, biological risk assessment, plutonium, and sex hormones. Also discusses the significance of these episodes in understanding the (contextual) value-freedom of science" +
This paper develops an account of scientific objectivity for a relativist theory of evidence. It briefly reviews the character and shortcomings of empiricist and wholist treatments of theory acceptance and objectivity and argues that the relativist account of evidence developed by the author in an earlier essay offers a more satisfactory framework within which to approach questions of justification and intertheoretic comparison. The difficulty with relativism is that it seems to eliminate objectivity from scientific method. Reconceiving objectivity as a function of the social character of science, rather than of individually practiced methods, allows us to claim that science is objective even if relativism is true, and provides a more realistic account of scientific objectivity than is possible on either the empiricist or the wholist accounts. +
This paper explores a number of recent proposals regarding “feminist science” and rejects a content-based approach in favour of a process-based approach to characterizing feminist science. Philosophy of science can yield models of scientific reasoning that illuminate the interaction between cultural values and ideology and scientific inquiry. While we can use these models to expose masculine and other forms of bias, we can also use them to defend the introduction of assumptions grounded in feminist political values. +
Three strategies in feminist critiques of rationality are examined: one proceeding via a critique of science, one via a critique of the methods/philosophy of science, one via a critique of the modern bureaucratization/industrialization of science. While each of these moves from an important initial insight about contemporary science, each also has distinctive weaknesses. This paper explores their strengths and problems and their roots in standard philosophical approaches to science. The second half of the paper explores the implications of our alternative approach to the problem of rationality. This approach, which treats the cognitive process of scientific inquiry as social processes, enables us to see how social values and ideology can be expressed in so-called “good science” as well as in methodologically deficient inquiry. It thus provides a basis for thinking about feminism in science that avoids the problems identified in the earlier part of the paper. +
Conventional wisdom has it that the sciences, properly pursued, constitute a pure, value-free method of obtaining knowledge about the natural world. In light of the social and normative dimensions of many scientific debates, Helen Longino finds that general accounts of scientific methodology cannot support this common belief. Focusing on the notion of evidence, the author argues that a methodology powerful enough to account for theories of any scope and depth is incapable of ruling out the influence of social and cultural values in the very structuring of knowledge. The objectivity of scientific inquiry can nevertheless be maintained, she proposes, by understanding scientific inquiry as a social rather than an individual process. Seeking to open a dialogue between methodologists and social critics of the sciences, Longino develops this concept of "contextual empiricism" in an analysis of research programs that have drawn criticism from feminists. Examining theories of human evolution and of prenatal hormonal determination of "gender-role" behavior, of sex differences in cognition, and of sexual orientation, the author shows how assumptions laden with social values affect the description, presentation, and interpretation of data. In particular, Longino argues that research on the hormonal basis of "sex-differentiated behavior" involves assumptions not only about gender relations but also about human action and agency. She concludes with a discussion of the relation between science, values, and ideology, based on the work of Habermas, Foucault, Keller, and Haraway. +
This essay sets human reproductive technologies in the context of biological research exploiting the discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule in the early 1950s. By setting these technological developments in this research context and then setting the research in the framework of a philosophical analysis of the role of social values in scientific inquiry, it is possible to develop a perspective on these technologies and the aspirations they represent that is relevant to the concerns of their social critics. +
Using the author's social analysis of scientific knowledge, two ways of understanding the importance of gender to the philosophy of science are offered. Given a requirement of openness to multiple critical perspectives, the gender, race and class structure of a scientific community are an important ingredient of its epistemic reliability. Secondly, one can ask whether a gender sensitive scientific community might prefer certain evaluative criteria (or virtues of theory or practice) to others. Six such criteria (several of which are at odds with criteria accepted in mainstream science) are discussed. Their articulation prompts a series of philosophical questions, the answering of which would constitute one program (or more) of a gender sensitive philosophy of science. +
Traits like simplicity and explanatory power have traditionally been treated as values internal to the sciences, constitutive rather than contextual. As such they are cognitive virtues. This essay contrasts a traditional set of such virtues with a set of alternative virtues drawn from feminist writings about the sciences. In certain theoretical contexts, the only reasons for preferring a traditional or an alternative virtue are socio-political. This undermines the notion that the traditional virtues can be considered purely cognitive. +
Underdetermination arguments support the conclusion that no amount of empirical
data can uniquely determine theory choice. The full content of a theory outreaches
those elements of it (the observational elements) that can be shown to be true (or in
agreement with actual observations).2 A number of strategies have been developed
to minimize the threat such arguments pose to our aspirations to scientific knowledge.
I want to focus on one such strategy: the invocation of additional criteria
drawn from a pool of cognitive or theoretical values, such as simplicity or generality,
to bolster judgements about the worth of models, theories, and hypotheses.
What is the status of such criteria? Larry Laudan, in Science and Values, argued
that cognitive values could not be treated as self-validating, beyond justification,
but are embedded in a three-way reticulational system containing theories,
methods, and aims or values, which are involved in mutually supportive relationships
(Laudan, 1984). My interest in this paper is not the purportedly selfvalidating
nature of cognitive values, but their cognitive nature. Although Laudan
rejects the idea that what he calls cognitive values are exempt from rational criticism
and disagreement, he does seem to think that the reticulational system he
identifies is independent of non-cognitive considerations. It is this cognitive/
non-cognitive distinction that I wish to query in this paper. Let me begin by summarizing
those of my own views about inquiry in which this worry about the
distinction arises. +
Helen Longino seeks to break the current deadlock in the ongoing wars between philosophers of science and sociologists of science--academic battles founded on disagreement about the role of social forces in constructing scientific knowledge. While many philosophers of science downplay social forces, claiming that scientific knowledge is best considered as a product of cognitive processes, sociologists tend to argue that numerous noncognitive factors influence what scientists learn, how they package it, and how readily it is accepted. Underlying this disagreement, however, is a common assumption that social forces are a source of bias and irrationality. Longino challenges this assumption, arguing that social interaction actually assists us in securing firm, rationally based knowledge. This important insight allows her to develop a durable and novel account of scientific knowledge that integrates the social and cognitive.
Longino begins with a detailed discussion of a wide range of contemporary thinkers who write on scientific knowledge, clarifying the philosophical points at issue. She then critically analyzes the dichotomous understanding of the rational and the social that characterizes both sides of the science studies stalemate and the social account that she sees as necessary for an epistemology of science that includes the full spectrum of cognitive processes. Throughout, her account is responsive both to the normative uses of the term knowledge and to the social conditions in which scientific knowledge is produced.
Building on ideas first advanced in her influential book Science as Social Knowledge, Longino brings her account into dialogue with current work in social epistemology and science studies and shows how her critical social approach can help solve a variety of stubborn problems. While the book focuses on epistemological concerns related to the sociality of inquiry, Longino also takes up its implications for scientific pluralism. The social approach, she concludes, best allows us to retain a meaningful concept of knowledge in the face of theoretical plurality and uncertainty.
Miriam Solomon's social empiricism is marked by emphasis on community level rationality in science and the refusal to impose a distinction between the epistemic and the non-epistemic character of factors (“decision vectors”) that incline scientists for or against a theory. While she attempts to derive some norms from the analysis of cases, her insistent naturalism undermines her effort to articulate norms for the (appropriate) distribution of decision vectors. +
This essay surveys twenty-five years of feminist epistemology in the pages of Hypatia. Feminist contributions have addressed the affective dimensions of knowledge; the natures of justification, rationality, and the cognitive agent; and the nature of truth. They reflect thinking from both analytic and continental philosophical traditions and offer a rich tapestry of ideas from which to continue challenging tradition and forging analytical tools for the problems ahead +
Study of the social dimensions of scientific knowledge encompasses the
effects of scientific research on human life and social relations, the effects
of social relations and values on scientific research, and the social aspects
of inquiry itself. Several factors have combined to make these questions
salient to contemporary philosophy of science. These factors include the
emergence of social movements, like environmentalism and feminism,
critical of mainstream science; concerns about the social effects of
science-based technologies; epistemological questions made salient by big
science; new trends in the history of science, especially the move away
from internalist historiography; anti-normative approaches in the
sociology of science; turns in philosophy to naturalism and pragmatism.
This entry reviews the historical background to current research in this
area and features of contemporary science that invite philosophical
attention. +
Study of the social dimensions of scientific knowledge encompasses the
effects of scientific research on human life and social relations, the effects
of social relations and values on scientific research, and the social aspects
of inquiry itself. Several factors have combined to make these questions
salient to contemporary philosophy of science. These factors include the
emergence of social movements, like environmentalism and feminism,
critical of mainstream science; concerns about the social effects of
science-based technologies; epistemological questions made salient by big
science; new trends in the history of science, especially the move away
from internalist historiography; anti-normative approaches in the
sociology of science; turns in philosophy to naturalism and pragmatism.
This entry reviews the historical background to current research in this
area and features of contemporary science that invite philosophical
attention. The philosophical work can roughly be classified into two
camps. One acknowledges that scientific inquiry is in fact carried out in
social settings and asks whether and how standard epistemology must be
supplemented to address this feature. The other treats sociality as a
fundamental aspect of knowledge and asks how standard epistemology
must be modified from this broadly social perspective. Concerns in the
supplementing approach include such matters as trust and answerability
raised by multiple authorship, the division of cognitive labor, the
reliability of peer review, the challenges of privately funded science, as
well as concerns arising from the role of scientific research in society. The
reformist approach highlights the challenge to normative philosophy from
social, cultural, and feminist studies of science while seeking to develop
philosophical models of the social character of scientific knowledge, and
treats the questions of the division of cognitive labor, expertise and authority, the interactions of science and society, etc., from the perspective
of philosophical models of the irreducibly social character of scientific
knowledge.
Practice-centric and theory-centric approaches in philosophy of science are described and contrasted. The contrast is developed through an examination of their different treatments of the underdetermination problem. The practice-centric approach is illustrated by a summary of comparative research on approaches in the biology of behaviour. The practice-centric approach is defended against charges that it encourages skepticism regarding the sciences. +
Study of the social dimensions of scientific knowledge encompasses the
effects of scientific research on human life and social relations, the effects
of social relations and values on scientific research, and the social aspects
of inquiry itself. Several factors have combined to make these questions
salient to contemporary philosophy of science. These factors include the
emergence of social movements, like environmentalism and feminism,
critical of mainstream science; concerns about the social effects of
science-based technologies; epistemological questions made salient by big
science; new trends in the history of science, especially the move away
from internalist historiography; anti-normative approaches in the
sociology of science; turns in philosophy to naturalism and pragmatism.
This entry reviews the historical background to current research in this
area and features of contemporary science that invite philosophical
attention. +
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) was one of the great thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and is known as the last “universal genius”. He made deep and important contributions to the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, logic, philosophy of religion, as well as mathematics, physics, geology, jurisprudence, and history. Even the eighteenth-century French atheist and materialist Denis Diderot, whose views were very often at odds with those of Leibniz, could not help being awed by his achievement, writing in his entry on Leibniz in the Encyclopedia, “Perhaps never has a man read as much, studied as much, meditated more, and written more than Leibniz… What he has composed on the world, God, nature, and the soul is of the most sublime eloquence. If his ideas had been expressed with the flair of Plato, the philosopher of Leipzig would cede nothing to the philosopher of Athens.” (Oeuvres complètes, vol. 7, p. 709) Indeed, Diderot was almost moved to despair in
this piece: “When one compares the talents one has with those of a Leibniz, one is tempted to throw away one's books and go die quietly in the dark of some forgotten corner.” (Oeuvres complètes, vol. 7, p. 678) More than a century later, Gottlob Frege, who fortunately did not cast his books away in despair, expressed similar admiration, declaring that “in his writings, Leibniz threw out such a profusion of seeds of ideas that in this respect he is virtually in a class of his own.” (“Boole's logical Calculus and the Concept-script” in Posthumous Writings, p. 9) The aim of this entry is primarily to introduce Leibniz's life and summarize and explicate
his views in the realms of metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophical theology. +
A decision on the scope of the philosophy of science is a precondition for
writing about its history. Unfortunately, philosophers and scientists are not in
agreement on the nature of the philosophy of science. Even practising philosophers
of science often disagree about the proper subject-matter of their
discipline. An example of this lack of agreement is the exchange between
Stephen Toulmin and Ernest Nagel on whether philosophy of science should
be a study of scientific achievement in vivo, or a study of problems of explanation
and confirmation as reformulated in the terms of deductive logic.1 To
establish a basis for the subsequent historical survey, it will be helpful to sketch
four viewpoints on the philosophy of science.
One view is that the philosophy of science is the formulation of worldviews
that are consistent with, and in some sense based on, important scientific
theories. On this view, it is the task of the philosopher of science to
elaborate the broader implications of science. This may take the form of
speculation about ontological categories to be used in speaking about “beingas-
such”. Thus Alfred North Whitehead urged that recent developments in
physics require that the categories ‘substance’ and ‘attribute’ be replaced by
the categories ‘process’ and ‘influence’.2 Or it may take the form of pronouncements
about the implications of scientific theories for the evaluation
of human behaviour, as in Social Darwinism and the theory of ethical relativity.
The present study is not concerned with “philosophy of science” in this
sense.
A second view is that the philosophy of science is an exposition of the
presuppositions and predispositions of scientists. The philosopher of science
may point out that scientists presuppose that nature is not capricious, and
that there exist in nature regularities of sufficiently low complexity to be
accessible to the investigator. In addition, he may uncover the preferences of
scientists for deterministic rather than statistical laws, or for mechanistic
rather than teleological explanations. This view tends to assimilate philosophy
of science to sociology.
A third view is that the philosophy of science is a discipline in which the
concepts and theories of the sciences are analysed and clarified. This is not a
matter of giving a semi-popular exposition of the latest theories. It is, rather, a matter of becoming clear about the meaning of such terms as ‘particle’,
‘wave’, ‘potential’, and ‘complex’ in their scientific usage.
But as Gilbert Ryle has pointed out, there is something pretentious about
this view of the philosophy of science—as if the scientist needed the philosopher
of science to explain to him the meanings of scientific concepts.3
There would seem to be two possibilities. Either the scientist does understand
a concept that he uses, in which case no clarification is required. Or he does
not, in which case he must inquire into the relations of that concept to other
concepts and to operations of measurement. Such an inquiry is a typical
scientific activity. No one would claim that each time a scientist conducts such
an inquiry he is practising philosophy of science. At the very least, we must
conclude that not every analysis of scientific concepts qualifies as philosophy
of science. And yet it may be that certain types of conceptual analysis should
be classified as part of the philosophy of science. This question will be left
open, pending consideration of a fourth view of the philosophy of science.
A fourth view, which is the view adopted in this work, is that philosophy of
science is a second-order criteriology. The philosopher of science seeks
answers to such questions as:
1. What characteristics distinguish scientific inquiry from other types of
investigation?
2. What procedures should scientists follow in investigating nature?
3. What conditions must be satisfied for a scientific explanation to be correct?
4. What is the cognitive status of scientific laws and principles?
To ask these questions is to assume a vantage-point one step removed from
the practice of science itself. There is a distinction to be made between doing
science and thinking about how science ought to be done. The analysis of
scientific method is a second-order discipline, the subject-matter of which is
the procedures and structures of the various sciences.
The fourth view of the philosophy of science incorporates certain aspects of
the second and third views. For instance, inquiry into the predispositions of
scientists may be relevant to the problem of evaluating scientific theories. This
is particularly true for judgements about the completeness of explanations.
Einstein, for example, insisted that statistical accounts of radioactive decay
were incomplete. He maintained that a complete interpretation would enable
predictions to be made of the behaviour of individual atoms.
The fourth view of the philosophy of science incorporates certain aspects of
the second and third views. For instance, inquiry into the predispositions of
scientists may be relevant to the problem of evaluating scientific theories. This
is particularly true for judgements about the completeness of explanations.
Einstein, for example, insisted that statistical accounts of radioactive decay
were incomplete. He maintained that a complete interpretation would enable
predictions to be made of the behaviour of individual atoms.
The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality provides a wide-ranging survey of topics in a rapidly expanding area of interdisciplinary research. It consists of 36 chapters, written exclusively for this volume, by an international team of experts. What is distinctive about the study of collective intentionality within the broader study of social interactions and structures is its focus on the conceptual and psychological features of joint or shared actions and attitudes, and their implications for the nature of social groups and their functioning. This Handbook fully captures this distinctive nature of the field and how it subsumes the study of collective action, responsibility, reasoning, thought, intention, emotion, phenomenology, decision-making, knowledge, trust, rationality, cooperation, competition, and related issues, as well as how these underpin social practices, organizations, conventions, institutions and social ontology. Like the field, the Handbook is interdisciplinary, drawing on research in philosophy, cognitive science, linguistics, legal theory, anthropology,
sociology, computer science, psychology, economics, and political science. Finally, the Handbook promotes several specific goals: (1) it provides an important resource for students and researchers interested in collective intentionality; (2) it integrates work across disciplines and areas of research as it helps to define the shape and scope of an emerging area of research;(3) it advances the study of collective intentionality. +
This book provides both an extended biographical treatment of Norwood Russell Hanson, and a nuanced and historical approach to his central philosophical concerns. These included the relation of theory to observation, normative and descriptive analysis of science, objectivity, and the logic of discovery. Hanson is noted for his attempts to turn the history and philosophy of science into an integrated field. +
M
Error is a common part of scientific practice, which must be accounted for by scientonomy. A scientific error occurs when an agent accepts a theory that should not have been accepted given that agent’s employed method. One might suspect that the handling of scientific error seems to violate the ''theory rejection theorem'' according to which a theory becomes rejected only when other theories that are incompatible with the theory become accepted, because it appears as though a theory is replaced in the mosaic with nothing. Here, we analyze several instances of scientific error and show that scientific error handling, when properly analyzed, is fully consistent with the theory rejection theorem. We show that instances of scientific error typically involve the rejection of one or more of the premises of the argument that leads to the erroneous conclusion as well as the conclusion itself. In most cases, first-order propositions of the original erroneously accepted theory are replaced by other first-order propositions incompatible with them. In some cases, however, first-order propositions are replaced by second-order propositions asserting the lack of sufficient reason for accepting these first-order propositions. In both cases, such a replacement is fully consistent with the theory rejection theorem. +
Isaac Newton’s Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John, prepared for the press from his manuscripts by his nephew Benjamin Smith, was published in two editions in London and Dublin in 1733. According to Richard S. Westfall, Newton’s finest twentieth-century biographer, the author “had cleansed his Observations” and his heirs “could publish the manuscript without concern.”3 Yet one might be permitted to wonder whether either the actual or the intended reception of Newton’s posthumous work was as uncontroversial as it has seemed to late twentienth-century eyes. The book was dedicated to Peter King, baron of Ockham, the lord chancellor, who had defended Newton’s sometime disciple, William Whiston, during his trial for heresy in July 1713. Although Whiston later fell out with King, he nevertheless continued to maintain that King’s youthful writings on the primitive Church supported the Arian position for which he had himself been condemned. +
In The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, eighteen of the world’s leading scholars present original essays on various aspects of atheism: its history, both ancient and modern, defense, and implications. The topic is examined in terms of its implications for a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, religion, feminism, postmodernism, sociology, and psychology. In its defense, both classical and contemporary theistic arguments are criticized, and the argument from evil and impossibility arguments, along with a nonreligious basis for morality, are defended. These essays give a broad understanding of atheism and a lucid introduction to this controversial topic. +
Perspectives on testimony in Indian philosophy. +
This contribution introduces an edited work which includes a series of essays on the integration of philosophy of science with history of science. The authors note that the joint field of history and philosophy of science began, for US citizens at least, when the US National Science Foundation began funding studies in the history and philosophy of science and Princeton University and Indiana University founded history and philosophy of science programs in 1960. The authors stress the early role of Norwood Hanson in founding the field, and the role of Thomas Kuhn's ''Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' in calling philosophers' attention to the field of history. Scholars have since struggled to forge a unified discipline that is both historical and philosophical at the same time. +
This edited volume presents a series of contributions on the topic of how historians and philosophers of science can forge a unified discipline dedicated to the naturalistic understanding of the production and assessment of scientific knowledge. +
James Beattie was a Scottish philosopher and poet who spent his entire academic career as Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic at Marischal College in Aberdeen. His best known philosophical work, An Essay on The Nature and Immutability of Truth In Opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism (1770), is a rhetorical tour de force which affirmed the sovereignty of common sense while attacking David Hume (1711-1776). A smash bestseller in its day, this Essay on Truth made Beattie very famous and Hume very angry. The work's fame proved fleeting, as did Beattie’s philosophical reputation. +
The first full-length defense of social scientific laws to appear in the last twenty years, this book upholds the prospect of the nomological explanation of human behavior against those who maintain that this approach is impossible, impractical, or irrelevant. By pursuing an analogy with the natural sciences, McIntyre shows that the barriers to nomological inquiry within the social sciences are not generated by factors unique to social inquiry, but arise from a largely common set of problems that face any scientific endeavor.All of the most widely supported arguments against social scientific laws have failed largely due to adherence to a highly idealized conception of nomologicality (allegedly drawn from the natural sciences themselves) and the limited doctrine of “descriptivism.” Basing his arguments upon a more realistic view of scientific theorizing that emphasizes the pivotal role of “redescription” in aiding the search for scientific laws, McIntyre is optimistic about attaining useful law-like explanations of human behavior. +
The problem of personal identity, as philosophers understand it today, emerged from the discussion of identity that Locke added to the second edition of The Essay concerning Human Understanding, published in 1694. In the forty-five years between the publication of that work and the publication of the Treatise, the literature on the problem of personal identity mushroomed, prompting Hume to observe wryly: “We now proceed to explain the nature of personal identity, which has become so great a question in philosophy, especially of late years in England, where all the abstruser sciences are
study’d with a peculiar ardour and application” (T 1.4.6.15). Hume’s own explanation of the nature of personal identity drew on the resources of his accounts of the imagination and the passions, and was therefore unique in many respects. Nevertheless, the debates
of the preceding decades had covered considerable ground, and the distinctive features of Hume’s own view emerge more clearly when seen in the context of what had come before. +
As the seventeenth century progressed, there was a growing realization among those who reflected on the kind of knowledge the new sciences could afford (among them Kepler, Bacon, Descartes, Boyle, Huygens) that hypothesis would have to be conceded a much more significant place in natural philosophy than the earlier ideal of demon- stration allowed. Then came the mechanics of Newton's Principia, which seemed to manage quite well without appealing to hypothesis (though much would depend on how exactly terms like "force" and "attraction" were construed). If the science of motion could dispense with causal hypothesis and the attendant uncertainty, why should this not serve as the goal of natural philosophy generally? The apparent absence of causal hypothesis from the highly successful new science of motion went far towards shaping, in different ways, the account of scientific knowledge given by many of the philosophers of the century following, notable among them Berkeley, Hume, Reid, and Kant. This "Newtonian" interlude in the history of the philosophy of science would today be accounted on the whole a byway. The Principia, despite its enormous achievement in shaping subsequent work in mechanics, was from the beginning too idiosyncratic from an epistemic standpoint to serve as model for the natural sciences generally. +
Accumulating evidence from diverse fields of inquiry suggests the existence of ''method hierarchies'', where criteria employed by the same epistemic agent constitute a certain preference hierarchy. In this paper, we illustrate the phenomenon of method hierarchy by discussing several prominent studies in clinical epidemiology of coronary artery disease. The current “gold standard” in clinical epidemiology is the randomized controlled trial (RCT) method. Yet, in the absence of studies that satisfy the strict requirement of the RCT method, clinical epidemiologists often relax the requirements of double-blinding, complete follow-up, no treatment switching, and/or randomization. Instead, they sometimes employ less stringent requirements, such as the requirement to account for the potential imbalances between groups through statistical models. This suggests the existence of a certain method hierarchy. However, it is unclear how method hierarchies are to be conceptualized and documented. Specifically, it remains to be seen whether a method hierarchy is best understood as being composed of individual employed methods or as a single composite method with a complex system of ''if''-s and ''else''-s. +
Since its first publication in 1859, few works of political philosophy have provoked such continuous controversy as John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty", a passionate argument on behalf of freedom of self-expression. This classic work is now available in this volume which also includes essays by scholars in a range of fields. The text begins with a biographical essay by David Bromwich and an interpretative essay by George Kateb. Then Jean Bethke Elshtain, Owen Fiss, Judge Richard A. Posner and Jeremy Waldron present commentaries on the pertinence of Mill's thinking to early 21st century debates. They discuss, for example, the uses of authority and tradition, the shifting legal boundaries of free speech and free action, the relation of personal liberty to market individualism, and the tension between the right to live as one pleases and the right to criticize anyone's way of life. +
This articles main thesis is that there are two different 'brands' of science study. One is intellectual history of science. Intellectual historians of science tend to interact with philosophers and largely ignore non-science historians. On the other hand, social historians of science treat science as a social undertaking, and tend to interact with other historians and with sociologists and to ignore philosophers and intellectual historians of science. This division, the author contends has been imposed for practical reasons, as the first group sought support from philosophy departments and the latter from mainstream history departments. The divisions, the author contends derive from larger ideological divisions within historical studies. +
Aristotle is “the master of them that know” in Dante’s ''Divine Comedy'' (I.4.31). His ''Metaphysics'' begins with the stirring declaration that “All men by nature desire to know” (A.1 980a21). As Werner Jaeger ( 1962, p. 68) observes, “Knowledge has never been understood more purely, more earnestly, or more sublimely.” Aristotle agrees with Plato that knowledge is superior to belief: “He who has beliefs is, in comparison with the man who knows, not in a healthy state as far as the truth is concerned” (Met Γ.4 1008b27-31; cf. Plato Rep. VI 508d4-9). Aristotle’s remarks concerning belief are scattered throughout his works, none of which contains a systematic discussion of this topic. Not surprisingly, commentators have tended to give his account of belief short shrift. +
This chapter summarizes the life of John Locke. +
In this paper, I argue that there is ''accepted'' propositional technological knowledge which appears to exhibit the same patterns of change as questions, theories, and methods in the natural, social, and formal sciences. I show that technological theories attempting to describe the construction and operation of artifacts as well as to prescribe their correct mode of operation are not merely used, but also often ''accepted'' by epistemic agents. Since technology often involves methods different from those found in science and produces normative propositions, many of which remain tacit, one may be tempted to think that changes in technological knowledge should be somehow exempt from the laws of scientific change. Indeed, it seems tacitly accepted in the scientonomic community that, while scientific communities clearly ''accept'' theories, technological communities merely ''use'' them. As a result, scientonomy currently deals with natural, social, and formal ''sciences'', and the status of technological knowledge within the scientonomic ontology remains unclear. To help elucidate the topic, I propose that the historical cases of sorting algorithms, telescopes, crop rotation, and colorectal cancer surgeries confirm that technological theories and methods are often an integral part of an epistemic agent’s mosaic and seem to exhibit the same scientonomic patterns of change typical of accepted theories therein. Thus, I suggest that propositional technological knowledge can be part of a mosaic. +
The notion of idealization has received considerable attention in contemporary philosophy of science but less in philosophy of mathematics. An exception was the ‘critical idealism’ of the neo-Kantian philosopher Ernst Cassirer. According to Cassirer the methodology of idealization plays a central role for mathematics and empirical science. In this paper it is argued that Cassirer's contributions in this area still deserve to be taken into account in the current debates in philosophy of mathematics. +
A full account of David Hume's works +
Generally regarded as one of the most important philosophers to write in
English, David Hume (b. 1711, d. 1776) was also well known in his own
time as an historian and essayist. A master stylist in any genre, his major
philosophical works—A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740), the
Enquiries concerning Human Understanding (1748) and concerning the
Principles of Morals (1751), as well as his posthumously published
Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1779)—remain widely and
deeply influential. +
The work that helped to determine Paul Feyerabend's fame and notoriety, Against Method, stemmed from Imre Lakatos's challenge: "In 1970 Imre cornered me at a party. 'Paul,' he said, 'you have such strange ideas. Why don't you write them down? I shall write a reply, we publish the whole thing and I promise you—we shall have a lot of fun.' " Although Lakatos died before he could write his reply, ''For and Against Method'' reconstructs his original counter-arguments from lectures and correspondence previously unpublished in English, allowing us to enjoy the "fun" two of this century's most eminent philosophers had, matching their wits and ideas on the subject of the scientific method. ''For and Against Method'' opens with an imaginary dialogue between Lakatos and Feyerabend, which Matteo Motterlini has constructed, based on their published works, to synthesize their positions and arguments. Part one presents the transcripts of the last lectures on method that Lakatos delivered. Part two, Feyerabend's response, consists of a previously published essay on anarchism, which began the attack on Lakatos's position that Feyerabend later continued in Against Method. The third and longest section consists of the correspondence Lakatos and Feyerabend exchanged on method and many other issues and ideas, as well as the events of their daily lives, between 1968 and Lakatos's death in 1974. The delight Lakatos and Feyerabend took in philosophical debate, and the relish with which they sparred, come to life again in ''For and Against Method'', making it essential and lively reading for anyone interested in these two fascinating and controversial thinkers and their immense contributions to philosophy of science. "The writings in this volume are of considerable intellectual importance, and will be of great interest to anyone concerned with the development of the philosophical views of Lakatos and Feyerabend, or indeed with the development of philosophy of science in general during this crucial period." - Donald Gillies, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (on the Italian edition)
N
Feminism, Science, and the Philosophy of Science brings together original essays by both feminist and mainstream philosophers of science that examine issues at the intersections of feminism, science, and the philosophy of science. Contributors explore parallels and tensions between feminist approaches to science and other approaches in the philosophy of science and more general science studies. In so doing, they explore notions at the heart of the philosophy of science, including the nature of objectivity, truth, evidence, cognitive agency, scientific method, and the relationship between science and values. +
René Descartes (1596–1650) is widely regarded as the father of modern philosophy. His noteworthy contributions extend to mathematics and physics. This entry focuses on his philosophical contributions in the theory of knowledge. Specifically, the focus is on the epistemological project of Descartes' famous work, Meditations on First Philosophy. Upon its completion, the work was circulated to other philosophers for their comments and criticisms. Descartes responded with detailed replies that provide a rich source of further information about the original work. He indeed published the first edition (1641) of the Meditations together with six sets of objections and replies, adding a seventh set with the second edition (1642). +
This is a work in three books by Issac Newton, published on July 5, 1687. The Principia states Newton's three laws of motion and his law of universal gravitation. It is considered one of the most important works in the history of science. +
Isaac Newton; a new translation by I. Bernard Cohen and Anne Whitman, assisted by Julia Budenz; preceded by a guide to Newton's Principia by I. Bernard Cohen. +
Thomas Reid (1710–1796) is a Scottish philosopher best known for his philosophical method, his theory of perception and its wide implications on epistemology, and as the developer and defender of an agent-causal theory of free will. In these and other areas he offers perceptive and important criticisms of the philosophy of Locke, Berkeley and especially Hume. He is also well known for his criticisms of Locke's view of personal identity and Hume's view of causation. Reid also made influential contributions to philosophical topics including ethics, aesthetics and the philosophy of mind. The legacy of Thomas Reid's philosophical work is found in contemporary theories of perception, free will, philosophy of religion, and widely in epistemology. +
Many scientists, philosophers, and laypersons have regarded science as the one human enterprise that successfully escapes the contingencies of history to establish eternal truths about the universe, via a special, rational method of inquiry. Historicists oppose this view. In the 1960s several historically informed philosophers of science challenged the then-dominant accounts of scientific method advanced by the Popperians and the positivists (the logical positivists and logical empiricists) for failing to fit historical scientific practice and failing particularly to account for deep scientific change. While several strands of historicism originated in nineteenth-century historiography, this article focuses, first, on the historicist conceptions of scientific rationality that became prominent in the 1960s and 1970s, as the maturation of the field of historiography of science began to suggest competing models of scientific development, and, second, on recent approaches such as historical epistemology. +
