Rational Changes In Science

Author : W.H. Newton-Smith
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134930968
Total Pages : 471 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Rationality of Science written by W.H. Newton-Smith and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-02-07 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A clear, original and systematic introduction to philosophy of science which examines the theories of Popper, Lakatos, Kuhn and Feyerabend before proposing a new, temperate rationalist perspective.

Author : Stefano Gattei
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134182953
Total Pages : 154 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Karl Popper's Philosophy of Science written by Stefano Gattei and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-10-16 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rectifying misrepresentations of Popperian thought with a historical approach to Popper’s philosophy, Gattei reconstructs the logic of Popper’s development to show how one problem and its tentative solution led to a new problem.

Author : Joseph C. Pitt
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9400937792
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.96/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rational Changes in Science written by Joseph C. Pitt and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE PROBLEMS OF SCIENTIFIC RATIONALITY Fashion is a fickle mistress. Only yesterday scientific rationality enjoyed considerable attention, consideration, and even reverence among phi losophers; "but today's fashion leads us to despise it, and the matron, rejected and abandoned as Hecuba, complains; modo maxima rerum, tot generis natisque potens - nunc trahor exui, inops", to cite Kant for our purpose, who cited Ovid for his. Like every fashion, ours also has its paradoxical aspects, as John Watkins correctly reminds in an essay in this volume. Enthusiasm for science was high among philosophers when significant scientific results were mostly a promise, it declined when that promise became an undeniable reality. Nevertheless, as with the decline of any fashion, even the revolt against scientific rationality has some reasonable grounds. If the taste of the philosophical community has changed so much, it is not due to an incident or a whim. This volume is not about the history of and reasons for this change. Instead, it provides a view of the new emerging image of scientific rationality in both its philosophical and historical aspects. In particular, the aim of the contributions gathered here is to focus on the concept around which the discussions about rationality have mostly taken place: scientific change.

Author : Thomas S. Kuhn
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780226458038
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.32/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions written by Thomas S. Kuhn and published by . This book was released on 1970 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Steven Pinker
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0241380308
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rationality written by Steven Pinker and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021 'Punchy, funny and invigorating ... Pinker is the high priest of rationalism' Sunday Times 'If you've ever considered taking drugs to make yourself smarter, read Rationality instead. It's cheaper, more entertaining, and more effective' Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind In the twenty-first century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding - and at the same time appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that discovered vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, quack cures and conspiracy theorizing? In Rationality, Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are simply an irrational species - cavemen out of time fatally cursed with biases, fallacies and illusions. After all, we discovered the laws of nature, lengthened and enriched our lives and set the benchmarks for rationality itself. Instead, he explains, we think in ways that suit the low-tech contexts in which we spend most of our lives, but fail to take advantage of the powerful tools of reasoning we have built up over millennia: logic, critical thinking, probability, causal inference, and decision-making under uncertainty. These tools are not a standard part of our educational curricula, and have never been presented clearly and entertainingly in a single book - until now. Rationality matters. It leads to better choices in our lives and in the public sphere, and is the ultimate driver of social justice and moral progress. Brimming with insight and humour, Rationality will enlighten, inspire and empower. 'A terrific book, much-needed for our time' Peter Singer

Author : Christoph Schoenborn
Publisher : Ignatius Press
ISBN 13 : 1681490854
Total Pages : 157 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Chance or Purpose? written by Christoph Schoenborn and published by Ignatius Press. This book was released on 2009-09-03 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cardinal Christoph Schönborn's article on evolution and creation in The New York Times launched an international controversy. Critics charged him with biblical literalism and 'creationism'. In this book, Cardinal Schönborn responds to his critics by tackling the hard questions with a carefully reasoned "theology of creation". Can we still speak intelligently of the world as 'creation' and affirm the existence of the Creator, or is God a 'delusion'? How should an informed believer read Genesis? If God exists, why is there so much injustice and suffering? Are human beings a part of nature or elevated above it? What is man's destiny? Is everything a matter of chance or can we discern purpose in human existence? In his treatment of evolution, Cardinal Schönborn distinguishes the biological theory from 'evolutionism', the ideology that tries to reduce all of reality to mindless, meaningless processes. He argues that science and a rationally grounded faith are not at odds and that what many people represent as 'science' is really a set of philosophical positions that will not withstand critical scrutiny. Chance or Purpose? directly raises the philosophical and theological issues many scientists today overlook or ignore. The result is a vigorous, frank dialogue that acknowledges the respective insights of the philosopher, the theologian and the scientist, but which calls on them to listen and to learn from each another.

Author : Karl Popper
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 113597473X
Total Pages : 245 pages
Book Rating : 4.32/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Myth of the Framework written by Karl Popper and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-04-23 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a career spanning sixty years, Sir Karl Popper has made some of the most important contributions to the twentieth century discussion of science and rationality. The Myth of the Framework is a new collection of some of Popper's most important material on this subject. Sir Karl discusses such issues as the aims of science, the role that it plays in our civilization, the moral responsibility of the scientist, the structure of history, and the perennial choice between reason and revolution. In doing so, he attacks intellectual fashions (like positivism) that exagerrate what science and rationality have done, as well as intellectual fashions (like relativism) that denigrate what science and rationality can do. Scientific knowledge, according to Popper, is one of the most rational and creative of human achievements, but it is also inherently fallible and subject to revision. In place of intellectual fashions, Popper offers his own critical rationalism - a view that he regards both as a theory of knowlege and as an attitude towards human life, human morals and democracy. Published in cooperation with the Central European University.

Author : M. Susan Lindee
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674919181
Total Pages : 297 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rational Fog written by M. Susan Lindee and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thought-provoking examination of the intersections of knowledge and violence, and the quandaries and costs of modern, technoscientific warfare. Science and violence converge in modern warfare. While the finest minds of the twentieth century have improved human life, they have also produced human injury. They engineered radar, developed electronic computers, and helped mass produce penicillin all in the context of military mobilization. Scientists also developed chemical weapons, atomic bombs, and psychological warfare strategies. Rational Fog explores the quandary of scientific and technological productivity in an era of perpetual war. Science is, at its foundation, an international endeavor oriented toward advancing human welfare. At the same time, it has been nationalistic and militaristic in times of crisis and conflict. As our weapons have become more powerful, scientists have struggled to reconcile these tensions, engaging in heated debates over the problems inherent in exploiting science for military purposes. M. Susan Lindee examines this interplay between science and state violence and takes stock of researchers’ efforts to respond. Many scientists who wanted to distance their work from killing have found it difficult and have succumbed to the exigencies of war. Indeed, Lindee notes that scientists who otherwise oppose violence have sometimes been swept up in the spirit of militarism when war breaks out. From the first uses of the gun to the mass production of DDT and the twenty-first-century battlefield of the mind, the science of war has achieved remarkable things at great human cost. Rational Fog reminds us that, for scientists and for us all, moral costs sometimes mount alongside technological and scientific advances.

Author : Keith Lehrer
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 188 pages
Book Rating : 4.92/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rational Consensus in Science and Society written by Keith Lehrer and published by Springer. This book was released on 1981 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: TItis book is the joint project of a philosopher, Lehrer, and a mathematician, Wagner. The book is, therefore, divided into a first part written by Lehrer, which is primarily philosophical, and a second part written by Wagner that is primarily formal. The authors were, however, influenced by each other throughout. Our book articulates a theory of rational consensus in science and society. The theory is applied to politics, ethics, science, and language. We begin our exposition with an elementary mathematical model of consensus developed by Lehrer in a series of articles [1976a, 1976b, 1977, 1978]. Chapter 3 contains material from [1978]. Lehrer formulated the elementary model when he was a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Be havioral Sciences, Stanford, in 1973 with the invaluable mathematical assist of Kit Fine, Gerald Kramer and Lionel McKenzie. In the summer of ance 1977, Lehrer and Wagner met at the Center in a Summer Seminar on Freedom and Causality supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Wagner read the manuscript of Lehrer [1978] and subsequently solved some mathematical problems of the elementary model. After discussions of philosophical prob lems associated with that model, Wagner developed the foundations for the extended model. These results were reported in Wagner [1978, 1981a].

Author : Howard Sankey
Publisher : Ashgate Publishing
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.92/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rationality, Relativism and Incommensurability written by Howard Sankey and published by Ashgate Publishing. This book was released on 1997 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book concentrates on three topics: the problem of the semantic incommensurability of theories; the non-algorithmic character of rational scientific theory choice and naturalised accounts of the rationality of methodological change. The underlying aim is to show how the phenomenon of extensive conceptual and methodological variation in science need not give rise to a thorough-going epistemic or conceptual relativism.