Truthlikeness

Author : I. Niiniluoto
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9400937393
Total Pages : 542 pages
Book Rating : 4.90/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Truthlikeness written by I. Niiniluoto and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The modern discussion on the concept of truthlikeness was started in 1960. In his influential Word and Object, W. V. O. Quine argued that Charles Peirce's definition of truth as the limit of inquiry is faulty for the reason that the notion 'nearer than' is only "defined for numbers and not for theories". In his contribution to the 1960 International Congress for Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science at Stan ford, Karl Popper defended the opposite view by defining a compara tive notion of verisimilitude for theories. was originally introduced by the The concept of verisimilitude Ancient sceptics to moderate their radical thesis of the inaccessibility of truth. But soon verisimilitudo, indicating likeness to the truth, was confused with probabilitas, which expresses an opiniotative attitude weaker than full certainty. The idea of truthlikeness fell in disrepute also as a result of the careless, often confused and metaphysically loaded way in which many philosophers used - and still use - such concepts as 'degree of truth', 'approximate truth', 'partial truth', and 'approach to the truth'. Popper's great achievement was his insight that the criticism against truthlikeness - by those who urge that it is meaningless to speak about 'closeness to truth' - is more based on prejudice than argument.

Author : Eric Christian Barnes
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 492 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Beyond Truthlikeness written by Eric Christian Barnes and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : G. Oddie
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9400946589
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.83/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Likeness to Truth written by G. Oddie 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 concept of likeness to truth, like that of truth itself, is fundamental to a realist conception of inquiry. To demonstrate this we need only make two rather modest aim of an inquiry, as an inquiry, is realist assumptions: the truth doctrine (that the the truth of some matter) and the progress doctrine (that one false theory may realise this aim better than another). Together these yield the conclusion that a false theory may be more truthlike, or closer to the truth, than another. It is the aim of this book to give a rigorous philosophical analysis of the concept of likeness to truth, and to examine the consequences, some of them no doubt surprising to those who have been unduly impressed by the (admittedly important) true/false dichotomy. Truthlikeness is not only a requirement of a particular philosophical outlook, it is as deeply embedded in common sense as the concept of truth. Everyone seems to be capable of grading various propositions, in different (hypothetical) situations, according to their closeness to the truth in those situations. And (if my experience is anything to go by) there is remarkable unanimity on these pretheoretical judge ments. This is not proof that there is a single coherent concept underlying these judgements. The whole point of engaging in philosophical analysis is to make this claim plausible.

Author :
Publisher : Elsevier
ISBN 13 : 9780080548548
Total Pages : 708 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

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Download or read book General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues written by and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2007-07-18 with total page 708 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientists use concepts and principles that are partly specific for their subject matter, but they also share part of them with colleagues working in different fields. Compare the biological notion of a 'natural kind' with the general notion of 'confirmation' of a hypothesis by certain evidence. Or compare the physical principle of the 'conservation of energy' and the general principle of 'the unity of science'. Scientists agree that all such notions and principles aren't as crystal clear as one might wish. An important task of the philosophy of the special sciences, such as philosophy of physics, of biology and of economics, to mention only a few of the many flourishing examples, is the clarification of such subject specific concepts and principles. Similarly, an important task of 'general' philosophy of science is the clarification of concepts like 'confirmation' and principles like 'the unity of science'. It is evident that clarfication of concepts and principles only makes sense if one tries to do justice, as much as possible, to the actual use of these notions by scientists, without however following this use slavishly. That is, occasionally a philosopher may have good reasons for suggesting to scientists that they should deviate from a standard use. Frequently, this amounts to a plea for differentiation in order to stop debates at cross-purposes due to the conflation of different meanings. While the special volumes of the series of Handbooks of the Philosophy of Science address topics relative to a specific discipline, this general volume deals with focal issues of a general nature. After an editorial introduction about the dominant method of clarifying concepts and principles in philosophy of science, called explication, the first five chapters deal with the following subjects. Laws, theories, and research programs as units of empirical knowledge (Theo Kuipers), various past and contemporary perspectives on explanation (Stathis Psillos), the evaluation of theories in terms of their virtues (Ilkka Niiniluto), and the role of experiments in the natural sciences, notably physics and biology (Allan Franklin), and their role in the social sciences, notably economics (Wenceslao Gonzalez). In the subsequent three chapters there is even more attention to various positions and methods that philosophers of science and scientists may favor: ontological, epistemological, and methodological positions (James Ladyman), reduction, integration, and the unity of science as aims in the sciences and the humanities (William Bechtel and Andrew Hamilton), and logical, historical and computational approaches to the philosophy of science (Atocha Aliseda and Donald Gillies). The volume concludes with the much debated question of demarcating science from nonscience (Martin Mahner) and the rich European-American history of the philosophy of science in the 20th century (Friedrich Stadler). Comprehensive coverage of the philosophy of science written by leading philosophers in this field Clear style of writing for an interdisciplinary audience No specific pre-knowledge required

Author : Miloud Belkoniene
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000884031
Total Pages : 137 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Rational Understanding written by Miloud Belkoniene and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-03-30 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book develops a novel account of the connections between justification, understanding and knowledge. It lays the foundation for a more systematic and interconnected treatment of these central notions in epistemology. The author’s key move is to show first that a specific conception of doxastic justification constitutes our best point of entry into questions pertaining to a subject’s ability to secure understanding of reality. Second, that the traditional order of analysis when it comes to the connection between understanding and knowledge should be reversed: knowledge itself is best conceived of in terms of a specific type of understanding. Rational Understanding will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in epistemology and philosophy of science.

Author : Sahotra Sarkar
Publisher : Psychology Press
ISBN 13 : 0415939275
Total Pages : 1012 pages
Book Rating : 4.70/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Philosophy of Science written by Sahotra Sarkar and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 1012 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first in-depth reference to the field that combines scientific knowledge with philosophical inquiry, this encyclopedia brings together a team of leading scholars to provide nearly 150 entries on the essential concepts in the philosophy of science. The areas covered include biology, chemistry, epistemology and metaphysics, physics, psychology and mind, the social sciences, and key figures in the combined studies of science and philosophy. (Midwest).

Author : Marian Przelecki
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9401011354
Total Pages : 455 pages
Book Rating : 4.58/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Formal Methods in the Methodology of Empirical Sciences written by Marian Przelecki and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Proceedings of the Conference for Formal Methods in the Methodology of Emperical Sciences, Warsaw, June 17-21, 1974, Poland.

Author : K. Gavroglu
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9400930259
Total Pages : 457 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Imre Lakatos and Theories of Scientific Change written by K. Gavroglu and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How happy it is to recall Imre Lakatos. Now, fifteen years after his death, his intelligence, wit, generosity are vivid. In the Preface to the book of Essays in Memory of Imre Lakatos (Boston Studies, 39, 1976), the editors wrote: ... 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. The book before us carries old and new friends of that Lakatosian spirit further into the issues which he wanted to investigate. That the new friends include a dozen scientific, historical and philosophical scholars from Greece would have pleased Lakatos very much, and with an essay from China, he would have smiled all the more. But the key lies in the quality of these papers, and in the imaginative organization of the conference at Thessaloniki in summer 1986 which worked so well.

Author : Zuzana Parusniková
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3030670368
Total Pages : 363 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Karl Popper's Science and Philosophy written by Zuzana Parusniková and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-07-19 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of all philosophers of the 20th century, few built more bridges between academic disciplines than Karl Popper. He contributed to a wide variety of fields in addition to the epistemology and the theory of scientific method for which he is best known. This book illustrates and evaluates the impact, both substantive and methodological, that Popper has had in the natural and mathematical sciences. The topics selected include quantum mechanics, evolutionary biology, cosmology, mathematical logic, statistics, and cognitive science. The approach is multidisciplinary, opening a dialogue across scientific disciplines and between scientists and philosophers.

Author : Theo A.F. Kuipers
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9401716188
Total Pages : 374 pages
Book Rating : 4.85/5 ( download)

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Download or read book From Instrumentalism to Constructive Realism written by Theo A.F. Kuipers and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-04-18 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surprisingly, modified versions of the confirmation theory (Carnap and Hempel) and truth approximation theory (Popper) turn out to be smoothly sythesizable. The glue between the two appears to be the instrumentalist methodology, rather than that of the falsificationalist. The instrumentalist methodology, used in the separate, comparative evaluation of theories in terms of their successes and problems (hence, even if already falsified), provides in theory and practice the straight road to short-term empirical progress in science ( à la Laudan). It is also argued that such progress is also functional for all kinds of truth approximation: observational, referential, and theoretical. This sheds new light on the long-term dynamics of science and hence on the relation between the main epistemological positions, viz., instrumentalism (Toulmin, Laudan), constructive empiricism (Van Fraassen), referential realism (Hacking, Cartwright), and theory realism of a non-essentialist nature (constructive realism à la Popper). Readership: Open minded philosophers and scientists. The book explains and justifies the scientist's intuition that the debate among philosophers about instrumentalism and realism has almost no practical consequences.