Models, Truth, and Realism

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199286698
Total Pages : 196 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (992 download)

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Book Synopsis Models, Truth, and Realism by : Barry Taylor

Download or read book Models, Truth, and Realism written by Barry Taylor and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006-05-18 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Barry Taylor's book mounts an argument against one of the fundamental tenets of much contemporary philosophy, the idea that we can make sense of reality as existing objectively, independently of our capacities to come to know it.Part One sets the scene by arguings that traditional realism can be explicated as a doctrine about truth - that truth is objective, that is, public, bivalent, and epistemically independent. Part Two, the centrepiece of the book, shows how a form of Hilary Putnam's model-theoretic argument demonstrates that no such notion of truth can be founded on the idea of correspondence, as explained in model-theoretic terms (more traditional accounts of correspondence having been already disposed of inPart One). Part Three argues that non-correspondence accounts of truth - truth as superassertibility or idealized rational acceptability, formal conceptions of truth, Tarskian truth - also fail to meet the criteria for objectivity; along the way, it also dismisses the claims of the latterday views ofPutnam, and of similar views articulated by John McDowell, to constitute a new, less traditional form of realism. In the Coda, Taylor bolsters some of the considerations advanced in Part Three in evaluating formal conceptions of truth, by assessing and rejecting the claims of Robert Brandom to have combined such an account of truth with a satisfactory account of semantic structure. He concludes that there is no defensible notion of truth which preserves the theses of traditional realism, norany extant position sufficiently true to the ideals of that doctrine to inherit its title. So the only question remaining is which form of antirealism to adopt.

Reconstructing Reality

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 0199380279
Total Pages : 345 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (993 download)

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Book Synopsis Reconstructing Reality by : Margaret Morrison

Download or read book Reconstructing Reality written by Margaret Morrison and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Attempts to understand various aspects of the empirical world often rely on modelling processes that involve a reconstruction of systems under investigation. Typically the reconstruction uses mathematical frameworks like gauge theory and renormalization group methods, but more recently simulations also have become an indispensable tool for investigation. This book is a philosophical examination of techniques and assumptions related to modelling and simulation with the goal of showing how these abstract descriptions can contribute to our understanding of the physical world. Particular issues include the role of fictional models in science, how mathematical formalisms can yield physical information, and how we should approach the use of inconsistent models for specific types of systems. It also addresses the role of simulation, specifically the conditions under which simulation can be seen as a technique for measurement, replacing more traditional experimental approaches. Inherent worries about the legitimacy of simulation "knowledge" are also addressed, including an analysis of verification and validation and the role of simulation data in the search for the Higgs boson. In light of the significant role played by simulation in the Large Hadron Collider experiments, it is argued that the traditional distinction between simulation and experiment is no longer applicable in some contexts of modern science. Consequently, a re-evaluation of the way and extent to which simulation delivers empirical knowledge is required. "This is a, lively, stimulating, and important book by one of the main scholars contributing to current topics and debates in our field. It will be a major resource for philosophers of science, their students, scientists interested in examining scientific practice, and the general scientifically literate public."-Bas van Fraassen, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, San Francisco State University

Truth and Realism

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780199288885
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (888 download)

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Book Synopsis Truth and Realism by : Patrick Greenough

Download or read book Truth and Realism written by Patrick Greenough and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is truth objective or relative? What exists independently of our minds? This book is about these two questions. The essays in its pages variously defend and critique answers to each, grapple over the proper methodology for addressing them, and wonder whether either question is worth pursuing. In so doing, they carry on a long and esteemed tradition - for our two questions are among the oldest of philosophical issues, and have vexed almost every major philosopher, from Plato, to Kant to Wittgenstein. Fifteen eminent contributors bring fresh perspectives, renewed energy and original answers to debates which have been the focus of a tremendous amount of interest in the last three decades both within philosophy and the culture at large.

Science and Partial Truth

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Publisher : Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN 13 : 019515651X
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (951 download)

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Book Synopsis Science and Partial Truth by : Newton C. A. da Costa

Download or read book Science and Partial Truth written by Newton C. A. da Costa and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2003 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the consequences of adopting a 'pragmatic' notion of truth in the philosophy of science. This framework describes issues to do with belief, theory acceptance, and the realism-antirealism debate, as well as the nature of scientific models and their heuristic development.

The Limits of Realism

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 0199672172
Total Pages : 277 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (996 download)

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Book Synopsis The Limits of Realism by : Tim Button

Download or read book The Limits of Realism written by Tim Button and published by . This book was released on 2013-06-27 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tim Button explores the relationship between minds, words, and world. He argues that the two main strands of scepticism are deeply related and can be overcome, but that there is a limit to how much we can show. We must position ourselves somewhere between internal realism and external realism, and we cannot hope to say exactly where.

Reassembling Models of Reality: Theory and Clinical Practice (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology)

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Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 1324015985
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (24 download)

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Book Synopsis Reassembling Models of Reality: Theory and Clinical Practice (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) by : Aldrich Chan

Download or read book Reassembling Models of Reality: Theory and Clinical Practice (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) written by Aldrich Chan and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clinical musings on the nature of reality and “known experience.” Therapists must rely on their clients’ reporting of experience in order to assess, treat, and offer help. Yet we all experience the world through various filters of one sort or another, and our experiences are transformed through several nonconscious processes before reaching our conscious awareness. Science, philosophy, and wisdom traditions share the belief that our awareness is very restricted. How, then, can anyone accurately report their experience, let alone get help with it? Neuropsychologist Aldrich Chan examines how our experience of reality is assembled and shaped by biological, psychological, sociocultural, and existential processes. Each chapter explores processes within these domains that may act as “veils.” Topics in the book include: the default mode network, cognitive distortions, decision-making heuristics, the interconnected mind, memory, and cultural concepts of distress. By understanding the ways in which reality can be distorted, clinicians can more effectively help their clients reach their personal psychotherapeutic goals.

Theory and Reality

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022677113X
Total Pages : 412 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (267 download)

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Book Synopsis Theory and Reality by : Peter Godfrey-Smith

Download or read book Theory and Reality written by Peter Godfrey-Smith and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-07-16 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does science work? Does it tell us what the world is “really” like? What makes it different from other ways of understanding the universe? In Theory and Reality, Peter Godfrey-Smith addresses these questions by taking the reader on a grand tour of more than a hundred years of debate about science. The result is a completely accessible introduction to the main themes of the philosophy of science. Examples and asides engage the beginning student, a glossary of terms explains key concepts, and suggestions for further reading are included at the end of each chapter. Like no other text in this field, Theory and Reality combines a survey of recent history of the philosophy of science with current key debates that any beginning scholar or critical reader can follow. The second edition is thoroughly updated and expanded by the author with a new chapter on truth, simplicity, and models in science.

Realism and Truth

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780691011875
Total Pages : 388 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (118 download)

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Book Synopsis Realism and Truth by : Michael Devitt

Download or read book Realism and Truth written by Michael Devitt and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1997-01-12 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a provocative thesis, philosophy professor Michael Devitt argues for a thoroughgoing realism about the common-sense and scientific physical world and for a corresponding notion of truthcontrary to the opinions of anti-realists such as Putnam, Dummett, van Fraassen, and others. This second edition includes a new Afterword by the author.

A Realist Conception of Truth

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Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501720554
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis A Realist Conception of Truth by : William P. Alston

Download or read book A Realist Conception of Truth written by William P. Alston and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most important Anglo-American philosophers of our time here joins the current philosophical debate about the nature of truth. William P. Alston formulates and defends a realist conception of truth, which he calls alethic realism (from "aletheia," Greek for truth). This idea holds that the truth value of a statement (belief or proposition) depends on whether what the statement is about is as the statement says it is. Michael Dummett and Hilary Putnam are two of the prominent and widely influential contemporary philosophers whose anti-realist ideas Alston attacks.

Scientific Perspectivism

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226292142
Total Pages : 171 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (262 download)

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Book Synopsis Scientific Perspectivism by : Ronald N. Giere

Download or read book Scientific Perspectivism written by Ronald N. Giere and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-05-05 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many people assume that the claims of scientists are objective truths. But historians, sociologists, and philosophers of science have long argued that scientific claims reflect the particular historical, cultural, and social context in which those claims were made. The nature of scientific knowledge is not absolute because it is influenced by the practice and perspective of human agents. Scientific Perspectivism argues that the acts of observing and theorizing are both perspectival, and this nature makes scientific knowledge contingent, as Thomas Kuhn theorized forty years ago. Using the example of color vision in humans to illustrate how his theory of “perspectivism” works, Ronald N. Giere argues that colors do not actually exist in objects; rather, color is the result of an interaction between aspects of the world and the human visual system. Giere extends this argument into a general interpretation of human perception and, more controversially, to scientific observation, conjecturing that the output of scientific instruments is perspectival. Furthermore, complex scientific principles—such as Maxwell’s equations describing the behavior of both the electric and magnetic fields—make no claims about the world, but models based on those principles can be used to make claims about specific aspects of the world. Offering a solution to the most contentious debate in the philosophy of science over the past thirty years, Scientific Perspectivism will be of interest to anyone involved in the study of science.

Philosophy of Science

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198745583
Total Pages : 161 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (987 download)

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Book Synopsis Philosophy of Science by : Samir Okasha

Download or read book Philosophy of Science written by Samir Okasha and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is science? -- Scientific inference -- Explanation in science -- Realism and anti-realism -- Scientific change and scientific revolutions -- Philosophical problems in physics, biology, and psychology -- Science and its critics.

Resisting Scientific Realism

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108415210
Total Pages : 237 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (84 download)

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Book Synopsis Resisting Scientific Realism by : K. Brad Wray

Download or read book Resisting Scientific Realism written by K. Brad Wray and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-11 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a spirited defence of anti-realism in philosophy of science. Shows the historical evidence and logical challenges facing scientific realism.

The Instrument of Science

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 0429666292
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (296 download)

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Book Synopsis The Instrument of Science by : Darrell P. Rowbottom

Download or read book The Instrument of Science written by Darrell P. Rowbottom and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-03-25 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Roughly, instrumentalism is the view that science is primarily, and should primarily be, an instrument for furthering our practical ends. It has fallen out of favour because historically influential variants of the view, such as logical positivism, suffered from serious defects. In this book, however, Darrell P. Rowbottom develops a new form of instrumentalism, which is more sophisticated and resilient than its predecessors. This position—‘cognitive instrumentalism’—involves three core theses. First, science makes theoretical progress primarily when it furnishes us with more predictive power or understanding concerning observable things. Second, scientific discourse concerning unobservable things should only be taken literally in so far as it involves observable properties or analogies with observable things. Third, scientific claims about unobservable things are probably neither approximately true nor liable to change in such a way as to increase in truthlikeness. There are examples from science throughout the book, and Rowbottom demonstrates at length how cognitive instrumentalism fits with the development of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century chemistry and physics, and especially atomic theory. Drawing upon this history, Rowbottom also argues that there is a kind of understanding, empirical understanding, which we can achieve without having true, or even approximately true, representations of unobservable things. In closing the book, he sets forth his view on how the distinction between the observable and unobservable may be drawn, and compares cognitive instrumentalism with key contemporary alternatives such as structural realism, constructive empiricism, and semirealism. Overall, this book offers a strong defence of instrumentalism that will be of interest to scholars and students working on the debate about realism in philosophy of science.

Mathematics and Reality

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Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191576247
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (915 download)

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Book Synopsis Mathematics and Reality by : Mary Leng

Download or read book Mathematics and Reality written by Mary Leng and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-04-22 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mary Leng offers a defense of mathematical fictionalism, according to which we have no reason to believe that there are any mathematical objects. Perhaps the most pressing challenge to mathematical fictionalism is the indispensability argument for the truth of our mathematical theories (and therefore for the existence of the mathematical objects posited by those theories). According to this argument, if we have reason to believe anything, we have reason to believe that the claims of our best empirical theories are (at least approximately) true. But since claims whose truth would require the existence of mathematical objects are indispensable in formulating our best empirical theories, it follows that we have good reason to believe in the mathematical objects posited by those mathematical theories used in empirical science, and therefore to believe that the mathematical theories utilized in empirical science are true. Previous responses to the indispensability argument have focussed on arguing that mathematical assumptions can be dispensed with in formulating our empirical theories. Leng, by contrast, offers an account of the role of mathematics in empirical science according to which the successful use of mathematics in formulating our empirical theories need not rely on the truth of the mathematics utilized.

Realism Rescued

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Publisher : Open Court Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9780812692884
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (928 download)

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Book Synopsis Realism Rescued by : Jerrold L. Aronson

Download or read book Realism Rescued written by Jerrold L. Aronson and published by Open Court Publishing. This book was released on 1995 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does science give us a progressively more accurate and objective account of the world? This book by three leading philosophers of science presents a new defense of scientific realism against skeptical and positivist attacks. While positivists view scientific theories as devices for predicting observable phenomena, realists maintain that theories describe hidden processes which account for observable phenomena. This problem raises the question: What are scientific theories about? Do they refer to an unobservable yet real realm of physical processes? It seems undeniable that the scientific endeavor has in some sense made progress. But is the increasing practical success of the physical sciences good grounds for believing that their theories and techniques lead us nearer to the truth? According to Aronson, Harre, and Way, past failures to answer these questions have been due in large part to the assumption that knowledge is expressed in propositions and organized by the canons of logic. On the assumption that science must meet the world in a correspondence between statements and states of affairs, realism turns out to be difficult to defend. Realism Rescued offers a new direction, relying on the importance of models in scientific work. Theories are not to be thought of as sets of propositions, though they can be expressed propositionally. Rather they are models, chunks of orderings of natural kinds. For the first time, the indispensability of models is turned into a powerful argument for realism, an argument that confronts the skeptic on his own ground. By drawing on a new technique of knowledge representation developed in Artificial Intelligence, the dynamic type-hierarchy, the authorsgive a convincing account of the central role of models. Such concepts as verisimilitude, natural kind, natural necessity, and natural law can then be presented far more clearly than ever before.

Unified Reality Theory

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Publisher : Balboa Press
ISBN 13 : 150434376X
Total Pages : 543 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (43 download)

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Book Synopsis Unified Reality Theory by : Steven Kaufman

Download or read book Unified Reality Theory written by Steven Kaufman and published by Balboa Press. This book was released on 2015-12-04 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Unified Reality Theory demonstrates that the source of reality is a universal consciousness, and that we are in no way separable from that source, and so in no way truly separable from each other or any other aspect of reality. I recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding the nature of reality and their place in it.” —Deepak Chopra Unified Reality Theory describes how all reality evolves from an absolute existence. It also demonstrates that this absolute existence must have consciousness as an attribute that’s intrinsic to its being. Thus, Unified Reality Theory shows that consciousness, rather than being a product of the evolution of physical reality, is itself the source of what we experience as physical reality, and that physical reality is itself but one aspect of an evolving universal consciousness. Unified Reality Theory shows that, most fundamentally, this absolute consciousness-existence evolves into reality by means of a single process: self-relation. That is, consciousness-existence becomes reality by forming relationships with itself, analogous in a very limited way to what happens to a rubber band that’s twisted upon itself, i.e., it remains whole while differentiating into other forms. Thus, Unified Reality Theory demonstrates that reality is a state of existential self-relation. The idea that the universe consists of existence which has formed relationships with itself isn’t new; Taoists have understood this idea for at least a couple of thousand years. What’s new here is the presentation of this idea in the form of a detailed and defined structural model that correlates with the behavior of physical reality as described by science in general and physics in particular. Ultimately, Unified Reality Theory uses science and logic to make the case that God exists, as a pervasive and absolute consciousness that transcends the realities of space and time, and that we, as well as everything else, are that!

A Realist Theory of Science

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Publisher : Verso Books
ISBN 13 : 1789603536
Total Pages : 367 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (896 download)

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Book Synopsis A Realist Theory of Science by : Roy Bhaskar

Download or read book A Realist Theory of Science written by Roy Bhaskar and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Realist Theory of Science is one of the few books that have changed our understanding of the philosophy of science. In this analysis of the natural sciences, with a particular focus on the experimental process itself, Roy Bhaskar provides a definitive critique of the traditional, positivist conception of science and stakes out an alternative, realist position. Since it original publication in 1975, a movement known as 'Critical Realism', which is both intellectually diverse and international in scope, has developed on the basis of key concepts outlined in the text. The book has been hailed in many quarters as a 'Copernican Revolution' in the study of the nature of science, and the implications of its account have been far-reaching for many fields of the humanities and social sciences.