Progress And Rationality In Science

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Progress and Rationality in Science

Author : G. Radnitzky
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 940099866X
Total Pages : 424 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis Progress and Rationality in Science by : G. Radnitzky

Download or read book Progress and Rationality in Science written by G. Radnitzky and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays has evolved through the co-operative efforts, which began in the fall of 1974, of the participants in a workshop sponsored by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. The idea of holding one or more small colloquia devoted to the topics of rational choice in science and scientific progress originated in a conversation in the summer of 1973 between one of the editors (GR) and the late Imre Lakatos. Unfortunately Lakatos himself was never able to see this project through, but his thought-provoking methodology of scientific research programmes was ably expounded and defended by his successors. Indeed, this volume continues and deepens the debate inaugurated in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (edited by Imre Lakatos and Alan Musgrave), a book which grew out of a conference held in 1965. That debate has continued during the years that have passed since that conference. The group of discussions about the place of rationality in science which have been held between those who emphasize the history of science (with Feyerabend and Kuhn as the most prominent exponents) and the critical rationalists (Popper and his followers), with Imre Lakatos defending a middle ground, these discussions were seen by almost all commentators as the most important event in the philosophy of science in the last decade. This problem area constituted the central theme of our Thyssen workshop. The workshop operated in the following manner.

Karl Popper's Philosophy of Science

Author : Stefano Gattei
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134182953
Total Pages : 154 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (341 download)

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Book Synopsis Karl Popper's Philosophy of Science by : Stefano Gattei

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.

Galileo and the Art of Reasoning

Author : M.A. Finocchiaro
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 9027710945
Total Pages : 482 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (277 download)

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Book Synopsis Galileo and the Art of Reasoning by : M.A. Finocchiaro

Download or read book Galileo and the Art of Reasoning written by M.A. Finocchiaro and published by Springer. This book was released on 1980-08-31 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The work of Galileo has long been important not only as a foundation of modern physics but also as a model - and perhaps the paradigmatic model - of scientific method, and therefore as a leading example of scientific rationality. However, as we know, the matter is not so simple. The range of Galileo readings is so varied that one may be led to the conclusion that it is a case of chacun a son Galileo; that here, as with the Bible, or Plato or Kant or Freud or Finnegan's Wake, the texts themselves underdetermine just what moral is to be pointed. But if there is no canonical reading, how can the texts be taken as evidence or example of a canonical view of scientific rationality, as in Galileo? Or is it the case, instead, that we decide a priori what the norms of rationality are and then pick through texts to fmd those which satisfy these norms? Specifically, how and on what grounds are we to accept or reject scientific theories, or scientific reasoning? If we are to do this on the basis of historical analysis of how, in fact, theories came to be accepted or rejected, how shall we distinguish 'is' from 'ought'? What follows (if anything does) from such analysis or reconstruction about how theories ought to be accepted or rejected? Maurice Finocchiaro's study of Galileo brings an important and original approach to the question of scientific rationality by way of a systematic read

Progress and Its Problems

Author : Larry Laudan
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 9780520037212
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (372 download)

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Book Synopsis Progress and Its Problems by : Larry Laudan

Download or read book Progress and Its Problems written by Larry Laudan and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1978-10-27 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Author : Thomas S. Kuhn
Publisher : Chicago : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 172 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (312 download)

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Book Synopsis The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by : Thomas S. Kuhn

Download or read book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions written by Thomas S. Kuhn and published by Chicago : University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1969 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Enlightenment Now

Author : Steven Pinker
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0698177886
Total Pages : 578 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (981 download)

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Book Synopsis Enlightenment Now by : Steven Pinker

Download or read book Enlightenment Now written by Steven Pinker and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-02-13 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018 ONE OF THE ECONOMIST'S BOOKS OF THE YEAR "My new favorite book of all time." --Bill Gates If you think the world is coming to an end, think again: people are living longer, healthier, freer, and happier lives, and while our problems are formidable, the solutions lie in the Enlightenment ideal of using reason and science. By the author of the new book, Rationality. Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing. Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature--tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking--which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation. With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.

The Rationality of Science

Author : W.H. Newton-Smith
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134930976
Total Pages : 307 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (349 download)

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Book Synopsis The Rationality of Science by : W.H. Newton-Smith

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 307 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.

The Tyranny of Science

Author : Paul K. Feyerabend
Publisher : Polity
ISBN 13 : 9780745651897
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (518 download)

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Book Synopsis The Tyranny of Science by : Paul K. Feyerabend

Download or read book The Tyranny of Science written by Paul K. Feyerabend and published by Polity. This book was released on 2011-05-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paul Feyerabend is one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century and his book Against Method is an international bestseller. In this new book he masterfully weaves together the main elements of his mature philosophy into a gripping tale: the story of the rise of rationalism in Ancient Greece that eventually led to the entrenchment of a mythical ‘scientific worldview’. In this wide-ranging and accessible book Feyerabend challenges some modern myths about science, including the myth that ‘science is successful’. He argues that some very basic assumptions about science are simply false and that substantial parts of scientific ideology were created on the basis of superficial generalizations that led to absurd misconceptions about the nature of human life. Far from solving the pressing problems of our age, such as war and poverty, scientific theorizing glorifies ephemeral generalities, at the cost of confronting the real particulars that make life meaningful. Objectivity and generality are based on abstraction, and as such, they come at a high price. For abstraction drives a wedge between our thoughts and our experience, resulting in the degeneration of both. Theoreticians, as opposed to practitioners, tend to impose a tyranny on the concepts they use, abstracting away from the subjective experience that makes life meaningful. Feyerabend concludes by arguing that practical experience is a better guide to reality than any theory, by itself, ever could be, and he stresses that there is no tyranny that cannot be resisted, even if it is exerted with the best possible intentions. Provocative and iconoclastic, The Tyranny of Science is one of Feyerabend’s last books and one of his best. It will be widely read by everyone interested in the role that science has played, and continues to play, in the shaping of the modern world.

The World Philosophy Made

Author : Scott Soames
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 069122918X
Total Pages : 458 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis The World Philosophy Made by : Scott Soames

Download or read book The World Philosophy Made written by Scott Soames and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How philosophy transformed human knowledge and the world we live in Philosophical investigation is the root of all human knowledge. Developing new concepts, reinterpreting old truths, and reconceptualizing fundamental questions, philosophy has progressed—and driven human progress—for more than two millennia. In short, we live in a world philosophy made. In this concise history of philosophy's world-shaping impact, Scott Soames demonstrates that the modern world—including its science, technology, and politics—simply would not be possible without the accomplishments of philosophy. Firmly rebutting the misconception of philosophy as ivory-tower thinking, Soames traces its essential contributions to fields as diverse as law and logic, psychology and economics, relativity and rational decision theory. Beginning with the giants of ancient Greek philosophy, The World Philosophy Made chronicles the achievements of the great thinkers, from the medieval and early modern eras to the present. It explores how philosophy has shaped our language, science, mathematics, religion, culture, morality, education, and politics, as well as our understanding of ourselves. Philosophy's idea of rational inquiry as the key to theoretical knowledge and practical wisdom has transformed the world in which we live. From the laws that govern society to the digital technology that permeates modern life, philosophy has opened up new possibilities and set us on more productive paths. The World Philosophy Made explains and illuminates as never before the inexhaustible richness of philosophy and its influence on our individual and collective lives.

Rationality

Author : Steven Pinker
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0241380308
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (413 download)

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Book Synopsis Rationality by : Steven Pinker

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

Karl Popper, Science and Enlightenment

Author : Nicholas Maxwell
Publisher : UCL Press
ISBN 13 : 178735041X
Total Pages : 392 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (873 download)

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Book Synopsis Karl Popper, Science and Enlightenment by : Nicholas Maxwell

Download or read book Karl Popper, Science and Enlightenment written by Nicholas Maxwell and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2017-09-26 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is an idea that just might save the world. It is that science, properly understood, provides us with the methodological key to the salvation of humanity. A version of this idea can be found in the works of Karl Popper. Famously, Popper argued that science cannot verify theories but can only refute them, and this is how science makes progress. Scientists are forced to think up something better, and it is this, according to Popper, that drives science forward.But Nicholas Maxwell finds a flaw in this line of argument. Physicists only ever accept theories that are unified – theories that depict the same laws applying to the range of phenomena to which the theory applies – even though many other empirically more successful disunified theories are always available. This means that science makes a questionable assumption about the universe, namely that all disunified theories are false. Without some such presupposition as this, the whole empirical method of science breaks down.By proposing a new conception of scientific methodology, which can be applied to all worthwhile human endeavours with problematic aims, Maxwell argues for a revolution in academic inquiry to help humanity make progress towards a better, more civilized and enlightened world.

A Sceptical Theory of Scientific Inquiry

Author : Laurence Barry Briskman
Publisher : Schriftenreihe Zur Philosophie
ISBN 13 : 9789004429192
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (291 download)

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Book Synopsis A Sceptical Theory of Scientific Inquiry by : Laurence Barry Briskman

Download or read book A Sceptical Theory of Scientific Inquiry written by Laurence Barry Briskman and published by Schriftenreihe Zur Philosophie. This book was released on 2020 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A Sceptical Theory of Scientific Inquiry: Problems and Their Progress presents a distinctive re-interpretation of Popper's 'critical rationalism', displaying the kind of spirit found at the L.S.E. before Popper's retirement. It offers an alternative to interpretations of critical rationalism which have emphasised the significance of research programmes or metaphysics (Lakatos; Nicholas Maxwell), and is closer to the approach of Jagdish Hattiangadi. Briskman gives priority to methodological argument rather than logical formalisms, and takes further his own work on creativity. In addition to offering an important contribution to the understanding of critical rationalism, the book contains interesting engagements with Michael Polanyi and the Meno Paradox. This volume also contains an introduction by the editor, which situates Briskman's work in the history of the interpretation of 'critical rationalism'"--

Science, Explanation, and Rationality

Author : James H. Fetzer
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190283890
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (92 download)

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Book Synopsis Science, Explanation, and Rationality by : James H. Fetzer

Download or read book Science, Explanation, and Rationality written by James H. Fetzer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2000-12-07 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carl G. Hempel exerted greater influence upon philosophers of science than any other figure during the 20th century. In this far-reaching collection, distinguished philosophers contribute valuable studies that illuminate and clarify the central problems to which Hempel was devoted. The essays enhance our understanding of the development of logical empiricism as the major intellectual influence for scientifically-oriented philosophers and philosophically-minded scientists of the 20th century.

Social Empiricism

Author : Miriam Solomon
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262264648
Total Pages : 198 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (646 download)

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Book Synopsis Social Empiricism by : Miriam Solomon

Download or read book Social Empiricism written by Miriam Solomon and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2007-01-26 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the last forty years, two claims have been at the core of disputes about scientific change: that scientists reason rationally and that science is progressive. For most of this time discussions were polarized between philosophers, who defended traditional Enlightenment ideas about rationality and progress, and sociologists, who espoused relativism and constructivism. Recently, creative new ideas going beyond the polarized positions have come from the history of science, feminist criticism of science, psychology of science, and anthropology of science. Addressing the traditional arguments as well as building on these new ideas, Miriam Solomon constructs a new epistemology of science. After discussions of the nature of empirical success and its relation to truth, Solomon offers a new, social account of scientific rationality. She shows that the pursuit of empirical success and truth can be consistent with both dissent and consensus, and that the distinction between dissent and consensus is of little epistemic significance. In building this social epistemology of science, she shows that scientific communities are not merely the locus of distributed expert knowledge and a resource for criticism but also the site of distributed decision making. Throughout, she illustrates her ideas with case studies from late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century physical and life sciences. Replacing the traditional focus on methods and heuristics to be applied by individual scientists, Solomon emphasizes science funding, administration, and policy. One of her goals is to have a positive influence on scientific decision making through practical social recommendations.

Is Scientific Knowledge Rational?

Author : Halil Rahman Açar
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Is Scientific Knowledge Rational? by : Halil Rahman Açar

Download or read book Is Scientific Knowledge Rational? written by Halil Rahman Açar and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Kuhn's Legacy

Author : Bojana Mladenović
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231520743
Total Pages : 278 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis Kuhn's Legacy by : Bojana Mladenović

Download or read book Kuhn's Legacy written by Bojana Mladenović and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is one of the most important books of the twentieth century. Its influence reaches far beyond the philosophy of science, and its key terms, such as “paradigm shift,” “normal science,” and “incommensurability,” are now used in both academic and public discourse without any reference to Kuhn. However, Kuhn’s philosophy is still often misunderstood and underappreciated. In Kuhn’s Legacy, Bojana Mladenović offers a novel analysis of Kuhn’s central philosophical project, focusing on his writings after Structure. Mladenović argues that Kuhn’s historicism was always coupled with a firm and consistent antirelativism but that it was only in his mature writings that Kuhn began to systematically develop an original account of scientific rationality. She reconstructs this account, arguing that Kuhn sees the rationality of science as a form of collective rationality. At the purely formal level, Kuhn’s conception of scientific rationality prohibits obviously irrational beliefs and choices and requires reason-responsiveness as well as the uninterrupted pursuit of inquiry. At the substantive, historicized level, it rests on a distinctly pragmatist mode of justification compatible with a notion of contingent but robust scientific progress. Mladenović argues that Kuhn’s epistemology and his metaphilosophy both represent a creative and fruitful continuation of the tradition of American pragmatism. Kuhn’s Legacy demonstrates the vitality of Kuhn’s philosophical project and its importance for the study of the philosophy and history of science today.

The Rationality Quotient

Author : Keith E. Stanovich
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262034840
Total Pages : 479 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (62 download)

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Book Synopsis The Rationality Quotient by : Keith E. Stanovich

Download or read book The Rationality Quotient written by Keith E. Stanovich and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2016-09-30 with total page 479 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to assess critical aspects of cognitive functioning that are not measured by IQ tests: rational thinking skills. Why are we surprised when smart people act foolishly? Smart people do foolish things all the time. Misjudgments and bad decisions by highly educated bankers and money managers, for example, brought us the financial crisis of 2008. Smart people do foolish things because intelligence is not the same as the capacity for rational thinking. The Rationality Quotient explains that these two traits, often (and incorrectly) thought of as one, refer to different cognitive functions. The standard IQ test, the authors argue, doesn't measure any of the broad components of rationality—adaptive responding, good judgment, and good decision making. The authors show that rational thinking, like intelligence, is a measurable cognitive competence. Drawing on theoretical work and empirical research from the last two decades, they present the first prototype for an assessment of rational thinking analogous to the IQ test: the CART (Comprehensive Assessment of Rational Thinking). The authors describe the theoretical underpinnings of the CART, distinguishing the algorithmic mind from the reflective mind. They discuss the logic of the tasks used to measure cognitive biases, and they develop a unique typology of thinking errors. The Rationality Quotient explains the components of rational thought assessed by the CART, including probabilistic and scientific reasoning; the avoidance of “miserly” information processing; and the knowledge structures needed for rational thinking. Finally, the authors discuss studies of the CART and the social and practical implications of such a test. An appendix offers sample items from the test.