Physics Avoidance

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Physics Avoidance

Author : Mark Wilson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192525247
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

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Book Synopsis Physics Avoidance by : Mark Wilson

Download or read book Physics Avoidance written by Mark Wilson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-20 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mark Wilson presents a series of explorations of our strategies for understanding the world. "Physics avoidance" refers to the fact that we frequently cannot reason about nature in the straightforward manner we anticipate, but must seek alternative policies that allow us to address the questions we want answered in a tractable way. Within both science and everyday life, we find ourselves relying upon thought processes that reach useful answers in opaque and roundabout manners. Conceptual innovators are often puzzled by the techniques they develop, when they stumble across reasoning patterns that are easy to implement but difficult to justify. But simple techniques frequently rest upon complex foundations—a young magician learns how to execute a card-guessing trick without understanding how its progressive steps squeeze in on a proper answer. As we collectively improve our inferential skills in this gradually evolving manner, we often wander into unfamiliar explanatory landscapes in which simple words encode physical information in complex and unanticipated ways. Like our juvenile conjurer, we fail to recognize the true strategic rationales underlying our achievements and may turn instead to preposterous rationalizations for our policies. We have learned how to reach better conclusions in a more fruitful way, but we remain baffled by our own successes. At its best, philosophical reflection illuminates the natural developmental processes that generate these confusions and explicates their complexities. But current thinking within philosophy of science and language works to opposite effect by relying upon simplistic conceptions of "cause", "law of nature", "possibility", and "reference" that ignore the strategic complexities in which these concepts become entangled within real life usage. To avoid these distortions, better descriptive tools are required in philosophy. The nine new essays within this volume illustrate this need for finer discriminations through a range of revealing cases, of both historical and contemporary significance.

Physics Avoidance

Author : Mark Wilson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198803478
Total Pages : 446 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (988 download)

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Book Synopsis Physics Avoidance by : Mark Wilson

Download or read book Physics Avoidance written by Mark Wilson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mark Wilson explores our strategies for understanding the world. We frequently cannot reason about nature in the straightforward manner we anticipate, but must use alternative thought processes that reach useful answers in opaque and roundabout ways; and philosophy must find better descriptive tools to reflect this.

The Pragmatist Challenge

Author : H. K. Andersen
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198805454
Total Pages : 225 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (988 download)

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Book Synopsis The Pragmatist Challenge by : H. K. Andersen

Download or read book The Pragmatist Challenge written by H. K. Andersen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-02-23 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pragmatist Challenge lays out a programmatic view for taking a pragmatist approach to topics in philosophy of science and metaphysics. Pragmatism involves a collection of specific views as well as comprising a general approach that can be applied to multiple topics. For topics at the intersection of philosophy of science and metaphysics, pragmatism as explored in this volume is an effective way to take entrenched debates and re-frame them in ways that move past old dichotomies and offer more fruitful paths forward. Each chapter explores a dual vision of pragmatism: specific pragmatist views are developed, demonstrating how to take a distinctively pragmatist approach to some particular issue or subfield; and the general shape of what it means to take a pragmatist approach is elucidated as well. The chapters thus tend to be synoptic in scope. Collectively, they offer a new approach that can be taken up in constructively reframing other discussions, ready to be applied to new specific topics. Pragmatism is an especially potent tool that sits at the interface between methodological and applied questions coming directly from sciences, and the underlying ontological or metaphysical commitments that are implied by or support the methodological discussions. The goal of the volume is to articulate a variety of ways to be a pragmatist without having to commit to a single specific set of -isms in order to make use of it, while highlighting the common themes that manifest across different discussions. The chapters offer a heterogenous yet programmatic approach to pragmatism.

Science, Technology, and Virtues

Author : Emanuele Ratti
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190081716
Total Pages : 313 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis Science, Technology, and Virtues by : Emanuele Ratti

Download or read book Science, Technology, and Virtues written by Emanuele Ratti and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Virtues have become a valuable and relevant resource for understanding modern science and technology. Scientific practice requires not only following prescribed rules but also cultivating judgment, building mental habits, and developing proper emotional responses. The rich philosophical traditions around virtue can provide key insights into scientific research, including understanding how daily practice shapes scientists themselves and how ethical dilemmas created by modern scientific research and technology should be navigated. Science, Technology, and Virtues gathers both new and eminent scholars to show how concepts of virtue can help us better understand, construct, and use the products of modern science and technology. Contributors draw from examples across philosophy, history, sociology, political science, and engineering to explore how virtue theory can help orient science and technology towards the pursuit of the good life. Split into four major sections, this volume covers virtues in science, technology, epistemology, and research ethics, with individual chapters discussing applications of virtues to scientific practice, the influence of virtue ethics on socially responsible research, and the concept of failing well within the scientific community. Rather than offer easy solutions, the essays in this volume instead illustrate how virtue concepts can provide a productive and illuminating perspective on two phenomena at the core of modern life. Fresh and thought-provoking, Science, Technology, and Virtues presents a pluralistic set of scholarship to show how virtue concepts can enrich our understanding of scientific research, guide the design and use of new technologies, and shape how we envision future scientists, engineers, consumers, and citizens.

Sustainability and the Philosophy of Science

Author : Jeffry L. Ramsey
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1003804004
Total Pages : 126 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (38 download)

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Book Synopsis Sustainability and the Philosophy of Science by : Jeffry L. Ramsey

Download or read book Sustainability and the Philosophy of Science written by Jeffry L. Ramsey and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-09-19 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book demonstrates how the philosophy of science can enhance our understanding of sustainability and the practices we use to enact it. Examining assumptions about concepts, theories, evidence, and the moral ideals of sustainability can better orient us as we pursue this urgent and important goal. The book applies perspectives and tools from the philosophy of science – construed broadly to include portions of science and technology studies, history of science, and philosophy more generally – to sustainability discourse. It argues that widely held assumptions regarding the meaning of concepts, methods of theorizing and inferential practice, evidential structure, and ethics limit our understanding and practice of sustainability. It offers philosophical alternatives that capture more fully the confusing, wicked nature of sustainability challenges. The alternatives draw attention to existing but often undervalued frameworks in sustainability discourse. This book is aimed towards academics, researchers, and post-graduates working in sustainability, as well as philosophers of science and environmental philosophers interested in the philosophical issues raised by the pursuit of sustainability.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science

Author : Paul Humphreys
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199368821
Total Pages : 945 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (993 download)

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Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science by : Paul Humphreys

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Science written by Paul Humphreys and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-04 with total page 945 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook provides both an overview of state-of-the-art scholarship in philosophy of science, as well as a guide to new directions in the discipline. Section I contains broad overviews of the main lines of research and the state of established knowledge in six principal areas of the discipline, including computational, physical, biological, psychological and social sciences, as well as general philosophy of science. Section II covers what are considered to be the traditional topics in the philosophy of science, such as causation, probability, models, ethics and values, and explanation. Section III identifies new areas of investigation that show promise of becoming important areas of research, including the philosophy of astronomy and astrophysics, data, complexity theory, neuroscience, simulations, post-Kuhnian philosophy, post-empiricist epistemology, and emergence. Most chapters are accessible to scientifically educated non-philosophers as well as to professional philosophers, and the contributors - all leading researchers in their field -- bring diverse perspectives from the North American, European, and Australasian research communities. This volume is an essential resource for scholars and students.

Wandering Significance

Author : Mark Wilson
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199532303
Total Pages : 691 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (995 download)

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Book Synopsis Wandering Significance by : Mark Wilson

Download or read book Wandering Significance written by Mark Wilson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 691 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Mark Wilson presents a highly original and broad-ranging investigation of the way we get to grips with the world conceptually, and the way that philosophical problems commonly arise from this. He combines traditional philosophical concerns about human conceptual thinking with illuminating data derived from a large variety of fields including physics and applied mathematics, cognitive psychology, and linguistics. Wandering Significance offers abundant new insights and perspectives for philosophers of language, mind, and science, and will also reward the interest of psychologists, linguists, and anyone curious about the mysterious ways in which useful language obtains its practical applicability."--Publisher's description.

Between Leibniz, Newton, and Kant

Author : Wolfgang Lefèvre
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3031343409
Total Pages : 397 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (313 download)

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Book Synopsis Between Leibniz, Newton, and Kant by : Wolfgang Lefèvre

Download or read book Between Leibniz, Newton, and Kant written by Wolfgang Lefèvre and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-08-16 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This addresses the transformations of metaphysics as a discipline, the emergence of analytical mechanics, the diverging avenues of 18th-century Newtonianism, the body-mind problem, and philosophical principles of classification in the life sciences. An appendix contains a critical edition and first translation into English of Newton's scholia from David Gregory's Estate on the Propositions IV through IX Book III of his Principia.

The Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Mechanics

Author : Jeffrey A. Barrett
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192583115
Total Pages : 268 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

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Book Synopsis The Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Mechanics by : Jeffrey A. Barrett

Download or read book The Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Mechanics written by Jeffrey A. Barrett and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-19 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book Jeffrey A. Barrett provides an introduction to the history and conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics. He begins with a description of classical mechanics and a discussion of the quantum phenomena that radically undermine our common-sense classical intuitions about how the physical world works. He then considers the physical and conceptual arguments that led to the standard von Neumann-Dirac formulation of quantum mechanics and how the standard theory explains quantum phenomena. This includes a discussion of how the theory's two dynamical laws work with the standard interpretation of states to explain determinate measurement records, quantum statistics, interference effects, entanglement, decoherence, and quantum nonlocality. A careful understanding of how the standard theory works ultimately leads to the quantum measurement problem. Barrett considers how this problem threatens the logical consistency of the standard theory and then turns to a discussion of the main proposals for resolving it. This includes collapse formulations of quantum mechanics, the various many-worlds theories, and Bohmian mechanics. In discussing alternative formulations he pays particular attention to the explanatory role played by each theory's empirical ontology and associated metaphysical commitments, and the conceptual trade-offs between theoretical options. The book is well-suited to those interested in physics and the history and philosophy of quantum mechanics.

The Philosophy of Penelope Maddy

Author : Sophia Arbeiter
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3031584252
Total Pages : 526 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis The Philosophy of Penelope Maddy by : Sophia Arbeiter

Download or read book The Philosophy of Penelope Maddy written by Sophia Arbeiter and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 526 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time

Author : Roberto Mangabeira Unger
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1316123839
Total Pages : 567 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (161 download)

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Book Synopsis The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time by : Roberto Mangabeira Unger

Download or read book The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time written by Roberto Mangabeira Unger and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-12-08 with total page 567 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cosmology is in crisis. The more we discover, the more puzzling the universe appears to be. How and why are the laws of nature what they are? A philosopher and a physicist, world-renowned for their radical ideas in their fields, argue for a revolution. To keep cosmology scientific, we must replace the old view in which the universe is governed by immutable laws by a new one in which laws evolve. Then we can hope to explain them. The revolution that Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin propose relies on three central ideas. There is only one universe at a time. Time is real: everything in the structure and regularities of nature changes sooner or later. Mathematics, which has trouble with time, is not the oracle of nature and the prophet of science; it is simply a tool with great power and immense limitations. The argument is readily accessible to non-scientists as well as to the physicists and cosmologists whom it challenges.

A Middle Way

Author : Robert W. Batterman
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197568610
Total Pages : 189 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (975 download)

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Book Synopsis A Middle Way by : Robert W. Batterman

Download or read book A Middle Way written by Robert W. Batterman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Autonomy -- Hydrodynamics -- Brownian motion -- From Brownian motion to bending beams -- An engineering approach -- The right variables and natural kinds.

Wandering Significance

Author : Mark Wilson
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191533440
Total Pages : 696 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (915 download)

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Book Synopsis Wandering Significance by : Mark Wilson

Download or read book Wandering Significance written by Mark Wilson and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2006-01-05 with total page 696 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mark Wilson presents a highly original and broad-ranging investigation of the way we get to grips with the world conceptually, and the way that philosophical problems commonly arise from this. Words such as colour, shape, solidity exemplify the commonplace conceptual tools we employ to describe and order the world around us. But the world's goods are complex in their behaviors and we often overlook the subtle adjustments that our evaluative terms undergo as their usage becomes gradually adapted to different forms of supportive circumstance. Wilson not only explains how these surprising strategies of hidden management operate, but also tells the astonishing story of how faulty schemes and great metaphysical systems sometimes spring from a simple failure to recognize the innocent wanderings to which our descriptive words are heir. Wilson combines traditional philosophical concerns about human conceptual thinking with illuminating data derived from a large variety of fields including physics and applied mathematics, cognitive psychology, and linguistics. Wandering Significance offers abundant new insights and perspectives for philosophers of language, mind, and science, and will also reward the interest of psychologists, linguists, and anyone curious about the mysterious ways in which useful language obtains its practical applicability.

Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology

Author : Christopher G. Morris
Publisher : Gulf Professional Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9780122004001
Total Pages : 2488 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology by : Christopher G. Morris

Download or read book Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology written by Christopher G. Morris and published by Gulf Professional Publishing. This book was released on 1992-08-27 with total page 2488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Dictonary of Science and Technology. Color Illustration Section. Symbols and Units. Fundamental Physical Constants. Measurement Conversion. Periodic Table of the Elements. Atomic Weights. Particles. The Solar System. Geologial Timetable. Five-Kingdom Classification of Organisms. Chronology of Modern Science. Photo Credits.

Leveraging Distortions

Author : Collin Rice
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262365839
Total Pages : 367 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (623 download)

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Book Synopsis Leveraging Distortions by : Collin Rice

Download or read book Leveraging Distortions written by Collin Rice and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-08-17 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of how scientists deliberately and justifiably use pervasive distortions of relevant features to explain and understand natural phenomena. A fundamental rule of logic is that in order for an argument to provide good reasons for its conclusion, the premises of the argument must be true. In this book, Collin Rice shows how the practice of science repeatedly, pervasively, and deliberately violates this principle. Rice argues that scientists strategically use distortions that misrepresent relevant features of natural phenomena in order to explain and understand--and that they use these distortions deliberately and justifiably in order to discover truths that would be otherwise inaccessible. Countering the standard emphasis on causation, accurate representation, and decomposition of science into its accurate and inaccurate parts, Rice shows that science's epistemic achievements can still be factive despite their being produced through the use of holistically distorted scientific representations. Indeed, he argues, this distortion is one of the most widely employed and fruitful tools used in scientific theorizing. Marshalling a range of case studies, Rice contends that many explanations in science are noncausal, and he presents an alternate view of explanation that captures the variety of noncausal explanations found across the sciences. He proposes an alternative holistic distortion view of idealized models, connecting it to physicists' concept of a universality class; shows how universality classes can overcome some of the challenges of multiscale modeling; and offers accounts of explanation, idealization, modeling, and understanding.

Cultures of Prediction

Author : Ann Johnson
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262379058
Total Pages : 287 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (623 download)

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Book Synopsis Cultures of Prediction by : Ann Johnson

Download or read book Cultures of Prediction written by Ann Johnson and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2024-05-07 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A probing examination of the dynamic history of predictive methods and values in science and engineering that helps us better understand today’s cultures of prediction. The ability to make reliable predictions based on robust and replicable methods is a defining feature of the scientific endeavor, allowing engineers to determine whether a building will stand up or where a cannonball will strike. Cultures of Prediction, which bridges history and philosophy, uncovers the dynamic history of prediction in science and engineering over four centuries. Ann Johnson and Johannes Lenhard identify four different cultures, or modes, of prediction in the history of science and engineering: rational, empirical, iterative-numerical, and exploratory-iterative. They show how all four develop together and interact with one another while emphasizing that mathematization is not a single unitary process but one that has taken many forms. The story is not one of the triumph of abstract mathematics or technology but of how different modes of prediction, complementary concepts of mathematization, and technology coevolved, building what the authors call “cultures of prediction.” The first part of the book examines prediction from early modernity up to the computer age. The second part probes computer-related cultures of prediction, which focus on making things and testing their performance, often in computer simulations. This new orientation challenges basic tenets of the philosophy of science, in which scientific theories and models are predominantly seen as explanatory rather than predictive. It also influences the types of research projects that scientists and engineers undertake, as well as which ones receive support from funding agencies.

Descartes and the Ontology of Everyday Life

Author : Deborah J. Brown
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192573772
Total Pages : 318 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

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Book Synopsis Descartes and the Ontology of Everyday Life by : Deborah J. Brown

Download or read book Descartes and the Ontology of Everyday Life written by Deborah J. Brown and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-30 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The seventeenth century was a period of extraordinary invention, discovery and revolutions in scientific, social and political orders. It was a time of expansive automation, biological discovery, rapid advances in medical knowledge, of animal trials and a questioning of the boundaries between species, human and non-human, between social classes, and of the assumed naturalness of political inequality. This book gives a tour through those objects, ordinary and extraordinary, which captivated the philosophical imagination of the single most important French philosopher of this period, René Descartes. Deborah J. Brown and Calvin G. Normore document Descartes' attempt to make sense of the complex, composite objects of human and divine invention, consistent with the fundamental tenets of his metaphysical system. Their central argument is that, far from reducing all the categories of ordinary experience to the two basic categories of substance, mind and body, Descartes' philosophy recognises irreducible composites that resist reduction, and require their own distinctive modes of explanation.