Philosophy of Science
Will be published approx. on 1. December 1993
Book
Paperback/Softback
456 pages
978-0-268-01407-0 (ISBN)
Description
The 21 essays collected in this volume of ""Midwest Studies in Philosophy"" question and debate the primary assumptions of science. These are its conception of an orderly universe; its ability to define; and its ability to explain. The contributors approach these topics from varying perspectives, including the historic development of our understanding of the scientific enterprise; the controversy of opposing paradigms; and the challenges raised by quantum mechanics.
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Content
Fictionalism, Arthur Fine; Undetermination, Realism and Reason, John Earman; Epistemology for Empiricists, Elliott Sober; Wittgensteinian Bayesianism, Paul Horwich; Carnapian Inductive Logic for a Value Continuum, Brian Skyrms; How to Defend a Theory Without Testing It - Niels Bohr and the ""Logic of Pursuit"", Peter Achinstein; Empiricism, Objectivity and Explantion, Elisabeth A. Lloyd and Carl G. Anderson; Theoretical Explanation, R.I.G. Hughes; Selective Scientific Realism, Constructive Empiricism and the Unification of Theories, Steven Savitt; Essentially General Predicates, Peter Railton; On Philosophy and Natural Philosophy in the 17th Century, Howard Stein; There's a Hole and a Bucket, Dear Leibniz, Mark Wilson; The Transcendental Character of Determinism, Patrick Suppes; Idealisation and Explanation - a Case Study from Statistical Mechanics, Lawrence Sklar; The Fabric of Space - Intrinsic versus Extrinsic Distance Relations, Phillip Bricker; Against Experimental Metaphysics, Martin R. Jones and Robert K. Clifton; Scientific Realism and Quantum Mechanical Realism, Linda Wessels; Vacuum Concepts, Potentia and the Quantum Field Theoretic Vacuum Explained for All, Paul Teller; Genic Selection, Molecular Biology and Biological Instrumentalism, Alex Rosenberg; Could There Be a Science of Economics?, John Dupre; Function and Design, Philip Kitcher.