A Philosopher Looks at Science

✍ Scribed by Nancy Cartwright

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 222
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

What is science and what can it do? Nancy Cartwright here takes issue with three common images of science: that it amounts to the combination of theory and experiment; that all science is basically reducible to physics; and that science and the natural world which it pictures are deterministic. The author's innovative and thoughtful book draws on examples from the physical, life, and social sciences alike, and focuses on all the products of science – not just experiments or theories – and how they work together. She reveals just what it is that makes science ultimately reliable, and how this reliability is nevertheless still compatible with a view of nature as more responsive to human change than we might think. Her book is a call for greater intellectual humility by and within scientific institutions. It will have strong appeal to anyone who thinks about science and how it is practised in society.

A refreshing, engaging and authoritative new take on science by one of our foremost contemporary philosophers
Shows what is wrong with common perceptions of science and argues for a more nuanced approach
Highlights why intellectual humility in scientific institutions matters and what can go wrong when this is absent

✦ Table of Contents

Introduction 2
Science = Theory + Experiment 3
It’s All Physics Really 5
The Laws of Physics Fix Happenings
Deterministically 7
What’s Wrong with These Three Images? 8

1 Theory + Experiment Do Not a Science Make 12
Preface 12
The Centrality of Theory and Experiment, Knowledge
and Observation 17
The Melange of Theory Ingredients 19
Concepts 20
Defining Concepts 21
Stabilising Concepts 32
Misusing Concepts 34
Models and Narratives 53
Diagrams, Illustrations and Graphs 58
Experiments and the Testing of Theory 60
Experiments: A Life of Their Own 62
Exploring 63
Creating Phenomena 66
Reconstituting Phenomena 67
You Can’t Build an Experiment without a Gigantic
Meccano Set 71

2 Dethroning the Queen 80
Preface 80
The Mechanical Philosophy and Its Legacy 83
Physicalism and Materialism 86
How Philosophers Talk about Reduction 89
Type-Type Reduction 91
Token-Token Reduction 93
Supervenience 97
Grounding 101
Why Chemistry Isn’t All Physics 103
Even Physics Isn’t All Physics 107
Unity at the Point of Action 120

3 A Nature More Negotiable 122
Preface 122
Whence ‘Dappled’? 126
The Disappearance of Diversity 128
A Contemporary Example Where
Difference Mattered 134
A Review of the Argument for Absolute Rule 136
Arguing from Science to the World 140
Where Is Physics Successful? 144
Tendency Laws and How to Understand Them 156
In Sum 165
Parting Thoughts 168
Some Starting Cases to Consider 169
Diagnosis 177
Take-Home Message 181
Anthony Fauci, AIDS and the Parallel Track 182
Barbara McClintock and the Right to Be Different 186

Conclusion 188
Notes 189
Bibliography 195
Index 202