<p>A collection of essays on the theory of history and the theory of nature. Topics include the genetic method and historical determinism, historical decision, the nature of metaphysics, empirical pluralism and unification of nature, ways of construing mind and intelligibility, and others.</p>
Methodological and Historical Essays in the Natural and Social Sciences
β Scribed by Herbert Feigl (auth.), Robert S. Cohen, Marx W. Wartofsky (eds.)
- Publisher
- Springer Netherlands
- Year
- 1974
- Tongue
- English
- Leaves
- 409
- Series
- Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 14
- Edition
- 1
- Category
- Library
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
β¦ Synopsis
Modem philosophy of science has turned out to be a Pandora's box. Once opened, the puzzling monsters appeared: not only was the neat structure of classical physics radically changed, but a variety of broader questions were let loose, bearing on the nature of scientific inquiry and of human knowledge in general. Philosophy of science could not help becoming epistemological and historical, and could no longer avoid metaphysical questions, even when these were posed in disguise. Once the identification of scientific methodology with that of physics had been queried, not only did biology and psychology come under scrutiny as major modes of scientific inquiry, but so too did history and the social sciences - particularly economics, sociology and anthropology. And now, new 'monsters' are emerging - for example, medicine and political science as disciplined inquiries. This raises anew a much older question, namely whether the conception of science is to be distinguished from a wider conception of learning and inquiry? Or is science to be more deeply understood as the most adequate form of learning and inquiry, whose methods reach every domain of rational thought? Is modern science matured reason, or is it simply one historically adapted and limited species of western reason? In our colloquia at Boston University, over the past fourteen years, we have been probing and testing the scope of philosophy of science.
β¦ Table of Contents
Front Matter....Pages I-VIII
Empiricism at Bay?....Pages 1-20
Empiricism at Sea....Pages 21-32
What Duhem Really Meant....Pages 33-56
Genius in Science....Pages 57-71
Regularity and Law....Pages 73-90
Teleological and Teleonomic, a New Analysis....Pages 91-117
Forces, Powers, Aethers, and Fields....Pages 119-159
Natural Science and the Future of Metaphysics....Pages 161-171
Is the Transition from an Old Theory to a New One of a Sudden and Unexpected Character?....Pages 173-196
Some Practical Issues in the Recent Controversy on the Nature of Scientific Revolutions....Pages 197-210
The Divergent-Convergent Method β a Heuristic Approach to Problem-Solving....Pages 211-233
The Logical and the Extra-Logical....Pages 235-252
What is a Logical Constant?....Pages 253-256
On the Law of Inertia....Pages 257-276
Scientific and Metaphysical Problems: Euler and Kant....Pages 277-305
Theory of Language and Philosophy of Science as Instruments of Educational Reform: Wittgenstein and Popper as Austrian Schoolteachers....Pages 307-337
Bible Criticism and Social Science....Pages 339-360
Kant, Marx and the Modern Rationality....Pages 361-375
The Marxist Conception of Science....Pages 377-396
The Idea of Statistical Law in Nineteenth Century Science....Pages 397-405
Back Matter....Pages 406-410
β¦ Subjects
Philosophy of Science
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