1. Introduction: Where Do We Stand?
2. The Question of Unity: In Search for Common Foundations of the Sciences
3. The Conceptual Toolkit: Language, Logic, and Probability
4. A Question of Fit: Law Hypotheses and Their Empirical Testing
5. Going beyond Experience: Theories and Their Empirical Evaluation
6. In Search of Causes: Explanation and All That Goes with It
Biography
Gerhard Schurz (MSc 1980, PhD 1983) is Professor of Philosophy at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (since March 2002) and member of the Leopoldina (German Academy of Sciences) and the International Academy for Philosophy of Science. Before 2002, he was an Associated Professor at the University of Salzburg and a Guest Professor at the University of California at Irvine and Yale University. His research areas include philosophy of science, epistemology, logic, and cognitive science. He is the author of 270 research articles and 12 books.
I consider this book to be a unique work both with regard to the sheer amount of material it covers but also with regard to the clarity, depth and insight with which these matters are dealt with by one of Europe’s foremost analytic philosophers. I would not hesitate to use it in an advanced course on the subject, and I believe it would work well also for an introductory course given the careful way in which the book is structured into introductory and advanced material.
Erik J. Olsson, Lund University
Philosophy of Science: A Unified Approach revamps and bolsters the logical empiricist way to think about and to practice philosophy of science. It combines technical precision and rigour with philosophical breadth and depth. It delves into all major philosophical problems and issues in general philosophy of science. It elegantly presents the received positions and approaches, but it also articulates novel views and arguments. It systematically explains the necessary technical concepts and makes them do deep philosophical work. Philosophy of Science: A Unified Approach lives up to its promise to highlight and defend the methodological unity of the sciences. Gerhard Schurz has written a superb introduction to philosophy of science; novices and experts alike have a lot to learn from it.
Stathis Psillos, University of Western Ontario and University of Athens
This is an excellent introduction to the general philosophy of science. It is lucidly written and very well structured in elementary and advanced subsections. Inspired by the classic authors of the 20th century, such as Carnap and Popper, and guided by the methodological version of the idea of the unity of the sciences and the humanities, Gerhard Schurz shows how it stands with the main topics in the first decades of the 21st century.
Theo Kuipers, University of Groningen
