This edited collection is the first of its kind to explore the view called perspectivism in philosophy of science. The book brings together an array of essays that reflect on the methodological promises and scientific challenges of perspectivism in a variety of fields such as physics, biology,…
Hardback – 2019-07-01
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
Roughly, instrumentalism is the view that science is primarily, and should primarily be, an instrument for furthering our practical ends. It has fallen out of favour because historically influential variants of the view, such as logical positivism, suffered from serious defects. In this book,…
Hardback – 2019-03-18
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
This book offers a novel defence of a highly contested philosophical position: biological natural kind essentialism. This theory is routinely and explicitly rejected for its purported inability to be explicated in the context of contemporary biological science, and its supposed incompatibility with…
Hardback – 2018-09-20
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
In this book, David Stump traces alternative conceptions of the a priori in the philosophy of science and defends a unique position in the current debates over conceptual change and the constitutive elements in science. Stump emphasizes the unique epistemological status of the constitutive elements…
Paperback – 2018-08-14
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
Although scientific models and simulations differ in numerous ways, they are similar in so far as they are posing essentially philosophical problems about the nature of representation. This collection is designed to bring together some of the best work on the nature of representation being done by…
Paperback – 2017-11-28
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
Conservative Reductionism sets out a new theory of the relationship between physics and the special sciences within the framework of functionalism. It argues that it is wrong-headed to conceive an opposition between functional and physical properties (or functional and physical descriptions,…
Paperback – 2017-11-28
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
In this book, Reiss argues in favor of a tight fit between evidence, concept and purpose in our causal investigations in the sciences. There is no doubt that the sciences employ a vast array of techniques to address causal questions such as controlled experiments, randomized trials, statistical and…
Paperback – 2017-11-28
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
The last two decades have seen two significant trends emerging within the philosophy of science: the rapid development and focus on the philosophy of the specialised sciences, and a resurgence of Aristotelian metaphysics, much of which is concerned with the possibility of emergence, as well as the…
Hardback – 2017-10-31
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
In the 1980s, philosophical, historical and social studies of science underwent a change which later evolved into a turn to practice. Analysts of science were asked to pay attention to scientific practices in meticulous detail and along multiple dimensions, including the material, social and…
Paperback – 2017-05-16
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
New concepts are constantly being introduced into our thinking. Conceptual Systems explores how these new concepts are entered into our systems along with sufficient continuity with older ideas to ensure understanding. The encyclopedic breadth of this text highlights the many different aspects and…
Paperback – 2016-01-21
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
One of the most pervasive and persistent questions in philosophy is the relationship between the natural sciences and traditional philosophical categories such as metaphysics, epistemology and the mind. Contemporary Philosophical Naturalism and Its Implications is a unique and valuable contribution…
Paperback – 2015-09-03
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
The year 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Thomas S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Up until recently, the book’s philosophical reception has been shaped, for the most part, by the debates and the climate in philosophy of science in the 1960s and 1970s; this new…
Paperback – 2015-06-23
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
From Lucretius throwing a spear beyond the boundary of the universe to Einstein racing against a beam of light, thought experiments stand as a fascinating challenge to the necessity of data in the empirical sciences. Are these experiments, conducted uniquely in our imagination, simply rhetorical…
Paperback – 2015-06-23
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
This study addresses a central theme in current philosophy: Platonism vs Naturalism and provides accounts of both approaches to mathematics, crucially discussing Quine, Maddy, Kitcher, Lakoff, Colyvan, and many others. Beginning with accounts of both approaches, Brown defends Platonism by arguing…
Paperback – 2014-07-03
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
Popper’s Critical Rationalism presents Popper’s views on science, knowledge, and inquiry, and examines the significance and tenability of these in light of recent developments in philosophy of science, philosophy of probability, and epistemology. It develops a fresh and novel philosophical position…
Paperback – 2013-05-23
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
The concept of emergence has seen a significant resurgence in philosophy and the sciences, yet debates regarding emergentist and reductionist visions of the natural world continue to be hampered by imprecision or ambiguity. Emergent phenomena are said to arise out of and be sustained by more basic…
Paperback – 2013-03-21
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
Science is popularly understood as being an ideal of impartial algorithmic objectivity that provides us with a realistic description of the world down to the last detail. The essays collected in this book—written by some of the leading experts in the field—challenge this popular image right at its…
Paperback – 2010-11-10
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
This book seeks to rectify misrepresentations of Popperian thought with a historical approach to Popper’s philosophy, an approach which applies his own mature view, that we gain knowledge through conjectures and refutations, to his own development, by portraying him in his intellectual growth as…
Paperback – 2010-11-03
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
Nancy Cartwright is one of the most distinguished and influential contemporary philosophers of science. Despite the profound impact of her work, there is neither a systematic exposition of Cartwright’s philosophy of science nor a collection of articles that contains in-depth discussions of the…
Paperback – 2010-06-07
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science
Evolutionary thinking has expanded in the last decades, spreading from its traditional stronghold – the explanation of speciation and adaptation in biology - to new domains. Fascinating pieces of work, the essays in this collection attest to the illuminating power of evolutionary thinking when…
Paperback – 2010-04-01
Routledge
Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science