After Popper, Kuhn, and Feyerabend

by Nola, Robert; Sankey, Howard

• ISBN13: 9780792360322
• ISBN10: 079236032X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-12-01
• Publisher: Kluwer Academic Pub

Summary

Some think that issues to do with scientific method are last century's stale debate; Popper was an advocate of methodology, but Kuhn, Feyerabend, and others are alleged to have brought the debate about its status to an end. The papers in this volume show that issues in methodology are still very much alive. Some of the papers reinvestigate issues in the debate over methodology, while others set out new ways in which the debate has developed in the last decade. The book will be of interest to philosophers and scientists alike in the reassessment it provides of earlier debates about method and current directions of research.

Author Biography

Malcolm R. Forster is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin--Madison John F. Fox teaches in the School of Philosophy at La Trobe University, Bundoora Kevin T. Kelly is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University Larry Laudan does free-lance philosophy from his base in colonial Mexico Robert Nola teaches at the University of Auckland John D. Norton is a Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh Andrew Pyle is lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Bristol Howard Sankey is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Science in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Melbourne John Worrall is Professor of Philosophy of Science at the London School of Economics and Co-Director of the LSE's Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science

Table of Contents

Foreword	vii
Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	xi
Robert Nola
Howard Sankey
A Selective Survey of Theories of Scientific Method	1	(66)
Robert Nola
Howard Sankey
How We Know About Electrons	67	(32)
John D. Norton
The Rationality of the Chemical Revolution	99	(26)
Andrew Pyle
Kuhn, Bayes and `Theory-Choice': How Revolutionary is Kuhn's Account of Theoretical Change?	125	(28)
John Worrall
With Friends Like These... or What is Inductivism and Why is it Off the Agenda?	153	(12)
John F. Fox
Is Epistemology Adequate to the Task of Rational Theory Evaluation?	165	(12)
Larry Laudan
Naturalism Logicized	177	(34)
Kevin T. Kelly
Methodological Pluralism, Normative Naturalism and the Realist Aim of Science	211	(20)
Howard Sankey
Hard Problems in the Philosophy of Science: Idealisation and Commensurability	231	(20)
Malcolm R. Forster
Notes on Contributors	251	(2)
Index of Names	253