Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science

by Azzouni; Jody

• ISBN13: 9780415223836
• ISBN10: 0415223830
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-08-04
• Publisher: ROUTLEDGE

Summary

"Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science" is a fascinating study of the bounds between science, knowledge and language: what kind of knowledge does science give us, and can the language of science be taken literally to describe the truth? In the first half of the book, Jody Azzouni examines the issues surrounding our knowledge of scientific theories, and how we gather evidence for them and test them. The second half of the book is concerned with "reference," the relationship between the use of a word and the object to which it refers. Azzouni defends the position of "semantic naturalism": the idea that the workings of language, including reference, are compatible with our current picture of the laws and methods of science. Now available in paperback, "Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science" is an illuminating journey from the very foundations of philosophy of science through to contemporary issues in philosophy of language.

Author Biography

Jody Azzouni is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
Acknowledgments	ix
General introduction	1	(10)
Procedural foundationalism	11	(74)
Introduction to Part I	13	(3)
Program and scope	16	(15)
Reductionism, confirmation holism, theoretical deductivism	31	(7)
Some observations on reductionism and the ``autonomy'' of the special sciences	38	(10)
Some comments on the philosophical implications of the use of idealizations in science	48	(15)
Gross regularities	63	(8)
Procedures and perceptual procedures	71	(7)
Shedding perceptual procedures	78	(4)
Conclusion to Part I	82	(3)
Two-tiered coherentism	85	(54)
Introduction to Part II	87	(2)
Evidential centrality	89	(8)
Ob-similar extensions and ob*-similar extensions	97	(10)
Ob-similarity, observational regularities, reasons for incommensurability	107	(5)
Kuhnian considerations and the accumulation of knowledge	112	(6)
Perceptual impermeability and biotechnical incommensurability	118	(5)
Methodological observations about epistemology, scepticism and truth	123	(16)
Permuting reference	139	(48)
Introduction to Part III	141	(3)
Formal considerations	144	(4)
Quine's version	148	(12)
Field's version	160	(3)
Putnam's version	163	(7)
The ontological status of causality	170	(7)
Some puzzles about reference	177	(7)
Conclusion to Part III	184	(3)
The transcendence of reference	187	(56)
Introduction to Part IV	189	(3)
Troubles for naive naturalism	192	(11)
The elusivity of reference	203	(12)
Causality and reference: an analysis	215	(7)
Transcending procedures	222	(11)
Transcendence and its discontents	233	(7)
General conclusion	240	(3)
Bibliography	243	(10)
Index	253