Philosophy of Science: The Key Thinkers

by Brown, James Robert

• ISBN13: 9781441142009
• ISBN10: 1441142002
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-04-19
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

As a discipline, the philosophy of science is as old as philosophy itself. Philosophy of Science: The Key Thinkers offers a comprehensive historical overview of this fascinating field. Twelve specially commissioned essays introduce and explore the contributions of those philosophers who have shaped the subject and the central issues and arguments therein. All the great philosophers from Plato and Aristotle to the present day have been philosophers of science. However, this book concentrates on modern philosophy of science, starting in the nineteenth century and offering coverage of all the leading thinkers in the field including Whewell, Mill, Reichenbach, Carnap, Quine, Popper, Feyerabend, Putnam, Hacking, Cartwright and many more. Crucially the book demonstrates how the ideas and arguments of these key thinkers have contributed to our understanding of such central issues as experience and necessity, conventionalism, logical empiricism, induction and falsification, the sociology of science, and realism. Ideal for undergraduate students, the book lays the necessary foundations for a complete and thorough understanding of this fascinating subject.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements \ Notes on Contributors \Preface\ 1. Introduction James Robert Brown \ 2. Experience and Necessity:TheWhewell and Mill Debate Laura Snyder \ 3. Conventionalism: Poincaré, Duhem,Reichenbach Torsten Wilholt \ 4. The ViennaCircle: Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap, Otto Neurath Friedrich Stadler \ 5. Carl G. Hempel: Logical Empiricist Martin Curd \ 6. Anti-Inductivism as Worldview: The Philosophy of Karl PopperSteveFuller \ 7. Historical Approaches: Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend MartinCarrier \ 8. The Contingency of the Causal Nexus: Ghazali and Modern Science Arun Bala \ 9.Sociology ofScience: Bloor, Collins, Latour Martin Kusch \ 10. One Cannot Be Just a Little Bit Realist: Putnam andvan Fraassen Stathis Psillos \ 11. Beyond Theories: Hacking andCartwright William Seager \ 12. Feminist Critiques: Hardingand Longino Janet Kourany \ Afterword\ Index.