Scientific Controversies Philosophical and Historical Perspectives

by Machamer, Peter; Pera, Marcello; Baltas, Aristides

• ISBN13: 9780195119879
• ISBN10: 0195119878
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-04-20
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Traditionally it has been thought that scientific controversies can always be resolved on the basis of empirical data. Recently, however, social constructionists have claimed that the outcome of scientific debates is strongly influenced by non-evidential factors such as the rhetorical prowess and professional clout of the participants. This volume of previously unpublished essays by well-known philosophers of science presents historical studies and philosophical analyses that undermine the plausibility of an extreme social constructionist perspective while also indicating the need for a richer and more realistic account of scientific rationality.

Author Biography

Aristides Baltas, National Technical University of Athens, Greece Pierluigi Barrotta, University of Pisa, Italy Gideon Freudenthal, Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel-Aviv University Kostas Gavroglu, University of Athens, Greece Richard Grandy, Rice University Ian Hacking, University of Toronto, Canada Philip Kitcher, Columbia University Peter Machamer, University of Pittsburgh Maurizio Mamiani, University of Ferrara, Italy Marcello Pera, University of Pisa, Italy Michael Ruse, University of Guelph, Canada Merrilee H. Salmon, University of Pittsburgh Wesley C. Salmon, University of Pittsburgh William A. Wallace, Catholic University, Emeritus

Table of Contents

Contributors	p. ix
Scientific Controversies: An Introduction	p. 3
The Structure of Scientific Controversies
Patterns of Scientific Controversies	p. 21
Classifying Scientific Controversies	p. 40
Rhetoric and Scientific Controversies	p. 50
On the Cognitive Analysis of Scientific Controversies	p. 67
Historical and Contemporary Reflections on Controversies
The Concept of the Individual and the Idea(l) of Method in seventeenth-Century Natural Philosophy	p. 81
Dialectics, Experiments, and Mathematics in Galileo	p. 100
A Rational Controversy over Compounding Forces	p. 125
The Structure of a Scientific Controversy: Hooke versus Newton about Colors	p. 143
Scientific Dialectics in Action: the Case of Joseph Priestley	p. 153
Controversies and the Becoming of Physical Chemistry	p. 177
Anthropology: Art of Science? A Controversy about the Evidence for Cannibalism	p. 199
Multiple Personalities, Internal Controversies, and Invisible Marvels	p. 213
The Theory of Punctuated Equilibria: Taking Apart a Scientific Controversy	p. 230
Quasars, Causality, and Geometry: A Scientific Controversy that Should Have Happened but Didn't	p. 254
Index	p. 271
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