Idealization and the Aims of Science

2020-09-23 Philosophy

Author : Angela Potochnik
Release : 2020-09-23
Genre : Philosophy
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 44X/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis Idealization and the Aims of Science by : Angela Potochnik

Download or read book Idealization and the Aims of Science written by Angela Potochnik. This book was released on 2020-09-23. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science is the study of our world, as it is in its messy reality. Nonetheless, science requires idealization to function—if we are to attempt to understand the world, we have to find ways to reduce its complexity. Idealization and the Aims of Science shows just how crucial idealization is to science and why it matters. Beginning with the acknowledgment of our status as limited human agents trying to make sense of an exceedingly complex world, Angela Potochnik moves on to explain how science aims to depict and make use of causal patterns—a project that makes essential use of idealization. She offers case studies from a number of branches of science to demonstrate the ubiquity of idealization, shows how causal patterns are used to develop scientific explanations, and describes how the necessarily imperfect connection between science and truth leads to researchers’ values influencing their findings. The resulting book is a tour de force, a synthesis of the study of idealization that also offers countless new insights and avenues for future exploration.

Idealization and the Aims of Science

2017-11-17 Philosophy

Author : Angela Potochnik
Release : 2017-11-17
Genre : Philosophy
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 05X/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis Idealization and the Aims of Science by : Angela Potochnik

Download or read book Idealization and the Aims of Science written by Angela Potochnik. This book was released on 2017-11-17. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the centrality of idealization to science and reconsiders the aims of science in light of it. Idealizations are assumptions made without regard for whether they are true--that a plane is frictionless, for example, or that humans are perfectly rational agents. Idealizations of all kinds pervade science and are often made with full knowledge that they are false. Moreover, it is uncommon for scientists to try to replace them with more accurate assumptions. Why do scientists deliberately maintain idealizations in their theories and models? What do they contribute to science? Angela Potochnik shows how a science practiced by human beings in a complex world results in rampant and unchecked idealization and argues that the full scope of the use of idealizations has significant implications for our best theories of what science shows us about the world, and of scientific explanations specifically. Her clear analysis will be welcomed by anyone curious about the nature of science.

The Limits Of Science

2014-08-12 Science

Author : Nicholas Rescher
Release : 2014-08-12
Genre : Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 069/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis The Limits Of Science by : Nicholas Rescher

Download or read book The Limits Of Science written by Nicholas Rescher. This book was released on 2014-08-12. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perfected science is but an idealization that provides a useful contrast to highlight the limited character of what we do and can attain. This lies at the core of various debates in the philosophy of science and Rescher's discussion focuses on the question: how far could science go in principle—what are the theoretical limits on science? He concentrates on what science can discover, not what it should discover. He explores in detail the existence of limits or limitations on scientific inquiry, especially those that, in principle, preclude the full realization of the aims of science, as opposed to those that relate to economic obstacles to scientific progress. Rescher also places his argument within the politics of the day, where "strident calls of ideological extremes surround us," ranging from the exaggeration that "science can do anything"—to the antiscientism that views science as a costly diversion we would be well advised to abandon. Rescher offers a middle path between these two extremes and provides an appreciation of the actual powers and limitations of science, not only to philosophers of science but also to a larger, less specialized audience.

As If

2017-08-14 Philosophy

Author : Kwame Anthony Appiah
Release : 2017-08-14
Genre : Philosophy
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 193/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis As If by : Kwame Anthony Appiah

Download or read book As If written by Kwame Anthony Appiah. This book was released on 2017-08-14. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Appiah is a writer and thinker of remarkable range... [He] has packed into this short book an impressive amount of original reflection... A rich and illuminating book.” —Thomas Nagel, New York Review of Books Idealization is a fundamental feature of human thought. We build simplified models to make sense of the world, and life is a constant adjustment between the models we make and the realities we encounter. Our beliefs, desires, and sense of justice are bound up with these ideals, and we proceed “as if” our representations were true, while knowing they are not. In this elegant and original meditation, Kwame Anthony Appiah suggests that this instinct to idealize is not dangerous or distracting so much as it is necessary. As If explores how strategic untruth plays a critical role in far-flung areas of inquiry: decision theory, psychology, natural science, and political philosophy. A polymath who writes with mainstream clarity, Appiah defends the centrality of the imagination not just in the arts but in science, morality, and everyday life. “Appiah is the rare public intellectual who is also a first-rate analytic philosopher, and the characteristic virtues associated with each of these identities are very much in evidence throughout the book.” —Thomas Kelly, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

The Instrument of Science

2019-03-25 Philosophy

Author : Darrell P. Rowbottom
Release : 2019-03-25
Genre : Philosophy
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 292/5 ( reviews)

GET EBOOK

Book Synopsis The Instrument of Science by : Darrell P. Rowbottom

Download or read book The Instrument of Science written by Darrell P. Rowbottom. This book was released on 2019-03-25. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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, however, Darrell P. Rowbottom develops a new form of instrumentalism, which is more sophisticated and resilient than its predecessors. This position—‘cognitive instrumentalism’—involves three core theses. First, science makes theoretical progress primarily when it furnishes us with more predictive power or understanding concerning observable things. Second, scientific discourse concerning unobservable things should only be taken literally in so far as it involves observable properties or analogies with observable things. Third, scientific claims about unobservable things are probably neither approximately true nor liable to change in such a way as to increase in truthlikeness. There are examples from science throughout the book, and Rowbottom demonstrates at length how cognitive instrumentalism fits with the development of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century chemistry and physics, and especially atomic theory. Drawing upon this history, Rowbottom also argues that there is a kind of understanding, empirical understanding, which we can achieve without having true, or even approximately true, representations of unobservable things. In closing the book, he sets forth his view on how the distinction between the observable and unobservable may be drawn, and compares cognitive instrumentalism with key contemporary alternatives such as structural realism, constructive empiricism, and semirealism. Overall, this book offers a strong defence of instrumentalism that will be of interest to scholars and students working on the debate about realism in philosophy of science.

Popular eBooks

Idealization and the Aims of Science

Idealization and the Aims of Science

The Limits Of Science

As If

The Instrument of Science

You may also like...