Peirce's Philosophy of Science: Critical Studies in His Theory of Induction and Scientific Method. Nicholas Rescher

Isis ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 666-667
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Critical Studies ◽  
Nicholas Rescher

Scientific Change

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anouk Barberousse
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Scientific Change ◽  
General Question ◽  
Scientific Enterprise ◽  
History Of ◽  
Dynamics Of Science

How should we think of the dynamics of science? What are the relationships between an earlier theory and the theory that has superseded it? This chapter introduces the heated debates on the nature of scientific change, at the intersection of philosophy of science and history of science, and their bearing on the more general question of the rationality of the scientific enterprise. It focuses on the issue of the continuity or discontinuity of scientific change and the various versions of the incommensurability thesis one may uphold. Historicist views are balanced against nagging questions regarding scientific progress (Is there such a thing? If so, how should it be defined?), the causes of scientific change (Are they to be found within scientific method itself?), and its necessity (Is the history of scientific developments an argument in favor of realism, or could we have had entirely different sciences?).

1. The methods and fruits of science

2021 ◽  
pp. 7-22
Author(s):  
David Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Dark Matter ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Real Science ◽  
The World ◽  
Key Topics ◽  
Theory Test

This chapter briefly discusses central key topics in the philosophy of science that the remainder of the book draws upon. It begins by considering the scientific method. ‘Induction’—the idea that we construct scientific theories just by generalizing from observations—is a very poor match to real science. ‘Falsification’—Popper’s idea that we create a theory, test against observation, and discard it if it fails the test—is much more realistic, but still too simple: data only falsifies data given auxiliary assumptions that can themselves be doubted. The issues are illustrated through an example from modern astrophysics: dark matter. The chapter then explores how we can resolve issues of underdetermination, where two theories give the same predictions. Finally, it introduces ‘scientific realism’, the view that our best theories tell us things about the world that go beyond what is directly observable.

Does Popper Explain Historical Explanation?

1995 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 225-240
Author(s):  
Kenneth Minogue
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Historical Explanation ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

It is one of Karl Popper's great distinctions that he has an intense—some would say too intense—awareness of the history of philosophy within which he works. He knows not only its patterns, but also its comedies, and sometimes he plays rhetorically against their grain. He knows, for example, that the drive to consistency tends to turn philosophy into compositions of related doctrines, each seeming to involve the others. Religious belief, for example, tends to go with idealism and free will, religious scepticism with materialism and determinism. Popper does not believe in a religion, was for long some kind of a socialist, and takes his bearings from the philosophy of science. Aha! it seems we have located him. Here is a positivist, a materialist, probably a determinist. But of course he denies he is any of these things. Again, like many modern thinkers, he wants to extend scientific method not only to the social sciences but also to history. So far so familiar, until we discover that he regards nature as no less ‘cloudy’ than human societies.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian D. Haig
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Quantitative Research Methods

Chapter 1 discusses the importance and relevance of the philosophy of science for an in-depth understanding of quantitative research methods. It outlines a philosophy of scientific realism in terms of its methodology and introduces major theories of scientific method. This introductory chapter provides key ideas that should help make sense of the treatment of the five methods dealt with in the book. Three major theories of scientific method are sketched because they figure in some of the ensuing chapters. An overview of the book is provided in terms of chapter summaries. A note for the reader is provided that indicates why a limited number of methods were selected for consideration.

Model-Based Science and the Ethics of Ongoing Treatment Negotiation

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas W. Heinrichs
Keyword(s):  
Medical Ethics ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
Autonomous Agents ◽  
Treatment Decisions ◽  
Optimal Treatment ◽  
Scientific Process ◽  
Model Based ◽  
Current Thinking ◽  
Evidence In Medicine

Current thinking in medical ethics posits that treatment decisions should result from negotiation between clinician and patient as autonomous agents. However the view of science that underlies most thinking about evidence in medicine encourages the belief that in principle optimal evi-dence-based judgment as to best treatments can be reached by the clinician apart from such ne-gotiation, reducing negotiation to a sham process. A model-based notion of science, derived from a naturalistic philosophy of science, argues that the process of predicting optimal treatment re-quires consideration of a patient’s goals, and thus requires ongoing negotiations with the patient. Hence values are integral to the scientific process, not something extra-scientific that must be reconciled with it. From this perspective the clinician’s activity becomes one with scientific method rather than an ill-defined, and typically undervalued, art.

Peirce and Rescher on Scientific Progress and Economy of Research

Dialogue ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 357-365
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Goudge
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Nicholas Rescher ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Charles Peirce ◽  
As If ◽  
The Way

Charles Peirce had a flair for asking fruitful questions and for proposing answers that did not block the way of inquiry. Typical examples occur in his philosophy of science where he raises issues that are still very much alive. They include such items as the nature and conditions of scientific progress, the grounds of human success in formulating theories, the completability of scientific knowledge, and the limits imposed by the economy of research. Because these are living issues, Peirce's ideas about them invite examination as if he were our philosophical contemporary. Nicholas Rescher so examines them in his compact, timely book. His treatment is sympathetic but by no means uncritical, as might have been expected in view of the similarities and differences between his own position of methodological pragmatism and the pragmaticism of Peirce. The ensuing discussion thus seems to me worth looking at in a bit of detail.

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