Science And The Constitutive A Priori
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| Author | : David J. Stump |
| Publisher | : Routledge |
| Total Pages | : 194 |
| Release | : 2015-05-15 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 1317495381 |
In this book, David Stump traces alternative conceptions of the a priori in the philosophy of science and defends a unique position in the current debates over conceptual change and the constitutive elements in science. Stump emphasizes the unique epistemological status of the constitutive elements of scientific theories, constitutive elements being the necessary preconditions that must be assumed in order to conduct a particular scientific inquiry. These constitutive elements, such as logic, mathematics, and even some fundamental laws of nature, were once taken to be a priori knowledge but can change, thus leading to a dynamic or relative a priori. Stump critically examines developments in thinking about constitutive elements in science as a priori knowledge, from Kant’s fixed and absolute a priori to Quine’s holistic empiricism. By examining the relationship between conceptual change and the epistemological status of constitutive elements in science, Stump puts forward an argument that scientific revolutions can be explained and relativism can be avoided without resorting to universals or absolutes.
| Author | : Boris D. Grozdanoff |
| Publisher | : Cambridge Scholars Publishing |
| Total Pages | : 195 |
| Release | : 2014-06-19 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 1443861766 |
The most influential rationalist model of scientific knowledge is arguably the one formulated recently by Michael Friedman. The central epistemic claim of the model concerns the character of its fundamental principles which are said to be independent from experience. Friedman’s position faces the modern empiricist challenge: he has to explain how the principles could still be a priori if they change under empirical pressure. This book provides a contemporary account of the epistemic character of the principles, addressing recent work on the a priori in modern analytic epistemology. Its main thesis is that at least some principles within natural science are not empirically but a priori revisable. A Priori Revisability in Science formulates a general notion of epistemic revisability and extracts two kinds of specific revisabilities: the traditional empirical one and the suggested novel a priori revisability. It presents the argument that the latter is as vital as the former and even so within natural science. To demonstrate this, the author analyzes two case studies – one from the history of geometry and one from the history of physics – and shows that the revisions were a priori. The result of this is two-fold. First, a genuine alternative of empirical revisability is developed, and not just for traditional a priori domains like mathematics, but for the natural sciences as well. Second, a new mechanism for the dynamics of science is suggested, the a priori dynamics, at the core of which the scientific knowledge sometimes evolves through non-empirical moves.
| Author | : Arthur Sullivan |
| Publisher | : Lexington Books |
| Total Pages | : 203 |
| Release | : 2018-04-06 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 1498547125 |
The question of the a priori—can an adequate epistemology be developed without appeal to a non-empirical source of justification?—is a core issue running throughout the history of philosophy, and recent decades have seen some provocative and potentially epochal work on the issue. Arthur Sullivan provides a clear-headed evaluation of the upshot of these developments. He argues that the notion of the constitutive a priori provides the best means, all things considered, of accommodating these recent developments into a coherent, compelling view. The constitutive a priori is most commonly known as a position within the philosophy of science, holding that one of Kant’s signature moves provides the means to incorporate unforeseen drastic shocks into existing theory. This book shows that this notion of the constitutive a priori provides not merely a satisfactory epistemological framework, but, further, a compelling way to accommodate and integrate some of the most significant lessons learned in twentieth century philosophy. Its distinctive contribution lies in the case it builds for taking this constitutive a priori orientation as a good means of integrating and consolidating certain epochal insights of Wittgenstein, Carnap, Quine, Kripke, and Kaplan.
| Author | : Mary Domski |
| Publisher | : Open Court Publishing |
| Total Pages | : 864 |
| Release | : 2010 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 081269662X |
Addressing a wide range of topics, from Newton to Post-Kuhnian philosophy of science, these essays critically examine themes that have been central to the influential work of philosopher Michael Friedman. Special focus is given to Friedman's revealing study of both history of science and philosophy in his work on Kant, Newton, Einstein, and other major figures. This interaction of history and philosophy is the subject of the editors' "manifesto" and serves to both explain and promote the essential ties between two disciplines usually regarded as unrelated.
| Author | : Christopher Pincock |
| Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
| Total Pages | : 352 |
| Release | : 2012-01-13 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 0190208570 |
Mathematics plays a central role in much of contemporary science, but philosophers have struggled to understand what this role is or how significant it might be for mathematics and science. In this book Christopher Pincock tackles this perennial question in a new way by asking how mathematics contributes to the success of our best scientific representations. In the first part of the book this question is posed and sharpened using a proposal for how we can determine the content of a scientific representation. Several different sorts of contributions from mathematics are then articulated. Pincock argues that each contribution can be understood as broadly epistemic, so that what mathematics ultimately contributes to science is best connected with our scientific knowledge. In the second part of the book, Pincock critically evaluates alternative approaches to the role of mathematics in science. These include the potential benefits for scientific discovery and scientific explanation. A major focus of this part of the book is the indispensability argument for mathematical platonism. Using the results of part one, Pincock argues that this argument can at best support a weak form of realism about the truth-value of the statements of mathematics. The book concludes with a chapter on pure mathematics and the remaining options for making sense of its interpretation and epistemology. Thoroughly grounded in case studies drawn from scientific practice, this book aims to bring together current debates in both the philosophy of mathematics and the philosophy of science and to demonstrate the philosophical importance of applications of mathematics.
| Author | : Hakob Barseghyan |
| Publisher | : Vernon Press |
| Total Pages | : 281 |
| Release | : 2022-02-08 |
| Genre | : Science |
| ISBN | : 1648893961 |
During the so-called ‘historical turn’ in the philosophy of science, philosophers and historians boldly argued for general patterns throughout the history of science. From Kuhn’s landmark "Structure of Scientific Revolutions" until the "Scrutinizing Science" project led by Larry Laudan, there was optimism that there could be a general theoretical approach to understanding the process of scientific change. This optimism gradually faded as historians and philosophers began to focus on the details of specific case studies located within idiosyncratic historical, cultural, and political contexts, and abandoned attempts to uncover general patterns of how scientific theories and methods change through time. Recent research has suggested that while we have learned a great deal about the diversity and complexity of scientific practices across history, the push to abandon hope for a broader understanding of scientific change was premature. Because of this, philosophers, historians, and social scientists have become interested in reviving the project of understanding the mechanism of scientific change while respecting the diversity and complexity that has been unveiled by careful historical research over the past few decades. The chapters in this volume consider a particular proposal for a general theory of how scientific theories and methods change over time, first articulated by Hakob Barseghyan in "The Laws of Scientific Change" and since developed in a series of papers by a variety of members of the scientonomy community. The chapters consider a wide range of issues, from conceptual and historical challenges to the posited intellectual patterns in the history of science, to the possibility of constructing a general theory of scientific change, to begin with. Offering a new take on the project of constructing a theory of scientific change and integrating historical, philosophical, and social studies of science, this volume will be of interest to historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science.
| Author | : Michela Massimi |
| Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
| Total Pages | : 216 |
| Release | : 2008-11-20 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 9780521748513 |
There has been an increasing interest in Kant and philosophy of science in the past twenty years. Through reconstructing Kantian legacies in the development of nineteenth and twentieth century physics and mathematics, this volume explores what relevance Kant's philosophy has in current debates in philosophy of science, mathematics and physics.
| Author | : Jean Cavailles |
| Publisher | : MIT Press |
| Total Pages | : 143 |
| Release | : 2021-04-27 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 1913029417 |
A new translation of the final work of French philosopher Jean Cavaillès. In this short, dense essay, Jean Cavaillès evaluates philosophical efforts to determine the origin—logical or ontological—of scientific thought, arguing that, rather than seeking to found science in original intentional acts, a priori meanings, or foundational logical relations, any adequate theory must involve a history of the concept. Cavaillès insists on a historical epistemology that is conceptual rather than phenomenological, and a logic that is dialectical rather than transcendental. His famous call (cited by Foucault) to abandon "a philosophy of consciousness" for "a philosophy of the concept" was crucial in displacing the focus of philosophical enquiry from aprioristic foundations toward structural historical shifts in the conceptual fabric. This new translation of Cavaillès's final work, written in 1942 during his imprisonment for Resistance activities, presents an opportunity to reencounter an original and lucid thinker. Cavaillès's subtle adjudication between positivistic claims that science has no need of philosophy, and philosophers' obstinate disregard for actual scientific events, speaks to a dilemma that remains pertinent for us today. His affirmation of the authority of scientific thinking combined with his commitment to conceptual creation yields a radical defense of the freedom of thought and the possibility of the new.
| Author | : Michael Friedman |
| Publisher | : Stanford Univ Center for the Study |
| Total Pages | : 141 |
| Release | : 2001-01 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 9781575862927 |
This book introduces a new approach to the issue of radical scientific revolutions, or "paradigm-shifts," given prominence in the work of Thomas Kuhn. The book articulates a dynamical and historicized version of the conception of scientific a priori principles first developed by the philosopher Immanuel Kant. This approach defends the Enlightenment ideal of scientific objectivity and universality while simultaneously doing justice to the revolutionary changes within the sciences that have since undermined Kant's original defense of this ideal. Through a modified Kantian approach to epistemology and philosophy of science, this book opposes both Quinean naturalistic holism and the post-Kuhnian conceptual relativism that has dominated recent literature in science studies. Focussing on the development of "scientific philosophy" from Kant to Rudolf Carnap, along with the parallel developments taking place in the sciences during the same period, the author articulates a new dynamical conception of relativized a priori principles. This idea applied within the physical sciences aims to show that rational intersubjective consensus is intricately preserved across radical scientific revolutions or "paradigm-shifts and how this is achieved.
| Author | : Michael Friedman |
| Publisher | : Harvard University Press |
| Total Pages | : 396 |
| Release | : 1992 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 9780674500358 |
Kant sought throughout his life to provide a philosophy adequate to the sciences of his time--especially Euclidean geometry and Newtonian physics. In this new book, Michael Friedman argues that Kant's continuing efforts to find a metaphysics that could provide a foundation for the sciences is of the utmost importance in understanding the development of his philosophical thought from its earliest beginnings in the thesis of 1747, through the Critique of Pure Reason, to his last unpublished writings in the Opus postumum. Previous commentators on Kant have typically minimized these efforts because the sciences in question have since been outmoded. Friedman argues that, on the contrary, Kant's philosophy is shaped by extraordinarily deep insight into the foundations of the exact sciences as he found them, and that this represents one of the greatest strengths of his philosophy. Friedman examines Kant's engagement with geometry, arithmetic and algebra, the foundations of mechanics, and the law of gravitation in Part One. He then devotes Part Two to the Opus postumum, showing how Kant's need to come to terms with developments in the physics of heat and in chemistry formed a primary motive for his projected Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics. Kant and the Exact Sciences is a book of high scholarly achievement, argued with impressive power. It represents a great advance in our understanding of Kant's philosophy of science.
