1 Carnap, Kuhn , and the History of Science J.C. Pinto De Oliveira IFCH
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History of Science (HIST SCI) 1
History of Science (HIST SCI) 1 HIST SCI 133 — BIOLOGY AND SOCIETY, 1950 - TODAY HISTORY OF SCIENCE (HIST 3 credits. From medical advancements to environmental crises and global food SCI) shortages, the life sciences are implicated in some of the most pressing social issues of our time. This course explores events in the history of biology from the mid-twentieth century to today, and examines how HIST SCI/ENVIR ST/HISTORY 125 — GREEN SCREEN: ENVIRONMENTAL developments in this science have shaped and are shaped by society. In PERSPECTIVES THROUGH FILM the first unit, we investigate the origins of the institutions, technologies, 3 credits. and styles of practice that characterize contemporary biology, such From Teddy Roosevelt's 1909 African safari to the Hollywood blockbuster as the use of mice as "model organisms" for understanding human King Kong, from the world of Walt Disney to The March of the Penguins, diseases. The second unit examines biological controversies such as the cinema has been a powerful force in shaping public and scientific introduction of genetically modified plants into the food supply. The final understanding of nature throughout the twentieth and twenty-first unit asks how biological facts and theories have been and continue to be century. How can film shed light on changing environmental ideas and used as a source for understanding ourselves. Enroll Info: None beliefs in American thought, politics, and culture? And how can we come Requisites: None to see and appreciate contested issues of race, class, and gender in Course Designation: Breadth - Either Humanities or Social Science nature on screen? This course will explore such questions as we come Level - Elementary to understand the role of film in helping to define the contours of past, L&S Credit - Counts as Liberal Arts and Science credit in L&S present, and future environmental visions in the United States, and their Repeatable for Credit: No impact on the real world struggles of people and wildlife throughout the Last Taught: Spring 2021 world. -
Thomas Kuhn on Paradigms
Vol. 29, No. 7, July 2020, pp. 1650–1657 DOI 10.1111/poms.13188 ISSN 1059-1478|EISSN 1937-5956|20|2907|1650 © 2020 Production and Operations Management Society Thomas Kuhn on Paradigms Gopesh Anand Department of Business Administration, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 469 Wohlers Hall, 1206 South Sixth Street, Champaign, Illinois 61820, USA, [email protected] Eric C. Larson Department of Business Administration, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 8 Wohlers Hall, 1206 S. Sixth, Champaign, Illinois 61820, USA, [email protected] Joseph T. Mahoney* Department of Business Administration, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 140C Wohlers Hall, 1206 South Sixth Street, Champaign, Illinois 61820, USA, [email protected] his study provides key arguments and contributions of Kuhn (1970) concerning paradigms, paradigm shifts, and sci- T entific revolutions. We provide interpretations of Kuhn’s (1970) key ideas and concepts, especially as they relate to business management research. We conclude by considering the practical implications of paradigms and paradigm shifts for contemporary business management researchers and suggest that ethical rules of conversation are at least as critical for the health of a scientific community as methodological rules (e.g., the rules of logical positivism) derived from the phi- losophy of science. Key words: Paradigms; paradigm shifts; scientific revolutions; normal science History: Received: February 2019; Accepted: March 2020 by Kalyan Singhal, after 3 revisions. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions the rich descriptions of the process of advancing this theory. SSR showed that science primarily advances Thomas S. -
Thomas Kuhn and Perspectival Realism a Thesis Presented to The
Thomas Kuhn and Perspectival Realism A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Ryan J. O'Loughlin April 2017 © 2017 Ryan J. O'Loughlin. All Rights Reserved. 2 This thesis titled Thomas Kuhn and Perspectival Realism by RYAN J. O'LOUGHLIN has been approved for the Department of Philosophy and the College of Arts and Sciences by Philip Ehrlich Professor of Philosophy Robert Frank Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 ABSTRACT O'LOUGHLIN, RYAN J., M.A., April 2017, Philosophy Thomas Kuhn and Perspectival Realism Director of Thesis: Philip Ehrlich In this paper I discuss Giere’s reading of Kuhn as affirming perspectival realism and I present evidence demonstrating that this reading of Kuhn is correct. I consider several scientific realist theses that Kuhn rejects and discuss whether and to what extent perspectival realism may be regarded as a scientific realist position. I suggest adding Kuhn’s account of incommensurability, understood in its later form, to Giere’s account of perspectival realism. I conclude by providing a definition of perspectival realism that incorporates Kuhn’s incommensurability thesis as well as the specific claims of scientific realism that are compatible with perspectival realism. Perspectival realism thus understood is, at most, a weak form of scientific realism. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract .............................................................................................................................. -
The Historical Turn in the Philosophy of Science
THE HISTORICAL TURN IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 1 Developments in the History of Science The history of science has a long history. Aristotle’s scientific works are prefaced by historical account of those sciences, and this model persisted through medieval times until and including the rise of modern science in the era of the scientific revolution. Joseph Priestley, for example, entitled two of his books of pioneering research The History and Present State of Electricity and The History and Present State of Discov- eries Relating to Vision, Light, and Colours. For many such early modern authors the history of science serves as a propaedeutic. William Whewell’s A History of the Induc- tive Sciences (1857) is regarded as the first genuinely modern work of the history of science. Even so, Whewell’s scholarship has an extra-historical purpose, which was to furnish the materials against which a satisfactory philosophy of science could be con- structed. While Whewell rejected a Leibnizian logic of discovery, he did nonetheless believe that general principles of scientific inference could be uncovered by careful consideration of the history of scientific research. Whewell’s approach was followed by several early positivists, notably, Mach, Ostwald, and Duhem. Nonetheless, as positivism developed philosophically it also became more ahis- torical. Carnap’s programme of a priori inductive logic was premised on a distinction between a context of discovery and a context of justification. The former concerned the process of coming up with an hypothesis, whereas the latter concerns its justification relative to the evidence. The former would be the province of psychology, although it may depend so much on details of individual biography that few general principles may be derived even a posteriori. -
A Positivist Route for Explaining How Facts Make Law
Legal Theory, 18 (2012), 139–207. c Cambridge University Press 2012 0361-6843/12 $15.00 + 00 doi:10.1017/S1352325212000079 A POSITIVIST ROUTE FOR EXPLAINING HOW FACTS MAKE LAW David Plunkett* Dartmouth College In “How Facts Make Law” and other recent work, Mark Greenberg argues that legal positivists cannot develop a viable constitutive account of law that meets what he calls the “the rational-relation requirement.” He argues that this gives us reason to reject positivism in favor of antipositivism. In this paper, I argue that Greenberg is wrong: positivists can in fact develop a viable constitutive account of law that meets the rational-relation requirement. I make this argument in two stages. First, I offer an account of the rational-relation requirement. Second, I put forward a viable positivist account of law that I argue meets this requirement. The account that I propose is a version of Scott Shapiro’s Planning Theory of Law. The version of Shapiro’s account that I propose combines (1) the account of concepts and conceptual analysis put forward by David Chalmers and Frank Jackson with (2) the account of the concept LEGAL INSTITUTION (and its conceptual connections to the concept LEGAL NORM)that we get from a certain reading of Shapiro’s Planning Theory. In addition to providing a compelling response to Greenberg’s argument in “How Facts Make Law,” I argue ∗ This paper has benefited enormously from a wide range of conversations and written comments. My greatest debt is to Scott Shapiro, who has helped me develop my basic argument over the last number of years. -
History of Science and History of Technology (Class Q, R, S, T, and Applicable Z)
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS COLLECTIONS POLICY STATEMENTS History of Science and History of Technology (Class Q, R, S, T, and applicable Z) Contents I. Scope II. Research strengths III. General collecting policy IV. Best editions and preferred formats V. Acquisitions sources: current and future VI. Collecting levels I. Scope This Collections Policy Statement covers all of the subclasses of Science and Technology and treats the history of these disciplines together. In a certain sense, most of the materials in Q, R, S, and T are part of the history of science and technology. The Library has extensive resources in the history of medicine and agriculture, but many years ago a decision was made that the Library should not intensively collect materials in clinical medicine and technical agriculture, as they are subject specialties of the National Library of Medicine and the National Agricultural Library, respectively. In addition, some of the numerous abstracting and indexing services, catalogs of other scientific and technical collections and libraries, specialized bibliographies, and finding aids for the history of science and technology are maintained in class Z. See the list of finding aids online: http://findingaids.loc.gov/. II. Research strengths 1. General The Library’s collections are robust in both the history of science and the history of technology. Both collections comprise two major elements: the seminal works of science and technology themselves, and historiographies on notable scientific and technological works. The former comprise the original classic works of science and technology as they were composed by the men and women who ushered in the era of modern science and invention. -
Sacred Rhetorical Invention in the String Theory Movement
University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Communication Studies Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research Communication Studies, Department of Spring 4-12-2011 Secular Salvation: Sacred Rhetorical Invention in the String Theory Movement Brent Yergensen University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/commstuddiss Part of the Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons Yergensen, Brent, "Secular Salvation: Sacred Rhetorical Invention in the String Theory Movement" (2011). Communication Studies Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research. 6. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/commstuddiss/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Communication Studies, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Communication Studies Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. SECULAR SALVATION: SACRED RHETORICAL INVENTION IN THE STRING THEORY MOVEMENT by Brent Yergensen A DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Major: Communication Studies Under the Supervision of Dr. Ronald Lee Lincoln, Nebraska April, 2011 ii SECULAR SALVATION: SACRED RHETORICAL INVENTION IN THE STRING THEORY MOVEMENT Brent Yergensen, Ph.D. University of Nebraska, 2011 Advisor: Ronald Lee String theory is argued by its proponents to be the Theory of Everything. It achieves this status in physics because it provides unification for contradictory laws of physics, namely quantum mechanics and general relativity. While based on advanced theoretical mathematics, its public discourse is growing in prevalence and its rhetorical power is leading to a scientific revolution, even among the public. -
Popper and Kuhn: Where They Clash, How They Compliment Each Other, and Drawing Conclusions
Popper and Kuhn: Where they Clash, How They Compliment Each Other, and Drawing Conclusions It has been said that the epistemological premises of Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper have every reason to negate one another. For the last half century, these men have had to withstand the onslaught of intellectual and ideological attacks for their claims of scientific development and evolution. Popper, a follower of Charles Pierce, developed his unique theory of falsification as a form of natural selection in the scientific sphere. Kuhn, a graduate student during Popper‟s time, formulated his own ideas about science as a social development defined by the presence or absence of a paradigm. Pat Hutcheon in her essay “Popper and Kuhn on the Evolution of Science” lays out an argument for the “promising complimentarity” the science community can gain from the comparison of these two men‟s claims. Hutcheon she is able to identify specific instances of similarity, undeniable differentiation, as well as areas of “promising complimentarity” between Popper and Kuhn. In an analysis of a 1965 debate between Popper and Kuhn sponsored by Imre Lakatos, M. G. Narasimhan outlines just how different the two philosophers are. Hutcheon and Narasimhan share an understanding of the contrasting views between Kuhn and Popper however, Hutcheon‟s argument for the agreeability of their theories is overlooked by Narasimhan and what undercuts his analysis. Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper contributed valuable insights about the “nature of science and the way in which scientific knowledge evolves (Hutcheon 1).” Generally speaking, a theory‟s “unfitness” and falsification, Popper‟s and Kuhn‟s ideas, respectively, share a common perspective on the growth of scientific knowledge. -
Introduction to Philosophy of Science
INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE The aim of philosophy of science is to understand what scientists did and how they did it, where history of science shows that they performed basic research very well. Therefore to achieve this aim, philosophers look back to the great achievements in the evolution of modern science that started with the Copernicus with greater emphasis given to more recent accomplishments. The earliest philosophy of science in the last two hundred years is Romanticism, which started as a humanities discipline and was later adapted to science as a humanities specialty. The Romantics view the aim of science as interpretative understanding, which is a mentalistic ontology acquired by introspection. They call language containing this ontology “theory”. The most successful science sharing in the humanities aim is economics, but since the development of econometrics that enables forecasting and policy, the humanities aim is mixed with the natural science aim of prediction and control. Often, however, econometricians have found that successful forecasting by econometric models must be purchased at the price of rejecting equation specifications based on the interpretative understanding supplied by neoclassical macroeconomic and microeconomic theory. In this context the term “economic theory” means precisely such neoclassical equation specifications. Aside from economics Romanticism has little relevance to the great accomplishments in the history of science, because its concept of the aim of science has severed it from the benefits of the examination of the history of science. The Romantic philosophy of social science is still resolutely practiced in immature sciences such as sociology, where mentalistic description prevails, where quantification and prediction are seldom attempted, and where implementation in social policy is seldom effective and often counterproductive. -
Science Studies and the History of Science Author(S): Lorraine Daston Reviewed Work(S): Source: Critical Inquiry, Vol
Science Studies and the History of Science Author(s): Lorraine Daston Reviewed work(s): Source: Critical Inquiry, Vol. 35, No. 4, The Fate of Disciplines Edited by James Chandler and Arnold I. Davidson (Summer 2009), pp. 798-813 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/599584 . Accessed: 15/12/2011 10:03 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Critical Inquiry. http://www.jstor.org Science Studies and the History of Science Lorraine Daston Introduction: Hard-hearted Adamant The current relation between science studies and the history of science brings to mind the opening scenes of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (or, minus the fairies, the high school comedy of your choice): Helena loves Demetrius, who used to love Helena, but now loves Hermia, who loves Lysander. A perfervid atmosphere of adolescence hangs over the play: rash promises, suicide threats, hyperbolic but sincere pledges of love and en- mity, and, above all, the breathless sense of everything being constantly up for grabs. -
The Principal Elements of the Nature of Science: Dispelling the Myths
THE PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS OF THE NATURE OF SCIENCE: DISPELLING THE MYTHS William F. McComas Rossier School of Education - WPH Univerisity of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089-0031 Adapted from the chapter in W. F. McComas (ed.) The Nature of Science in Science Education, 53-70. © 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. The “myths of science” discussed here are commonly included in science textbooks, in classroom discourse and in the minds of adult Americans. These fifteen issues, described here as “myths of science,” do not represent all of the important issues that teachers should consider when designing instruction relative to the nature of science, but may serve as starting points for evaluating current instructional foci while enhancing future curriculum design. Misconceptions about science are most likely due to the lack of philosophy of science content in teacher education programs and the failure of such programs to provide real science research experiences for preservice teachers while another source of the problem may be the generally shallow treatment of the nature of science in the textbooks to which teachers might turn for guidance. Some of these myths, such as the idea that there is a scientific method, are most likely caused by the explicit inclusion of faulty ideas in textbooks while others, such as lack of knowledge of the social construction of scientific knowledge, are the result of omissions in texts. As Steven Jay Gould points out in The Case of the Creeping Fox Terrier Clone (1988), science textbook writers are among the most egregious purveyors of myth and inaccuracy. -
1 Phil. 4400 Notes #1: the Problem of Induction I. Basic Concepts
Phil. 4400 Notes #1: The problem of induction I. Basic concepts: The problem of induction: • Philosophical problem concerning the justification of induction. • Due to David Hume (1748). Induction: A form of reasoning in which a) the premises say something about a certain group of objects (typically, observed objects) b) the conclusion generalizes from the premises: says the same thing about a wider class of objects, or about further objects of the same kind (typically, the unobserved objects of the same kind). • Examples: All observed ravens so far have been The sun has risen every day for the last 300 black. years. So (probably) all ravens are black. So (probably) the sun will rise tomorrow. Non-demonstrative (non-deductive) reasoning: • Reasoning that is not deductive. • A form of reasoning in which the premises are supposed to render the conclusion more probable (but not to entail the conclusion). Cogent vs. Valid & Confirm vs. Entail : ‘Cogent’ arguments have premises that confirm (render probable) their conclusions. ‘Valid’ arguments have premises that entail their conclusions. The importance of induction: • All scientific knowledge, and almost all knowledge depends on induction. • The problem had a great influence on Popper and other philosophers of science. Inductive skepticism: Philosophical thesis that induction provides no justification for ( no reason to believe) its conclusions. II. An argument for inductive skepticism 1. There are (at most) 3 kinds of knowledge/justified belief: a. Observations b. A priori knowledge c. Conclusions based on induction 2. All inductive reasoning presupposes the “Inductive Principle” (a.k.a. the “uniformity principle”): “The course of nature is uniform”, “The future will resemble the past”, “Unobserved objects will probably be similar to observed objects” 3.