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Methodological Prospects for Scientific Research

From Pragmatism to Pluralism

  • Book
  • © 2020

Overview

Editors:
  1. Wenceslao J. Gonzalez

    1. Faculty of Humanities and Information Science, University of A Coruña, Ferrol, Spain

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  • Offers an analysis of scientific research from methodological pragmatism as well as from a pluralist methodological approach
  • Covers three methodological levels of scientific research: basic science, applied science and application of science
  • Brings together this volume a group of papers on the three main branches of empirical sciences: natural sciences, social sciences, and sciences of the artificial

Part of the book series: Synthese Library (SYLI, volume 430)

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Table of contents (11 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-vi
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  2. Pragmatism and Pluralism as Methodological Alternatives to Monism, Reductionism and Universalism

    • Wenceslao J. Gonzalez
    Pages 1-18

  3. A New Framework for Methodological Prospects to Scientific Research

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 19-19
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    2. Levels of Reality, Complexity, and Approaches to Scientific Method

      • Wenceslao J. Gonzalez
      Pages 21-51

    3. Multiscale Modeling: Explanation and Emergence

      • Robert W. Batterman
      Pages 53-65

  4. Pragmatist Approaches to Methodology of Science

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 67-67
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    2. Methodological Pragmatism

      • Nicholas Rescher
      Pages 69-80

    3. Methodological Incidence of the Realms of Reality: Prediction and Complexity

      • Amanda Guillan
      Pages 81-96

  5. Contextual Factors for Methodology of Science

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 97-97
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    2. Information and Pluralism. Consequences for Scientific Representation and Methods

      • Giovanni Camardi
      Pages 99-119

    3. The Methodology of Theories in Context: The Case of Economic Clustering

      • Catherine Greene, Max Steuer
      Pages 121-137

  6. Methodological Pluralism in Natural Sciences and Sciences of the Artificial

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 139-139
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    2. Plurality of Explanatory Strategies in Biology: Mechanisms and Networks

      • Alvaro Moreno, Javier Suárez
      Pages 141-165

    3. Scientific Prediction and Prescription in Plant Genetic Improvement as Applied Science of Design: The Natural and the Artificial

      • Pedro Martínez-Gómez
      Pages 167-182

  8. Back Matter

    Pages 235-247
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Keywords

About this book

This book highlights the existence of a diversity of methods in science, in general, in groups of sciences (natural, social or the artificial), and in individual sciences. This methodological variety is open to a number of consequences, such as the differences in the research according to levels of reality (micro, meso and macro), which leads to multi-scale modelling and to questioning “fundamental” parts in the sciences, understood as the necessary support for the whole discipline. In addition, this volume acknowledges the need to assess the efficacy of procedures and methods of scientific activity in engendering high quality results in research made; the relevance of contextual factors for methodology of science; the existence of a plurality of stratagems when doing research in empirical sciences (natural, social and of the artificial); and the need for an ethical component while developing scientific methods, because values should have a role in scientific research. The book is of interest to a broad audience of philosophers, academics in various fields, graduate students and research centers interested in methodology of science.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Faculty of Humanities and Information Science, University of A Coruña, Ferrol, Spain

    Wenceslao J. Gonzalez

About the editor

Wenceslao J. Gonzalez is Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science (University of A Coruña). He is a Full Member of the Académie International de Philosophie des Sciences/International Academy for Philosophy of Sciences. He has been a Team Leader of the European Science Foundation program entitled “The Philosophy of Science in a European Perspective” (2008-2013). He has been named a Distinguished Researcher by the Main National University of San Marcos in Lima (Peru). He has been a member of the National Committee for Evaluation of the Scientific Activity of Spain. Gonzalez has been a visiting researcher at the Universities of St. Andrews, Münster and London (LSE, CPNSS), as well as Visiting Fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science and Visiting Scholar of the Department of Philosophy (U. Pittsburgh). He has given lectures at the Universities of Pittsburgh, Stanford, Quebec in Montreal, Helsinki and Nevada at Reno. The conferences in which he has participated include those organized by the Universities of Uppsala, New South Wales, Bologna, Canterbury (NZ), Vienna, Beijing, Harvard and Boston. He received the Research Award in Humanities given in 1995 by the Autonomous Community of Galicia (Spain). He was President of the Committee of Doctoral Programs at the University of A Coruña (2002-2004). His publications include monographs such as Philosophico-Methodological Analysis of Prediction and its Role in Economics (Springer, 2015) and the edition of 40 volumes on philosophy of science, such as Bas van Fraassen’s Approach to Representation and Models in Science (2014).

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