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Methodological and Historical Essays in the Natural and Social Sciences

  • Book
  • © 1974

Overview

Editors:
  1. Robert S. Cohen
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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  2. Marx W. Wartofsky
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Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science (BSPS, volume 14)

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Table of contents (20 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages I-VIII
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  2. Empiricism at Bay?

    • Herbert Feigl
    Pages 1-20

  3. Empiricism at Sea

    • Ernan McMullin
    Pages 21-32

  4. What Duhem Really Meant

    • Philip L. Quinn
    Pages 33-56

  5. Genius in Science

    • Michael Polanyi
    Pages 57-71

  6. Regularity and Law

    • W. A. Suchting
    Pages 73-90

  7. Teleological and Teleonomic, a New Analysis

    • Ernst Mayr
    Pages 91-117

  8. Forces, Powers, Aethers, and Fields

    • J. E. Mcguire
    Pages 119-159

  9. Natural Science and the Future of Metaphysics

    • Dudley Shapere
    Pages 161-171

  10. Is the Transition from an Old Theory to a New One of a Sudden and Unexpected Character?

    • Stanisa Novakovic
    Pages 173-196

  11. Some Practical Issues in the Recent Controversy on the Nature of Scientific Revolutions

    • William Berkson
    Pages 197-210

  12. The Divergent-Convergent Method — a Heuristic Approach to Problem-Solving

    • A. Polikarov
    Pages 211-233

  13. The Logical and the Extra-Logical

    • Fred Sommers
    Pages 235-252

  14. What is a Logical Constant?

    • Ernest Sosa
    Pages 253-256

  15. On the Law of Inertia

    • Gottlob Frege
    Pages 257-276

  16. Scientific and Metaphysical Problems: Euler and Kant

    • Yehuda Elkana
    Pages 277-305

  17. Theory of Language and Philosophy of Science as Instruments of Educational Reform: Wittgenstein and Popper as Austrian Schoolteachers

    • W. W. Bartley III
    Pages 307-337

  18. Bible Criticism and Social Science

    • Richard Popkin
    Pages 339-360

  19. Kant, Marx and the Modern Rationality

    • JindÅ™ich Zelený
    Pages 361-375

  20. The Marxist Conception of Science

    • Quentin Lauer
    Pages 377-396
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Keywords

About this book

Modem philosophy of science has turned out to be a Pandora's box. Once opened, the puzzling monsters appeared: not only was the neat structure of classical physics radically changed, but a variety of broader questions were let loose, bearing on the nature of scientific inquiry and of human knowledge in general. Philosophy of science could not help becoming epistemological and historical, and could no longer avoid metaphysical questions, even when these were posed in disguise. Once the identification of scientific methodology with that of physics had been queried, not only did biology and psychology come under scrutiny as major modes of scientific inquiry, but so too did history and the social sciences - particularly economics, sociology and anthropology. And now, new 'monsters' are emerging - for example, medicine and political science as disciplined inquiries. This raises anew a much older question, namely whether the conception of science is to be distinguished from a wider conception of learning and inquiry? Or is science to be more deeply understood as the most adequate form of learning and inquiry, whose methods reach every domain of rational thought? Is modern science matured reason, or is it simply one historically adapted and limited species of western reason? In our colloquia at Boston University, over the past fourteen years, we have been probing and testing the scope of philosophy of science.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Methodological and Historical Essays in the Natural and Social Sciences

  • Editors: Robert S. Cohen, Marx W. Wartofsky

  • Series Title: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2128-9

  • Publisher: Springer Dordrecht

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: D. Reidel Publishing Company 1974

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-90-277-0392-7Due: 30 April 1974

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-90-277-0378-1Published: 30 April 1974

  • eBook ISBN: 978-94-010-2128-9Published: 06 December 2012

  • Series ISSN: 0068-0346

  • Series E-ISSN: 2214-7942

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: 413

  • Topics: Philosophy of Science

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