Overview

The sequel to The Foundations of Metaphysics in Science, this book addresses the epistomological questions unexamined in the first work. The empiricist approach is directly challenged, and shown to be internally incoherent and incompatible with actual scientific practice.

Full Product Details

Author:   Errol E. Harris
Publisher:   Humanities Press International Inc.,U.S.
Imprint:   Humanities Press International Inc
Edition:   New edition
Dimensions:   Width: 13.80cm , Height: 2.80cm , Length: 23.00cm
Weight:   0.499kg
ISBN:  

9780391039537

ISBN 10:   0391039539
Pages:   408
Publication Date:   18 September 1996
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Out of stock  
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.

Table of Contents

Critical: prevalent views of science - the popular view, philosophical views; induction - disclaimer of necessity for justification, induction and probability, the pragmatic justification of induction, instrumentalism, new puzzles for old, the unreasonableness of induction; the empiricist treatment of deduction and necessity - conventionalism, deduction and explanation, counterfactual conditionals, conclusion; empiricist reformers - dilution of empiricism, Kneale on necessity, perception and consilience, Popper on Falsification, (a) basic statements, (b) hypothetico-deductive method. Historical: non-empirical aspects of scientific procedure - the Copernican revolution, (a) Copernicus, (b) Tycho Brahe, (c) Kepler, (d) Galileo, (e) Newton, Dalton and chemical combination, the conservation of mass and energy, relativity; deduction from phenomena - case histories; kepler's determination of the orbit of Mars, Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, Newton's experiments, Lavoisierand combustion, Darwin's defence of the evolution hypothesis, the discovery of the positron, findings; scientific advance - conceptual systems, recognition of observed data, articulation and proliferation of schemata, the origins of change, the transition process, innovation and conservatism, system and development. Epistemological: perception - the epistomological crux, common views of perception, sense-data, critique and merits of sense-data theories, achievement, discrepancy between data and percept, schemata, context, innate and acquired schemata, influence of past experience, interpretation, degrees of organization, perception and science; question and answer - science and common sense, question and presupposition, the origins of hypotheses, analogy and enumeration, abduction, confirmation, note - what is meant by discovery ?; the logic of construction - the concept of structure, formalism, logic and psychology, systematic thinking, necessity and causality, probability, induction and deduction, science as a system; the dialectic of progress - comprehensiveness and consistency as marks of adequacy, objections and criticisms, science as a scale, dialectic, the unity of science, hierarchy, agreement of results; science and truth - objectivity, science and reality, criticism and defence, knowlwdge and its object, validity and progress, science and metaphysics, science and religion.

Reviews

Author Information

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Countries Available

All regions