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Title: Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science by Peter Godfrey-Smith ISBN: 0-226-30063-3 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: July, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Model of Balance and Clarity
Comment: I studied a lot of philosophy of science when I was in college and graduate school, just for fun. But that was many years ago, and I needed a dispassionate overview of the field and a guide to the various philosophical problems confronting scientific explanation. This was the perfect book.
Godfrey-Smith saves his own position for the last few chapters of the book, and tries to present a variety of views in the body of the book with great tolerance for imperfections, rough edges, and infelicities. Yet, he has no qualms about proclaiming that a certain view is no longer treated seriously in the field (e.g., logical positivism, covering law theory, analytic/synthetic division).
The book covers the whole of the Twentieth Century, from logical positivism, through Quine, Goodman, and Popper, to Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyerabend, Science Studies, feminism, and post-modernism. He is more balanced than I, I must say, since I really hate post-modernism and all of its fellow-travellers, whereas the author tries to find some pearls of wisdom scattered across the dross.
Godfrey-Smith comes out for versions of empiricism, naturalism, and scientific realism. I like his mix, but I am a scientist, not a philosopher, so my opinions carry no weight.
I would have liked the book to deal with creationism and intelligent design, which are burning issues in the US, though not (yet) in Europe. I would also have like the book to deal with forms of knowledge other scientific (e.g., aesthetic, street smarts, spiritual). Finally, the book doesn't deal with ethics at all. One could defend this by saying that this has nothing to do with science, but I think that is a conclusion and not a premise, and one which is in fact incorrect.
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Title: Thought in a Hostile World: The Evolution of Human Cognition by Kim Sterelny ISBN: 0631188878 Publisher: Blackwell Publishers Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Philosophy of Science : A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy) by Alexander Rosenberg, Alex Rosenberg ISBN: 041515281X Publisher: Routledge Pub. Date: October, 2000 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Science by Peter Machamer, Michael Silberstein ISBN: 0631221085 Publisher: Blackwell Publishers Pub. Date: January, 2002 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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Title: In Mendel's Mirror: Philosophical Reflections on Biology by Philip Kitcher ISBN: 0195151798 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: March, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Making Things Happen: A Theory of Causal Explanation (Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science) by James Woodward ISBN: 0195155270 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: November, 2003 List Price(USD): $65.00 |
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