Counterfactuals And Scientific Realism PDF Download
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Author | : Michael J. Shaffer |
Publisher | : Springer |
Total Pages | : 327 |
Release | : 2012-08-13 |
Genre | : Science |
ISBN | : 1137271582 |
Download Counterfactuals and Scientific Realism Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
The author attempts to show that scientific realism is compatible with the presence of idealization in the sciences. His main contention is that idealized theories can be treated as counterfactuals about how things are in worlds that are similar to but simpler than the actual world.
Author | : Michela Massimi |
Publisher | : Routledge |
Total Pages | : 329 |
Release | : 2019-06-03 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 1351383396 |
Download Understanding Perspectivism Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
This edited collection is the first of its kind to explore the view called perspectivism in philosophy of science. The book brings together an array of essays that reflect on the methodological promises and scientific challenges of perspectivism in a variety of fields such as physics, biology, cognitive neuroscience, and cancer research, just as a few examples. What are the advantages of using a plurality of perspectives in a given scientific field and for interdisciplinary research? Can different perspectives be integrated? What is the relation between perspectivism, pluralism, and pragmatism? These ten new essays by top scholars in the field offer a polyphonic journey towards understanding the view called ‘perspectivism’ and its relevance to science.
Author | : David Lewis |
Publisher | : John Wiley & Sons |
Total Pages | : 183 |
Release | : 2013-05-28 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 1118696417 |
Download Counterfactuals Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Counterfactuals is David Lewis' forceful presentation of and sustained argument for a particular view about propositions which express contrary to fact conditionals, including his famous defense of realism about possible worlds.
Author | : Moritz Schulz |
Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
Total Pages | : 247 |
Release | : 2017 |
Genre | : Mathematics |
ISBN | : 019878595X |
Download Counterfactuals and Probability Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Moritz Schulz explores counterfactual thought and language: what would have happened if things had gone a different way. Counterfactual questions may concern large scale derivations (what would have happened if Nixon had launched a nuclear attack) or small scale evaluations of minor derivations (what would have happened if I had decided to join a different profession). A common impression, which receives a thorough defence in the book, is that oftentimes we find it impossible to know what would have happened. However, this does not mean that we are completely at a loss: we are typically capable of evaluating counterfactual questions probabilistically: we can say what would have been likely or unlikely to happen. Schulz describes these probabilistic ways of evaluating counterfactual questions and turns the data into a novel account of the workings of counterfactual thought.
Author | : Hilary P. Dannenberg |
Publisher | : U of Nebraska Press |
Total Pages | : 304 |
Release | : 2008-07-01 |
Genre | : Literary Criticism |
ISBN | : 0803210930 |
Download Coincidence and Counterfactuality Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
In Coincidence and Counterfactuality, a groundbreaking analysis of plot, Hilary P. Dannenberg sets out to answer the perennial question of how to tell a good story. While plot is among the most integral aspects of storytelling, it is perhaps the least studied aspect of narrative. Using plot theory to chart the development of narrative fiction from the Renaissance to the present, Dannenberg demonstrates how the novel has evolved over time and how writers have developed increasingly complex narrative strategies that tap into key cognitive parameters familiar to the reader from real-life experience. ø Dannenberg proposes a new, multidimensional theory for analyzing time and space in narrative fiction, then uses this theory to trace the historical evolution of narrative fiction by focusing on coincidence and counterfactuality. These two key plot strategiesøare constructed around pivotal moments when characters? life trajectories, or sometimes the paths of history, converge or diverge. The study?s rich historical and textual scope reveals how narrative traditions and genres such as romance and realism or science fiction and historiographic metafiction, rather than being separated by clear boundaries are in fact in a continual process of interaction and cross-fertilization. In highlighting critical stages in the historical development of narrative fiction, the study produces new readings of works by pinpointing the innovative role played by particular authors in this evolutionary process. Dannenberg?s original investigation of plot patterns is interdisciplinary, incorporating research from narrative theory, cognitive approaches to literature, social psychology, possible worlds theory, and feminist approaches to narrative.
Author | : David K. Lewis |
Publisher | : |
Total Pages | : 150 |
Release | : 1976 |
Genre | : Counterfactuals (Logic) |
ISBN | : 9780674175402 |
Download Counterfactuals Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Author | : Dorit A. Ganson |
Publisher | : Routledge |
Total Pages | : 222 |
Release | : 2020-01-31 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 1136712046 |
Download The Explanationist Defense of Scientific Realism Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Ganson offers new hope in this work for the defense of scientific realism by undermining powerful anti-realist objections and advocating an abandonment of naturalist and externalist strategies.
Author | : Roy Bhaskar |
Publisher | : Verso Books |
Total Pages | : 367 |
Release | : 2020-05-05 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 1789603536 |
Download A Realist Theory of Science Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
A Realist Theory of Science is one of the few books that have changed our understanding of the philosophy of science. In this analysis of the natural sciences, with a particular focus on the experimental process itself, Roy Bhaskar provides a definitive critique of the traditional, positivist conception of science and stakes out an alternative, realist position. Since it original publication in 1975, a movement known as 'Critical Realism', which is both intellectually diverse and international in scope, has developed on the basis of key concepts outlined in the text. The book has been hailed in many quarters as a 'Copernican Revolution' in the study of the nature of science, and the implications of its account have been far-reaching for many fields of the humanities and social sciences.
Author | : Steven French |
Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
Total Pages | : 352 |
Release | : 2020-02-13 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 0192546562 |
Download Scientific Realism and the Quantum Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Quantum theory is widely regarded as one of the most successful theories in the history of science. It explains a hugely diverse array of phenomena and is a natural candidate for our best representation of the world at the level of 'fundamental' physics. But how can the world be the way quantum theory says it is? It is famously unclear what the world is like according to quantum physics, which presents a serious problem for the scientific realist who is committed to regarding our best theories as more or less true. The present volume canvasses a variety of responses to this problem, from restricting or revising realism in different ways to exploring entirely new directions in the lively debate surrounding realist interpretations of quantum physics. Some urge us to focus on new formulations of the theory itself, while others examine the status of scientific realism in the further context of quantum field theory. Each chapter is written by a renowned specialist in the field and is aimed at graduate students and researchers in both physics and the philosophy of science. Together they offer a range of illuminating new perspectives on this fundamental debate and exemplify the fruitful interaction between physics and philosophy.
Author | : Alastair Wilson |
Publisher | : Oxford University Press, USA |
Total Pages | : 232 |
Release | : 2020-01-30 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 0198846215 |
Download The Nature of Contingency Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
This book defends a radical new theory of contingency as a physical phenomenon. Drawing on the many-worlds approach to quantum theory and cutting-edge metaphysics and philosophy of science, it argues that quantum theories are best understood as telling us about the space of genuine possibilities, rather than as telling us solely about actuality. When quantum physics is taken seriously in the way first proposed by Hugh Everett III, it provides the resources for a new systematic metaphysical framework encompassing possibility, necessity, actuality, chance, counterfactuals, and a host of related modal notions. Rationalist metaphysicians argue that the metaphysics of modality is strictly prior to any scientific investigation; metaphysics establishes which worlds are possible, and physics merely checks which of these worlds is actual. Naturalistic metaphysicians respond that science may discover new possibilities and new impossibilities. This book's quantum theory of contingency takes naturalistic metaphysics one step further, allowing that science may discover what it is to be possible. As electromagnetism revealed the nature of light, as acoustics revealed the nature of sound, as statistical mechanics revealed the nature of heat, so quantum physics reveals the nature of contingency.