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First published in 1997, this volume brings together a series of essays on the philosophy of science and responds to the "crisis of rationality" which evolved from the denial of both a stable methodology and a common language for science. Howard Sankey holds that important insights about scientific methodology and rationality may be gleaned from the historical approach, from which the existence of profound conceptual change in science, as well as the absence of a neutral observation language, are important findings. Half of Sankey’s essays concentrate specifically on the thesis that alternative scientific theories are incommensurable due to semantic differences between the vocabulary in which they are expressed. Several others seek to derive a new way of thinking about scientific rationality from the historical critique of the idea of a fixed scientific method. Still others demonstrate how some seemingly relativistic themes of the historical approach may be embraced in a non-relativistic manner within the context of a pluralistic and naturalistic theory of scientific methodology and rationality.
Incommensurability and Related Matters draws together some of the most distinguished contributors to the critical literature on the problem of the incommensurability of scientific theories. It addresses all the various problems raised by the problem of incommensurability, such as meaning change, reference of theoretical terms, scientific realism and anti-realism, rationality of theory choice, cognitive aspects of conceptual change, as well as exploring the broader implications of incommensurability for cultural difference. While it offers new work, and new directions of discussion, on the topic of incommensurability, the book also recapitulates the history of the discussion of the topic that has taken place within the literature on incommensurability.
Drawing freely and expertly from Continental and analytic traditions, Richard Bernstein examines a number of debates and controversies exemplified in the works of Gadamer, Habermas, Rorty, and Arendt. He argues that a "new conversation" is emerging about human rationality—a new understanding that emphasizes its practical character and has important ramifications both for thought and action.
Markus Seidel provides a detailed critique of epistemic relativism in the sociology of scientific knowledge. In addition to scrutinizing the main arguments for epistemic relativism he provides an absolutist account that nevertheless aims at integrating the relativist's intuition.
Rectifying misrepresentations of Popperian thought with a historical approach to Popper’s philosophy, Gattei reconstructs the logic of Popper’s development to show how one problem and its tentative solution led to a new problem.
The Greater Philadelphia Philosophy Consortium was launched in the early eighties. It began during a particularly lean period in the American economy. But its success is linked as much to the need to be in touch with the rapidly changing currents of the philosophical climate as with the need to insure an adequately stocked professional community in the Philadelphia area faced, perhaps permanently, with the threat of increasing attrition. The member schools of the Consortium now include Bryn Mawr College, the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and Villanova University, that is, the schools of the area that offer advanced degrees in philosophy. The philosophy faculties of these schools form the core of the Consortium, which offers graduate students the instructional and library facilities of each member school. The Consortium is also supported by the associated faculties of other regional schools that do not offer advanced degrees - notably, those at Drexel University, Haverford College, La Salle University, and Swarthmore College - both philosophers and members of other departments as well as interested and professionally qualified persons from the entire region. The affiliated and core professionals now number several hundreds, and the Consortium's various ventures have been received most enthusiastically by the academic community. At this moment, the Consortium is planning its fifth year of what it calls the Conferences on the Philosophy of the Human Studies.
Thomas Kuhn (1922-96) transformed the philosophy of science. His seminal 1962 work "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" introduced the term 'paradigm shift' into the vernacular and remains a fundamental text in the study of the history and philosophy of science. This introduction to Kuhn's ideas covers the breadth of his philosophical work, situating "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" within Kuhn's wider thought and drawing attention to the development of his ideas over time. Kuhn's work is assessed within the context of other philosophies of science notably logical empiricism and recent developments in naturalized epistemology. The author argues that Kuhn's thinking betrays a residual commitment to many theses characteristic of the empiricists he set out to challenge. Kuhn's influence on the history and philosophy of science is assessed and where the field may be heading in the wake of Kuhn's ideas is explored.