Clique em uma foto para ir ao Google Livros
Carregando... Science without Laws (Science & Its Conceptual Foundations (Hardcover)) (edição: 1999)de Ronald N. Giere (Autor)
Informações da ObraScience without Laws de Ronald N. Giere
Nenhum(a) Carregando...
Registre-se no LibraryThing tpara descobrir se gostará deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. sem resenhas | adicionar uma resenha
Pertence à série
Debate over the nature of science has recently moved from the halls of academia into the public sphere, where it has taken shape as the "science wars." At issue is the question of whether scientific knowledge is objective and universal or socially mediated, whether scientific truths are independent of human values and beliefs. Ronald Giere is a philosopher of science who has been at the forefront of this debate from its inception, and Science without Laws offers a much-needed mediating perspective on an increasingly volatile line of inquiry. Giere does not question the major findings of modern science: for example, that the universe is expanding or that inheritance is carried by DNA molecules with a double helical structure. But like many critics of modern science, he rejects the widespread notion of science--deriving ultimately from the Enlightenment--as a uniquely rational activity leading to the discovery of universal truths underlying all natural phenomena. In these highly readable essays, Giere argues that it is better to understand scientists as merely constructing more or less abstract models of limited aspects of the world. Such an understanding makes possible a resolution of the issues at stake in the science wars. The critics of science are seen to be correct in rejecting the Enlightenment idea of science, and its defenders are seen to be correct in insisting that science does produce genuine knowledge of the natural world. Giere is utterly persuasive in arguing that to criticize the Enlightenment ideal is not to criticize science itself, and that to defend science one need not defend the Enlightenment ideal. Science without Laws thus stakes out a middle ground in these debates by showing us how science can be better conceived in other ways. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
Current DiscussionsNenhum(a)
Google Books — Carregando... GênerosClassificação decimal de Dewey (CDD)501Natural sciences and mathematics General Science Philosophy and theoryClassificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos E.U.A. (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
É você?Torne-se um autor do LibraryThing. |
As the essays are spread out by topic matter, there is a little here for even the layman interested in an "insider's" look at both the practice of science and the philosopher's reflections on them. Not everyone will be satisfied with Giere's account, which he argues as realist (and my reading supports that view) but which contains enough of a historicist leaning to be mistaken as support for any nearby anti-realists.
Still, his arguments against a strict form of metaphysical realism and in favor of a more empiricist, history-sensitive philosophy make sense to me (perhaps more than they should to any would-be analytic philosopher), and as a whole it strikes me as a more true-to-life account. ( )