Scientific method : a historical and philosophical introduction / Barry Gower.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gower, Barry.

Gower B Staff, Corporate Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Science--Methodology.

Science.

Science--Methodology--Philosophy.

Science--Methodology--History.

Physical Description:

vii, 276 p. : ill.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York : Routledge, 2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The central theme running throughout this outstanding new survey is the nature of the philosophical debate created by modern science's foundation in experimental and mathematical method. More recently, recognition that reasoning in science is probabilistic generated intense debate about whether and how it should be constrained so as to ensure the practical certainty of the conclusions drawn. These debates brought to light issues of a philosophical nature which form the core of many scientific controversies today. Scientific Method: A Historical and Philosophical Introduction presents these debates through clear and comparative discussion of key figures in the history of science. Key chapters critically discuss * Galileo's demonstrative method, Bacon's inductive method, and Newton's rules of reasoning * the rise of probabilistic `Bayesian' methods in the eighteenth century * the method of hypotheses through the work of Herschel, Mill and Whewell * the conventionalist views of Poincaré and Duhem * the inductivism of Peirce, Russell and Keynes * Popper's falsification compared with Reichenbach's enumerative induction * Carnap's scientific method as Bayesian reasoning The debates are brought up to date in the final chapters by considering the ways in which ideas about method in the physical and biological sciences have affected thinking about method in the social sciences. This debate is analyzed through the ideas of key theorists such as Kuhn, Lakatos, and Feyerabend.

Contents:

Introduction

Galileo Galilei : new methods for a new science

Francis Bacon : why experiments matter

Isaac Newton : rules for reasoning scientifically

The Bernoullis and Thomas Bayes : probability and scientific method

John Herschel, John Stuart Mill and William Whewell : the uses of hypotheses

Henri Poincaré and Pierre Duhem : conventions and scientific reasoning

John Venn and Charles Peirce : probabilities as frequencies

John Maynard Keynes and Frank Ramsey : probability logic

Hans Reichenbach and Karl Popper : the (in)dispensability of induction

Rudolf Carnap : scientific method as Bayesian reasoning

Conclusion : experimental interventions and social constructions.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [262]-271) and index.

ISBN:

1-86013-263-4

1-134-80629-9

9786610182572

1-134-80630-2

1-280-18257-1

0-203-29201-4

0-203-04612-9

9780203046128

OCLC:

889813764