Resisting scientific realism / K. Brad Wray, Aarhus University.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wray, K. Brad, 1963- author.

Contributor:

Cambridge University Press.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Science--Social aspects.

Science.

Science--History.

History.

Astronomy--History.

Astronomy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

polychrome

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2018.

System Details:

text file

Contents:

Cover; Half-title; Title page; Copyright information; Contents; Figures; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Part I Against Realism; 1 The Copernican Revolution in Astronomy; Babylonian Astronomy: The Limits of Instrumentalism; Astronomy in Ancient Greece: Two Traditions; Medieval and Renaissance Astronomy; Copernicus: The New Cosmology; Osiander: The First Instrumentalist Reading of Copernicus; Reinhold and the Wittenberg Astronomers; Tycho Brahe: Advances in Observational Astronomy; Kepler and Galileo; 2 The Underdetermination of Theory Choice by Evidence; Duhem and Underdetermination

Quine and UnderdeterminationRadical Underdetermination and Empirically Equivalent Theories; Transient Underdetermination; Underdetermination and the Contemporary Realism/Anti-Realism Debate; 3 The Argument from Underconsideration; The Argument from Underconsideration and Lipton's Concerns; Anti-Realism and Evaluative Reliability; The Alleged Incompatibility and the No-Privilege Premise; Comparative and Absolute Evaluations; Boyd's Defense of Realism; 4 Epistemic Privilege: Another Realist Dogma; The Case for Epistemic Privilege; The Case for No-Privilege; 5 Four Pessimistic Inductions

Putnam's Pessimistic Meta-InductionThe Pessimistic Induction as a Reductio Ad Absurdum; Realism and the Pessimistic Induction; Stanford's New Pessimistic Induction; 6 Pessimism, Optimism, and the Exponential Growth of Science; The Exponential Growth of Science; Assessing the Realists' Appeal to the Exponential Growth; Devitt's Appeal to Developments in Methodology; 7 The Nature of Radical Theory Change; What Counts as a Change of Theory; Kuhnian Revolutions; The State of Chemistry at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century; The Early Twentieth-Century Revolution in Chemistry

8 Do the Theoretical Values Really Support Scientific Realism?The Theoretical Values; Laudan's Misunderstood Critique; Theoretical Values and Ordinal Rankings; Realism, Rationality, and the Problem of Theory Choice; Directive Accounts of Rationality Are Shortsighted; Part II Strengthening Anti-Realism; 9 But Can the Anti-Realist Explain the Success of Science?; The No Miracles Argument; Van Fraassen's Assessment of the Realists' Explanation; The Key Strengths of Van Fraassen's Explanation; Predictions of Novel Phenomena; 10 Selection and Predictive Success; Selection and Success in Science

The Critics' ConcernsDefending a Selectionist Explanation; Are the Selectionist and Realist Explanations Really Compatible?; 11 How Are False Theories Able to Make True Predictions?; Why Was Ptolemy's Theory Successful?; The Success of a False Chemical Theory; 12 Discarded Theories: The Role of Changing Interests; Why Do Theories Fail?; Whose Interests?; Truth and Interests; Unconceived Alternatives and Interests; 13 A Synthesis; References; Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Electronic reproduction. Cambridge Available via World Wide Web.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (EBSCO, viewed September 25, 2018).

Other Format:

Print version:

ISBN:

9781108231633

1108231632

9781108246279

1108246273

Publisher Number:

40028728854

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.