The scientific imagination : philosophical and psychological perspectives / edited by Arnon Levy and Peter Godfrey-Smith.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Levy, Arnon, editor.

Godfrey-Smith, Peter, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Creative ability in science.

Imagination.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 344 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020]

Summary:

"Science is both a creative endeavor and a highly regimented one. It involves surprising, sometimes unthinkably novel ideas, along with meticulous exploration and the careful exclusion of alternatives. At the heart of this productive tension stands a human capacity typically called 'the imagination': our ability, indeed our inclination, to think up new ideas, situations, and scenarios and to explore their contents and consequences in the mind's eye. This volume explores our capacity to imagine and its implications for the philosophy and practice of science. One central aim is to integrate philosophical and psychological philosophical viewpoints and to assess central questions both empirically and theoretically. Such questions include the roles of models, metaphors, and thought experiments; the correct way to understand scientific fictions; the development of imaginative capacities; and the connection between the imagination and scientific practices such as abstraction, idealization, and counterfactual reasoning"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Capturing the scientific imagination / Fiora Salis and Roman Frigg

If models were fictions, then what would they be? / Amie L. Thomasson

Realism about missing systems / Martin Thomson-Jones

The fictional character of scientific models / Stacie Friend

Models and reality / Stephen Yablo

Models, fictions, and conditionals / Peter Godfrey-Smith

Imagining mechanisms with diagrams / Benjamin Sheredos and William Bechtel

Abstraction and representational capacity in computational structures / Michael Weisberg

"Learning by thinking" in science and in everyday life / Tania Lombrozo

Is imagination constrained enough for science? / Deena Skolnick Weisberg

Can children benefit from thought experiments? / Igor Bascandziev and Paul M. Harris

Metaphor and scientific explanation / Arnon Levy

Imaginative frames for scientific inquiry : metaphors, telling facts, and just-so stories / Elizabeth Camp.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-19-021232-2

0-19-021231-4

0-19-008267-4

OCLC:

1128885042