Evidence, Explanation, and Realism: Essays in Philosophy of Science

by Peter Achinstein

Overview

The essays in this volume address three fundamental questions in the philosophy of science: What is required for some fact to be evidence for a scientific hypothesis? What does it mean to say that a scientist or a theory explains a phenomenon? Should scientific theories that postulate "unobservable" entities such as electrons be construed realistically as aiming to correctly describe a world underlying what is directly observable, or should such theories be understood as aiming to correctly describe only the observable world?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199735259
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	05/28/2010
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Peter Achinstein is Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein University Professor of Philosophy at Yeshiva University, and Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Concepts of Science; Law and Explanation; The Nature of Explanation; Particles and Waves (1993 Lakatos Award winner); and The Book of Evidence.

Table of Contents

Introduction
PART I: EVIDENCE AND INDUCTION
1. Concepts of Evidence
2. Why Philosophical Theories of Evidence are (and ought to be) Ignored by Scientests
3. The Grue Paradox
4. The War on Induction
5. Waves and the Scientific Method
PART 2: EXPLANATION
6. An Illocutionary Theory of Explanation
7. The Pragmatic Character of Explanation
8. Can there be a Model of Explanation?
9. Explanation vs. Prediction: Which Carries More Weight?
10. Function Statements
PART 3: REALISM, MOLECULES, AND ELECTRONS
11. Is there a Valid Experimental Argument for Scientific Realism?
12. Jean Perrin and Molecular Reality
13. The Problem of Theoretical Terms
14. What to do if you want to Defend a Theory you can't Prove: A Method of Physical Speculation
15. Who Really Discovered the Electron?

Editorial Reviews

"Warmly recommended... It collects some of the best works of one of today's most significant thinkers on science." —International History, Philosophy and Science Teaching Group

From the Publisher