Buch, Englisch, 280 Seiten
The Historical Challenge to Scientific Knowledge
Buch, Englisch, 280 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-009-84122-1
Verlag: Cambridge University Press
'All past beliefs about nature have sooner or later turned out to be false. On the record, therefore, the probability that any currently proposed belief will fare better must be close to zero.' So wrote the historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn. A substantial number of contemporary philosophers agree with that pessimistic induction from the history of science. If true, the implications of that inductive argument are profound, suggesting that current so-called scientific knowledge is not what it purports to be – namely, an enduring understanding of our world. The Pessimistic Induction expressed in Kuhn's remark has been extensively discussed in the philosophy of science but heretofore without a synoptic critical examination. Drawing on both the history and the philosophy of science, this book presents a detailed exploration of the Pessimistic Induction and defends an optimistic, yet not necessarily realist, view of an important class of current scientific knowledge claims.
Autoren/Hrsg.
Weitere Infos & Material
1. Introduction: the pessimistic induction; 2. What sorts of scientific claims are threatened by the PI?; 3. What, exactly, is 'the pessimistic induction'?; 4. Are dethroned theories completely discarded?; 5. Is the history of science a graveyard of dethroned theories?; 6. Does the pessimistic induction commit a fallacy?; 7. Is contemporary science fundamentally different?; 8. What's new in the 'new induction'?; 9. Are some scientific knowledge claims 'future-proof'?; 10. What can an induction on the history of science teach us?; References; Index.
