Scientific Representation

Paradoxes of Perspective
1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-0-19-927823-7
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 424 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 231 mm, Gewicht: 630 g

Bas C. van Fraassen presents an original exploration of how we represent the world. Science represents natural phenomena by means of theories, as well as in many concrete ways by such means as pictures, graphs, table-top models, and computer simulations. Scientific Representation begins with an inquiry into the nature of representation in general, drawing on such diverse sources as Plato's dialogues, the development of perspectival drawing in the Renaissance, and the geometric styles of modelling in modern physics. Starting with Mach's and Poincaré's analyses of measurement and the 'problem of coordination', van Fraassen then presents a view of measurement outcomes as representations. With respect to the theories of contemporary science he defends an empiricist structuralist version of the 'picture theory' of science, through an inquiry into the paradoxes that came to light in twentieth-century philosophies of science. Van Fraassen concludes with an analysis of the complex relationship between appearance and reality in the scientific world-picture.

Autoren/Hrsg.

van Fraassen, Bas C.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Erkenntnistheorie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Wissenschaftstheorie, Wissenschaftsphilosophie
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Wissenschaften: Theorie, Epistemologie, Methodik
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Metaphysik, Ontologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Preface

- Introduction: the 'picture theory of science'

- PART ONE: REPRESENTATION

- 1.1: Representation of, Representation as

- 1.2: Imaging, Picturing, and Scaling

- 1.3: Pictorial Perspective and the Indexical

- PART TWO. WINDOWS, ENGINES, AND MEASUREMENT

- 2.1: A Window on the Invisible World (?)

- 2.2: The Problem of Coordination

- 2.3: Measurement as Representation (1) The Physical Correlate

- 2.4: Measurement as Representation (2) Information

- PART THREE. STRUCTURE AND PERSPECTIVE

- 3.1: From the Bildtheorie of science to paradox

- 3.2: The Longest Journey: Bertrand Russell

- 3.3: Carnap's Lost World and Putnam's Paradox

- 3.4: An Empiricist Structuralism

- PART FOUR. APPEARANCE AND REALITY

- 4.1: Appearance vs. Reality in the Sciences

- 4.2: Rejecting the Appearance from Reality Criterion

- APPENDICES

- BIBLIOGRAPHY

- NOTES

Über Autor(innen)

Bas van Fraassen is McCosh Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University. His research interests straddle philosophical logic and philosophy of science, with special interests in empiricism, (anti-)realism, probability, foundations of relativity and quantum physics, and philosophy of literature. Born in the Netherlands, he studied and taught in Canada and thereafter in the USA; he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science and of the Netherlands Royal Academy of Sciences. Though concentrating on philosophy of science he makes occasional forays into philosophy of literature and the connections between art, literature, and science.