Books

Offers an accurate picture of science through the examination of nontechnical case studies which illustrate the various roles that experiment plays in science. Examines both sucessful and unsucessful experiments to show how scientists use experimental evidence and critical discussion to expand our knowlege of the natural world.

Forge examines the challenges of social, moral, and legal responsibility faced by today’s scientists. He presents a broad overview of many areas of scientific endeavor, citing the responsibility of corporations, employees, and groups of scientists as judged by the values of science and society’s appraisals of actions and outcomes. Forge maintains that ultimate responsibility lies in the hands of the individual—the responsible scientist—who must exhibit the foresight to anticipate the use and abuse of his or her work.

Winner of the 2010 Eureka Prize for Research in Ethics from the Australian Catholic University

A new analysis of the occurrence, causality, and consequences of error in human thought, action, and evaluation. Defines three main categories of error, and provides a historical perspective on error from Greek to modern philosophy.

Buck-Morss draws new connections between history, inequality, social conflict, and human emancipation through a fundamental reinterpretation of Hegel’s master-slave dialectic. Historicizing the thought of Hegel and the actions taken in the Haitian Revolution, Buck-Morss examines the startling connections between the two and challenges us to widen the boundaries of our historical imagination.

Rescher presents a broad-ranging study that examines the manifestations, consequences, and occasional benefits of ignorance in areas of philosophy, scientific endeavor, and ordinary life.

Douglas challenges the traditional value-free ideal, and proposes a new ideal for values in science. She argues that the distinction between junk science and sound science lies in the roles values play at key points throughout science, and that constraining those roles is central to protecting the integrity and objectivity of science.

Rescher defines an apory as a group of individually plausible but collectively incompatible theses. Citing thinkers from the pre-Socratics through Spinoza, Hegel, and Nicolai Hartmann, he builds a framework for coping with the complexities of divergent theses, and shows in detail how aporetic analysis can be applied to a variety of fields including philosophy, mathematics, linguistics, logic, and intellectual history.

Nicholas Rescher outlines a general theory for the cost-effective use of intellectual resources, and discusses the requirements of cooperation, communication, cognitive importance, cognitive economy, and then applies his model to several case studies.

Prominent philosophers analyze the work of Thomas Kuhn, including his monumental study The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, from a broad perspective, comparing earlier logical empiricism and logical positivism with the new philosophy inspired by Kuhn in the early 1960s.

Nicholas Rescher offers his perspectives on many of the foundational concerns of philosophy. He sees the need to inquire as an evolutionary tool for adapting to a hostile environment and shows how philosophy has developed in an evolutionary fashion, building upon acquired knowledge and upon itself. In a historical thread that informs and enriches his overview, Rescher recalls Aristotle, Plato, Plotinus, Kant, Hegel, Leibniz, Laplace, Bertrand Russell, and others. Overall, he argues for philosophy as an unavoidable instrument for rational, cogent responses to large questions.

Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents is the first-ever comprehensive examination of views of animals in the history of Western philosophy, from Homeric Greece to the twentieth century.

Better known as a poet and dramatist, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was also a learned philosopher and natural scientist. Astrida Orle Tantillo offers the first comprehensive analysis of his natural philosophy, which she contends is rooted in creativity.

Advancements in computing, instrumentation, robotics, digital imaging, and simulation modeling have changed science into a technology-driven institution. Government, industry, and society increasingly exert their influence over science, raising questions of values and objectivity. These and other profound changes have led many to speculate that we are in the midst of an epochal break in scientific history. This edited volume presents an in-depth examination of these issues from philosophical, historical, social, and cultural perspectives. It offers arguments both for and against the epochal break thesis.

Provides an innovative analysis of the nature and interplay of observation and conceptualization. Radder shows that observation is always conceptually interpreted, and concepts affect the way observational processes are conducted in the first place.

Selling science has become a common practice in contemporary universities. This commodification of academia pervades many aspects of higher education. This volume offers the first book-length analysis of this disturbing trend from a philosophical perspective and presents views by scholars of philosophy of science, social and political philosophy, and research ethics.