Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Science is perhaps the sole distinctively western institution adopted by all cultures who have come in contact with it. And yet its scope, nature and methods have been contested throughout its history. Philosophy of Science identifies the profound philosophical problems that science raises through an examination of enduring questions about its nature, methods, and justification. Coming to grips with the nature of explanation, laws and causation, among others, turns out to be a matter of facing the same questions that Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Kant and their successors grappled with.
Synopsis
This user-friendly text covers key issues in the philosophy of science in an accessible and philosophically serious way. It will prove valuable to students studying philosophy of science as well as science students.
Prize-winning author Alex Rosenberg explores the philosophical problems that science raises by its very nature and method. He skilfully demonstrates that scientific explanation, laws, causation, theory, models, evidence, reductionism, probability, teleology, realism and instrumentalism actually pose the same questions that Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Kant and their successors have grappled with for centuries.