An in-depth look at the science of ancient Greece, this volume examines the influence of antique philosophy on 17th-century thought. Additional topics embrace many elements of modern physics: the empirical basis of quantum mechanics, wave-particle duality and the uncertainty principle, and the action-at-a-distance theory of Wheeler and Feynman. 1961 edition.

As in the case of great books in all branches of philosophy, Pierre Duhem's Le Théorie Physique , first published in 1906, can be looked to as the progenitor of many different and even conflicting currents in subsequent philosophy of science. On a superficial reading, it seems to be an expression of what later came to be called deductivist and instrumentalist analyses of scientific theory. Duhem's very definition of physical theory, put forward early in the book, is the quintessence of (...) instrumentalism: A physical theory is not an explanation. It is a system of mathematical propositions, deduced from a small number of principles, which aim to represent as simply, as completely, and as exactly as possible a set of experimental laws [p. 19]. (shrink)

“Feminist epistemology”: on the face of it this is a contradiction in terms. “Feminism” has its origins in a social subgroup, which has tended to be particularist, separatist, and even sexist; “epistemology” is the study of the conditions of knowledge, or more modestly of justified belief, which are common to human beings as such. The question whether we can or cannot attain such conditions rationally is one of the most important topics of debate in modern philosophy, and it by no (...) means depends on the insights of any particular group. The debate has been situated in the space between those who regard valid knowledge as unitary across all differences of social and historical context, and those who regard claims to truth as essentially relative to such contexts, without any possibility of rational adjudication between them. (shrink)

The use of energy from wind has a multi-faceted relationship to visibility. Between 1973 and 1991, various actors in the West German environmental movement made assertions about the visibility of renewable sources of power, but wind energy took on a particular prominence. In this article, the question of how different actors have used knowledge and the materiality of wind turbines for competing purposes is explored. Environmentalists attempted to create visible signs of a valid alternative energy future by tinkering with small, (...) decentralized wind turbines, while the Federal Republic of Germany's Ministry of Research and established energy providers used the failure of the state-subsidized large-scale wind-energy project GROWIAN to criticize renewables and brand their application as misguided. In both cases, actors created new wind energy visibilities to convey their conflicting interests—pitting those advocating a new, environmentally friendly energy system against those who sought consolidation of the large-scale fossil-nuclear energy system. (shrink)

The thesis of underdetermination of theory by evidence has led to an opposition between realism and relationism in philosophy of science. Various forms of the thesis are examined, and it is concluded that it is true in at least a weak form that brings realism into doubt. Realists therefore need, among other things, a theory of degrees of confirmation to support rational theory choice. Recent such theories due to Glymour and Friedman are examined, and it is argued that their criterion (...) of "unification" for good theories is better formulated in Bayesian terms. Bayesian confirmation does, however, have consequences that tell against realism. It is concluded that the prospects are dim for scientific realism as usually understood. (shrink)

Not limited to merely mathematics, probability has a rich and controversial philosophical aspect. _A Philosophical Introduction to Probability_ showcases lesser-known philosophical notions of probability and explores the debate over their interpretations. Galavotti traces the history of probability and its mathematical properties and then discusses various philosophical positions on probability, from the Pierre Simon de Laplace's “classical” interpretation of probability to the logical interpretation proposed by John Maynard Keynes. This book is a valuable resource for students in philosophy and mathematics and (...) all readers interested in notions of probability. (shrink)

In Liberia, much debate has surrounded the truth and reconciliation commission both in the challenges that it faced during its operational stage as well as in the issues surrounding the release and content of its report. This article will critically examine the establishment, proceedings, and findings of the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission in order to draw conclusions regarding what lessons can be learned, what could have been done to make the commission more effective, and how we can learn from (...) this example in applying transitional justice mechanisms for future African conflicts. (shrink)

Martin Eger's comparison of controversies in science and morals is extended to a consideration of the nature of “rationality” in each. Both theoretical science and moral philosophy are held to be relativist in social and historical terms, but science also has definitive non‐relativist pragmatic criteria of truth. The problem for moral philosophy is to delineate its own appropriate types of social criteria of validity.

There is a continuing irresolution on the levels, both of theory and political praxis, vis-à-vis a coming to terms with the problem of 'historical greatness'. This results from the pre-history of a concept which is, when seen in the context of a systematic theory of science, in two respects methodologically unsatisfactory. 1. The pre-idealist understanding of "greatness", in the sense of canonical exemplariness, is based on a timeless concept of morality, itself determined through a heteronomous concept of norm-giving transcendence and/or (...) nature. 2. The philosophy of history ignores the Kantian reference to the autonomy of the genesis of human orientation; instead it sees this genesis not as the expression of a potentially autonomous normativity but as a source of normative existential orientation. In this orientation the goal and the steps towards the goal are pre-reflexively implied. In the philosophy of history the 'historically great' function as genial mediators between telos and epoché. Their actions are not explicable by the categories of normal rationality. The lack of a sufficient methodology of socially practicable communication continues to lessen the chances of overcoming the practical and theoretical dependency on the idea of the mediating genius. Yet the shift to a critical social hermeneutic remains impossible as long as hermeneutic theory is willing to deny itself in the face of a purely scientistic analytic philosophy. (shrink)

One of the first to criticize the verifiability theory of meaning embraced by logical empiricists, Reichenbach ties the significance of scientific statements to their predictive character, which offers the condition for their testability. While identifying prediction as the task of scientific knowledge, Reichenbach assigns induction a pivotal role, and regards the theory of knowledge as a theory of prediction based on induction. Reichenbach’s inductivism is grounded on the frequency notion of probability, of which he prompts a more flexible version than (...) that of Richard von Mises. Unlike von Mises, Reichenbach attempts to account for single case probabilities, and entertains a restricted notion of randomness, more suitable for practical purposes. Moreover, Reichenbach developed a theory of induction, absent from von Mises’s perspective, and argued for the justification of induction. This article outlines the main traits of Reichenbach’s inductivism, with special reference to his book Experience and prediction. (shrink)

In seinem Aufsatz „Immanuel Kant und die Reichweite der Kanonen. Die Abkehr von der Illusion eines ewigen Friedens“, in: Internationale Politik, Heft 11–12, Berlin 2004, 155ff. stellt Heinz Kluss, ehemaliger Direktor des Ausschusses für Verteidigung und Sicherheit der Parlamentarischen Versammlung der NATO, drei eingängige Thesen auf.

Faced with what he saw as the danger to society in the ascendancy of natural science and decline in religion and morals, the great French sociologist Emile Durkheim sought the origins of both religion and science in their function in primitive societies as guarantors of social solidarity. In contrast to Frazer, Tylor, and other early anthropologists, he looked for the internal intelligibility of myth and ritual in social terms, rather than regarding them just as failed attempts to state objective truths (...) about the natural world of the same kind as those later arrived at by natural science. One does not have to accept Durkheim's ultimately atheistic identification of God with Society, nor the politically authoritarian consequences which have some-times been held to follow from this identification, to see that Durkheim has raised a set of issues of crucial importance for a discussion of science and the myths and doctrines of religion. For what he has done is to reintroduce a third factor into the perennial and by now rather frustrating dichotomy between science and religion, namely society and the sciences of man. It is some consequences of this approach that I want to explore in this paper. (shrink)

The term information has become a universal and omnipresent keyword in almost all areas of our modern world—be it in science or society in general. This is not only obvious from the naming of whole scientific branches like Information Theory, Information Science or Informatics but even more from common speaking—characterising our present time and society as information age viz. information society. However, what information might mean, is by no means clear and there is a wide range of interpretations covering, among (...) others, its technical, communicational, educational, mental, and scientific aspects. But is the use of the same term justified when adopted in Biology, Physics, Archaeology, Law, Communication Technology, and Informatics (to list just a few of the involved scientific branches) or do its different uses at least have some common characteristics—some sort of common denominator? Is information natural, e.g. manifesting itself as a material phenomenon residing in organisms, stars, atoms, or genes, or is it just a cultural product of human communication, thinking, and interpretation? In this article, we try to clarify some of the most important interpretations, discuss and contrast them with the Informatics point of view. Interpretations range from taking information as material, transferable signals (following Shannon’s Information Theory or the genetic approaches), treating it as a sign (following a semiotic approach), as a commercial product (now common in Web-based Information Business) to considering it a pure mental phenomenon bound to humans or human-like individuals or even to groups and societies. Based on these interpretations, we shall throw a critical glance on current trends in human science and society—focusing on the now popular concept of information society —and then derive some theses and guidelines for further research escorting the growth and dispersal of information technology. As it will turn out, an information society which defines itself through the number of computers, internet connections and network links is based on a very narrow, techno-centric concept of information. However, a reflection on the educational and cultural aspects of information might lead to a better-qualified society consisting of responsible and critical citizens. (shrink)