ISBN:
9781402056321
Language:
English
Pages:
Online-Ressource
,
v.: digital
Edition:
Online-Ausg. Springer eBook Collection. Humanities, Social Science and Law Electronic reproduction; Available via World Wide Web
Series Statement:
Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 253
DDC:
300
Keywords:
Science (General)
;
Science History
;
Science Philosophy
;
Physics History
;
Naturwissenschaften
;
Geschichte
;
Wissenschaftsgeschichtsschreibung
;
Wissenschaftstheorie
Abstract:
Professor Joseph Agassi has published his Towards an Historiography of Science in 1963. It received many reviews by notable academics, including Maurice Finocchiaro, Charles Gillispie, Thomas S. Kuhn, Geroge Mora, Nicholas Rescher, and L. Pearce Williams. It is still in use in many courses in the philosophy and history of science. Here it appears in a revised and updated version with responses to these reviews and with many additional chapters, some already classic, others new. They are all paradigms of the author’s innovative way of writing fresh and engaging chapters in the history of the natural sciences.
Description / Table of Contents:
CONTENTS; Abstract; Foreword; Preface; Acknowledgments; I. Chroniclers in the Courts of Science: Preliminary Essayson the Traditions and the History of Science; Preface; Acknowledgements; Introductory Note: On Studies and Their Motivations; First Preliminary Essay: On the Desirable Standard of Publication; Second Preliminary Essay: On the Desirable Standard of Criticism; Third Preliminary Essay: On the Desirable Standard of Popular Science; Fourth Preliminary Essay: On the Merit of Flogging Dead Horses; Concluding Preliminary Essay: On the Sifting of the Grainfrom the Chaff
Description / Table of Contents:
II. Towards an Historiography of ScienceIntroductory Note; Corrections; 1. The Inductivist Philosophy Paints Ideas and Even Thinkers asBlack or White; Its Criterion for Whiteness is the Up-to-DateScience Textbook; 2. The Function of Inductive Histories of Science is LargelyRitualistic, a Kind of Ancestor-Worship; 3. The Standard Problems of The Inductivist Historian largelyConcern Questions of Whom to Worship and for What Reason; 4. History of Science - as It Is and as It Ought to Be. For theInductivist, These are Embarrassingly Different
Description / Table of Contents:
5. The Inductivist Technique, However, is to Ignore this Problemand to Transcribe Ever Increasing Numbers of Historical Detailsthis Leaves Little Time for Thinking Critically; 6. Ampère's Discovery is a Case that may be Studied Fruitfullywith the use of Historical Material that Should Neither beTranscribed as it Stands nor Ignored; 7. The Broad Outline of the History of Science is the History ofScientific Schools of Thought and Their Controversies; the Inductivist must Ignore Schools and Controversies
Description / Table of Contents:
He isthus Left with Some Version of Marxist Economism as theOnly Tool for Studying the Broad Outline8. The Rise of the Conventionalist Philosophy was Largely due toRevolt Against Inductivism and its Black-and-White Categorizing; 9. The Continuity Theory and the Emergence Technique wereInvented by Duhem as a Traditionalist Conservative Alternativeto Inductivist Radicalism; 10. The Cancerous Growth of Continuity into a Multitude ofVariations on Duhem's Theme is Irrational; 11. The Comparative Method of the Conventionalist Appliesa Criterion of Relative Rather than of Absolute Merit
Description / Table of Contents:
It is theFirst Systematic Historical Method to Appear in the Field ofHistory of Science but the Comparative Method, ThoughAdequate to a Degree, has a Limited Application; 12. Priestley's Dissent from the French School of Chemistry is Historically Important, Yet it does not Fit the Conventionalist Framework Because Conventionalism too Leaves Little Room for Controversy; 13. The Advantage of Avoiding being Wise after the Event is thatThis Allows us to See the World with the Eyes of Those WhoParticipated in the Event, and Thus to Explain It
Description / Table of Contents:
14. The Difficulty of Avoiding being Wise After the Event Arisesfrom Having Suppressed the Reasonable Errors that the Eventhas Corrected
Note:
Includes bibliographical references and index
,
Electronic reproduction; Available via World Wide Web
DOI:
10.1007/978-1-4020-5632-1
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