Theory and Truth: Philosophical Critique within Foundational Science - Hardcover

Sklar, Lawrence

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0198238495 ISBN 13: 9780198238492

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2000

Synopsis

Skeptics have cast doubt on the idea that scientific theories give us a true picture of an objective world. Lawrence Sklar examines three kinds of skeptical arguments about scientific truth, and explores the important role they play within foundational science itself. Sklar demonstrates that these kinds of philosophical critique are employed within science, and reveals the clear difference between how they operate in a scientific context and more abstract philosophical contexts. The underlying theme of Theory and Truth is that science and philosophy are essential to one another. Sklar advances the claim that one cannot understand the methods of science without a comprehension of philosophy, and one cannot fruitfully pursue philosophy of science without understanding fundamental science as well.

About this title

About the Author:

Lawrence Sklar is William K. Frankena Collegiate Professor and Professor of Philosophy, University of Michigan. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Review:

"Makes refreshing and enlightening reading, in comparison to the usual very dry, rarefied discussions of methodology.... Exemplary, and always anchored in the concrete details of real scientific theorizing.... [It] demonstrate[s] the virtues of a sober and careful appraisal of the issues concerning realism about scientific theories. I shall be urging those of my students intoxicated by the excesses of social constructivism to study them closer."--Peter Menzies, Times Literary Supplement

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0198238495
• ISBN 13: 9780198238492
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 168