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Against Method
''Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge'' is a 1975 book by Austrian philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend. The central thesis of the book is that science should become an anarchic enterprise. In the context of the work, the term "anarchy" refers to epistemological anarchy, which does not remain within one single prescriptive scientific method on the grounds that any such method would restrict scientific progress. The work is notable in the history and philosophy of science partially due to its detailed case study of Galileo's hypothesis that the earth rotates on its axis and has since become a staple reading in introduction to philosophy of science courses at undergraduate and graduate levels. ''Against Method'' contains many verbatim excerpts from Feyerabend's earlier papers including "Explanation, Reduction, and Empiricism", "How to be a Good Empiricist: A Plea for Tolerance in Matters Epistemological", and "Problems of Empiricism, Part I." Because of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Feyerabend
Paul Karl Feyerabend (; ; January 13, 1924 – February 11, 1994) was an Austrian philosopher best known for his work in the philosophy of science. He started his academic career as lecturer in the philosophy of science at the University of Bristol (1955–1958); afterwards, he moved to the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught for three decades (1958–1989). At various points in his life, he held joint appointments at the University College London (1967–1970), the London School of Economics (1967), the FU Berlin (1968), Yale University (1969), the University of Auckland (1972, 1975), the University of Sussex (1974), and, finally, the ETH Zurich (1980–1990). He gave lectures and lecture series at the University of Minnesota (1958–1962), Stanford University (1967), the University of Kassel (1977) and the University of Trento (1992). Feyerabend's most famous work is '' Against Method'' (1975), wherein he argued that there are no universally valid methodologic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reductio Ad Absurdum
In logic, (Latin for "reduction to absurdity"), also known as (Latin for "argument to absurdity") or ''apagogical argument'', is the form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to absurdity or contradiction. This argument form traces back to Ancient Greek philosophy and has been used throughout history in both formal mathematical and philosophical reasoning, as well as in debate. In mathematics, the technique is called ''proof by contradiction''. In formal logic, this technique is captured by an axiom for "Reductio ad Absurdum", normally given the abbreviation RAA, which is expressible in propositional logic. This axiom is the introduction rule for negation (see ''negation introduction''). Examples The "absurd" conclusion of a ''reductio ad absurdum'' argument can take a range of forms, as these examples show: * The Earth cannot be flat; otherwise, since the Earth is assumed to be finite in extent, we would find peo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ad Hoc
''Ad hoc'' is a List of Latin phrases, Latin phrase meaning literally for this. In English language, English, it typically signifies a solution designed for a specific purpose, problem, or task rather than a Generalization, generalized solution adaptable to collateral instances (compare with ''a priori and a posteriori, a priori''). Common examples include ad hoc committees and commissions created at the national or international level for a specific task, and the term is often used to describe arbitration (ad hoc arbitration). In other fields, the term could refer to a military unit created under special circumstances (see ''task force''), a handcrafted network protocol (e.g., ad hoc network), a temporary collaboration among geographically-linked franchise locations (of a given national brand) to issue advertising coupons, or a purpose-specific equation in mathematics or science. Ad hoc can also function as an adjective describing temporary, provisional, or improvised methods ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Padua
Padua ( ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Veneto, northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Padua. The city lies on the banks of the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice and southeast of Vicenza, and has a population of 207,694 as of 2025. It is also the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE) which has a population of around 2,600,000. Besides the Bacchiglione, the Brenta River, which once ran through the city, still touches the northern districts. Its agricultural setting is the Venetian Plain. To the city's south west lies the Euganean Hills, Euganaean Hills, which feature in poems by Lucan, Martial, Petrarch, Ugo Foscolo, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Padua has two UNESCO World Heritage List entries: its Botanical Garden of Padua, Botanical Garden, which is the world's oldest, and its 14th-century frescoes, situated in Padua's fourteenth-centu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Convex Lens
A lens is a transmissive optical device that focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements''), usually arranged along a common axis. Lenses are made from materials such as glass or plastic and are ground, polished, or molded to the required shape. A lens can focus light to form an image, unlike a prism, which refracts light without focusing. Devices that similarly focus or disperse waves and radiation other than visible light are also called "lenses", such as microwave lenses, electron lenses, acoustic lenses, or explosive lenses. Lenses are used in various imaging devices such as telescopes, binoculars, and cameras. They are also used as visual aids in glasses to correct defects of vision such as myopia and hypermetropia. History The word ''lens'' comes from , the Latin name of the lentil (a seed of a lentil pla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Telescope
A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption, or Reflection (physics), reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally, it was an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to observe distant objects – an optical telescope. Nowadays, the word "telescope" is defined as a wide range of instruments capable of detecting different regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, and in some cases other types of detectors. The first known practical telescopes were refracting telescopes with glass lenses and were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 17th century. They were used for both terrestrial applications and astronomy. The reflecting telescope, which uses mirrors to collect and focus light, was invented within a few decades of the first refracting telescope. In the 20th century, many new types of telescopes were invented, including radio telescopes in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Naked Eye
Naked eye, also called bare eye or unaided eye, is the practice of engaging in visual perception unaided by a magnification, magnifying, Optical telescope#Light-gathering power, light-collecting optical instrument, such as a telescope or microscope, or eye protection. In astronomy, the naked eye may be used to observe celestial events and astronomical object, objects visible without equipment, such as conjunction (astronomy), conjunctions, passing comets, meteor showers, and the brightest asteroids, including 4 Vesta. Sky lore and various tests demonstrate an impressive variety of phenomena visible to the unaided eye. Basic properties Some basic properties of the human eye are: *Quick autofocus from distances of 25 cm (young people) to 50 cm (most people 50 years and older) to infinity. *Angular resolution: about 1 arcminute, approximately 0.017° or 0.0003 radians, which corresponds to 0.3 m at a 1 km distance. *Field of view (FOV): simultaneous visual ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker and denser than Earth and any other rocky body in the Solar System. Its atmosphere is composed of mostly carbon dioxide (), with a global sulfuric acid cloud cover and no liquid water. At the mean surface level the atmosphere reaches a temperature of and a pressure 92 times greater than Earth's at sea level, turning the lowest layer of the atmosphere into a supercritical fluid. Venus is the third brightest object in Earth's sky, after the Moon and the Sun, and, like Mercury, appears always relatively close to the Sun, either as a "morning star" or an "evening star", resulting from orbiting closer ( inferior) to the Sun than Earth. The orbits of Venus and Earth make the two planets approach each other in synodic periods of 1.6 years ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmospheric pressure is a few thousandths of Earth's, atmospheric temperature ranges from and cosmic radiation is high. Mars retains some water, in the ground as well as thinly in the atmosphere, forming cirrus clouds, frost, larger polar regions of permafrost and ice caps (with seasonal snow), but no liquid surface water. Its surface gravity is roughly a third of Earth's or double that of the Moon. It is half as wide as Earth or twice the Moon, with a diameter of , and has a surface area the size of all the dry land of Earth. Fine dust is prevalent across the surface and the atmosphere, being picked up and spread at the low Martian gravity even by the weak wind of the tenuous atmosphere. The terrain of Mars roughly follows a north-south ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tides
Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another. Tide tables can be used for any given locale to find the predicted times and amplitude (or " tidal range"). The predictions are influenced by many factors including the alignment of the Sun and Moon, the phase and amplitude of the tide (pattern of tides in the deep ocean), the amphidromic systems of the oceans, and the shape of the coastline and near-shore bathymetry (see '' Timing''). They are however only predictions, the actual time and height of the tide is affected by wind and atmospheric pressure. Many shorelines experience semi-diurnal tides—two nearly equal high and low tides each day. Other locations have a diurnal tide—one high and low tide each day. A "mixed tide"—two uneven magnitude tides a day—is a third regular category. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented. Propaganda can be found in a wide variety of different contexts. Beginning in the twentieth century, the English term ''propaganda'' became associated with a Psychological manipulation, manipulative approach, but historically, propaganda had been a neutral descriptive term of any material that promotes certain opinions or ideology, ideologies. A wide range of materials and media are used for conveying propaganda messages, which changed as new technologies were invented, including paintings, cartoons, posters, pamphlets, films, radio shows, TV shows, and websites. More recently, the digital age has given rise to new ways of dissemina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Physics (Aristotle)
The ''Physics'' (; or , possibly meaning " Lectures on nature") is a named text, written in ancient Greek, collated from a collection of surviving manuscripts known as the Corpus Aristotelicum, attributed to the 4th-century BC philosopher Aristotle. The meaning of physics in Aristotle It is a collection of treatises or lessons that deals with the most general (philosophical) principles of natural or moving things, both living and non-living, rather than physical theories (in the modern sense) or investigations of the particular contents of the universe. The chief purpose of the work is to discover the principles and causes of (and not merely to describe) change, or movement, or motion (κίνησις ''kinesis''), especially that of natural wholes (mostly living things, but also inanimate wholes like the cosmos). In the conventional Andronicean ordering of Aristotle's works, it stands at the head of, as well as being foundational to, the long series of physical, cosmolog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
