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No Miracles Argument
Scientific realism is the view that the universe described by science is real regardless of how it may be interpreted. Within philosophy of science, this view is often an answer to the question "how is the success of science to be explained?" The discussion on the success of science in this context centers primarily on the status of unobservable entities apparently talked about by scientific theories. Generally, those who are scientific realists assert that one can make valid claims about unobservables (viz., that they have the same ontological status) as observables, as opposed to instrumentalism. Main features Scientific realism involves two basic positions. First, it is a set of claims about the features of an ideal scientific theory; an ideal theory is the sort of theory science aims to produce. Second, it is the commitment that science will eventually produce theories very much like an ideal theory and that science has done pretty well thus far in some domains. It is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reality
Reality is the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system, as opposed to that which is only imaginary. The term is also used to refer to the ontological status of things, indicating their existence. In physical terms, reality is the totality of a system, known and unknown. Philosophical questions about the nature of reality or existence or being are considered under the rubric of ontology, which is a major branch of metaphysics in the Western philosophical tradition. Ontological questions also feature in diverse branches of philosophy, including the philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophical logic. These include questions about whether only physical objects are real (i.e., physicalism), whether reality is fundamentally immaterial (e.g. idealism), whether hypothetical unobservable entities posited by scientific theories exist, whether a 'God' exists, whether numbers and other abstract objects exist, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Verificationist
Verificationism, also known as the verification principle or the verifiability criterion of meaning, is the philosophical doctrine which maintains that only statements that are empirically verifiable (i.e. verifiable through the senses) are cognitively meaningful, or else they are truths of logic ( tautologies). Verificationism thus rejects statements related to metaphysics, as well as fields such as theology, ethics and aesthetics, as "cognitively meaningless". Such statements may be meaningful in influencing emotions or behaviour, but not in terms of conveying truth value, information or factual content. Verificationism was a central thesis of logical positivism, a movement in analytic philosophy that emerged in the 1920s by philosophers who sought to unify philosophy and science under a common naturalistic theory of knowledge. Origins Although verificationist principles of a general sort—grounding scientific theory in some verifiable experience—are found retrospectively eve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world; it has buildings in every style of English architecture since late Anglo-Saxon. Oxford's industries include motor manufacturing, education, publishing, information technology and science. History The history of Oxford in England dates back to its original settlement in the Saxon period. Originally of strategic significance due to its controlling location on the upper reaches of the River Thames at its junction with the River Cherwell, the town grew in national importance during the early Norman period, and in the late 12th century became home to the fledgling University of Oxford. The city was besieged during The Anarchy in 1142. The university rose to dom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Hawthorne
John Patrick Hawthorne (born 1964) is an English philosopher, currently serving as Professor of Philosophy at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California. He is recognized as a leading contemporary contributor to metaphysics and epistemology. Early life and career Hawthorne was born on 25 May 1964 in Birmingham, England. He earned his PhD from Syracuse University, where he studied with William Alston and Jonathan Bennett. From 2006 to 2015, he was the Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He has also taught at the University of New South Wales, Arizona State University, Syracuse University, Rutgers University, and Princeton University. Philosophical work Hawthorne's 2006 collection ''Metaphysical Essays'' offers original treatments of fundamental topics in philosophy, including identity, ontology, vagueness, and causation, which one reviewer called "essential read ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamar Gendler
Tamar Szabó Gendler (born December 20, 1965) is an American philosopher. She is the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Yale as well as the Vincent J. Scully Professor of Philosophy and a Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Sciences at Yale University. Her academic research focuses on issues in philosophical psychology, epistemology, metaphysics, and areas related to philosophical methodology. Biography Education and employment Gendler was born in 1965 in Princeton, New Jersey to Mary and Everett Gendler, a Conservative rabbi. She grew up in Andover, Massachusetts, where she attended the Andover public schools and then Phillips Academy Andover. As an undergraduate, she studied at Yale University, where she was a championship debater in the American Parliamentary Debate Association and a member of Manuscript Society. She graduated summa cum laude in 1987 with Distinction in Humanities and Math & Philosophy. After graduating from college, she worked for several y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herman Cappelen
Herman Wright Cappelen (born 1967) is a Norwegian philosopher. He is currently the Chair Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong. Biography Cappelen is the son of author and publisher Peder Wright Cappelen and actress Kari Simonsen. Cappelen received a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from the University of Oxford, Balliol College, in 1989. In 1996, Cappelen received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. The title of his dissertation was "The Metaphysics of Words and the Semantics of Quotation". His advisors were Charles Chihara, Stephen Neale, and John Searle. Academic career Cappelen was previously a professor of philosophy at the University of Oslo and at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. He works primarily on philosophy of language and philosophical methodology and related areas in epistemology, philosophy of mind, and metaphysics. In 2013, he became editor of the journal ''Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal Of Philosop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constructive Empiricism
In philosophy of science, constructive empiricism is a form of empiricism. While it is sometimes referred to as an empiricist form of structuralism, its main proponent, Bas van Fraassen, has consistently distinguished between the two views. Overview Bas van Fraassen is nearly solely responsible for the initial development of constructive empiricism; its historically most important presentation appears in his ''The Scientific Image'' (1980). Constructive empiricism states that scientific theories are semantically literal, that they aim to be empirically adequate, and that their acceptance involves, as belief, only that they are empirically adequate. A theory is empirically adequate if and only if everything that it says about observable entities is true (regardless of what it says about unobservable entities). A theory is semantically literal if and only if the language of the theory is interpreted in such a way that the claims of the theory are either true or false (as opposed to a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Scientific Image
Bastiaan Cornelis van Fraassen (; born 1941) is a Dutch-American philosopher noted for his contributions to philosophy of science, epistemology and formal logic. He is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University and the McCosh Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University. Biography and career Van Fraassen was born in the German-occupied Netherlands on 5 April 1941. His father, a steam fitter, was forced by the Nazis to work in a factory in Hamburg. After the war, the family reunited and, in 1956, emigrated to Edmonton, in western Canada. Van Fraassen earned his B.A. (1963) from the University of Alberta and his M.A. (1964) and Ph.D. (1966, under the direction of Adolf Grünbaum) from the University of Pittsburgh. He previously taught at Yale University, the University of Southern California, the University of Toronto and, from 1982 to 2008, at Princeton University, where he is now emeritus. Since 2008, van Fraassen has taught at San F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bas Van Fraassen
Bastiaan Cornelis van Fraassen (; born 1941) is a Dutch-American philosopher noted for his contributions to philosophy of science, epistemology and formal logic. He is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University and the McCosh Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University. Biography and career Van Fraassen was born in the German-occupied Netherlands on 5 April 1941. His father, a steam fitter, was forced by the Nazis to work in a factory in Hamburg. After the war, the family reunited and, in 1956, emigrated to Edmonton, in western Canada. Van Fraassen earned his B.A. (1963) from the University of Alberta and his M.A. (1964) and Ph.D. (1966, under the direction of Adolf Grünbaum) from the University of Pittsburgh. He previously taught at Yale University, the University of Southern California, the University of Toronto and, from 1982 to 2008, at Princeton University, where he is now emeritus. Since 2008, van Fraassen has taught at San ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emerald Group Publishing
Emerald Publishing Limited is a scholarly publisher of academic journals and books in the fields of management, business, education, library studies, health care, and engineering. History Emerald was founded in the United Kingdom in 1967 as ''Management Consultants Bradford (MCB) UP Ltd.'' The publisher changed its name to Emerald in 2002 following the success of its Emerald Fulltext database. In 2007 Emerald acquired a programme of Management and Social Science book serials, series and monographs from Elsevier. The acquisition of health and social care publisher Pier Professional Limited took place in 2011. In June 2015, the Emerald acquisition of GoodPractice was announced. GoodPractice is a provider of support tools for leaders and senior managers. Company Emerald Publishing is headquartered in Bingley and led by CEO Vicky Williams since 2018. Sponsoring In 2017 Emerald became the title sponsor of Headingley Stadium with it being renamed Emerald Headingley. As part o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bingley
Bingley is a market town and civil parish in the metropolitan borough of the City of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, on the River Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, which had a population of 18,294 at the 2011 Census. Bingley railway station is in the town centre and Leeds Bradford International Airport is away. The B6265 connects Bingley to Keighley. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Bingley appears in the ''Domesday Book'' of 1086 as "Bingheleia". History Founding Bingley was probably founded by the Saxons, by a ford on the River Aire. This crossing gave access to Harden, Cullingworth and Wilsden on the south side of the river. The origins of the name are from the Old English personal name ''Bynna'' + ''ingas'' ("descendants of") + ''lēah'' ("clearing in a forest"). This would mean altogether the "wood or clearing of the Bynningas, the people called after Bynna". Normans In the Domesday Book of 1086, Bingley is listed as "Bingheleia": ''m I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hilary Putnam
Hilary Whitehall Putnam (; July 31, 1926 – March 13, 2016) was an American philosopher, mathematician, and computer scientist, and a major figure in analytic philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. He made significant contributions to philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of science. Outside philosophy, Putnam contributed to mathematics and computer science. Together with Martin Davis he developed the Davis–Putnam algorithm for the Boolean satisfiability problem and he helped demonstrate the unsolvability of Hilbert's tenth problem. Putnam was known for his willingness to apply equal scrutiny to his own philosophical positions as to those of others, subjecting each position to rigorous analysis until he exposed its flaws. As a result, he acquired a reputation for frequently changing his positions. In philosophy of mind, Putnam is known for his argument against the type-identity of mental and physical states based on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
