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Verisimilitude
In philosophy, verisimilitude (or truthlikeness) is the notion that some propositions are closer to being true than other propositions. The problem of verisimilitude is the problem of articulating what it takes for one false theory to be closer to the truth than another false theory. This problem was central to the philosophy of Karl Popper, largely because Popper was among the first to affirm that truth is the aim of scientific inquiry while acknowledging that most of the greatest scientific theories in the history of science are, strictly speaking, false. If this long string of purportedly false theories is to constitute progress with respect to the goal of truth, then it must be at least possible for one false theory to be closer to the truth than others. Karl Popper Popper assumed that scientists are interested in highly informative theories, in part for methodological reasons—the more informative a theory, the easier it is to test, and the greater its predictiv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the classical inductivist views on the scientific method in favour of empirical falsification. According to Popper, a theory in the empirical sciences can never be proven, but it can be falsified, meaning that it can (and should) be scrutinised with decisive experiments. Popper was opposed to the classical justificationist account of knowledge, which he replaced with critical rationalism, namely "the first non-justificational philosophy of criticism in the history of philosophy". In political discourse, he is known for his vigorous defence of liberal democracy and the principles of social criticism that he believed made a flourishing open society possible. His political philosophy embraced ideas from major democratic political ideologies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graham Oddie
Graham Oddie is a New Zealand philosopher who lives and works in the United States. He has been Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado since 1994. Biography Oddie was educated at the University of Otago, where he received a first class honors degree in philosophy, and at the London School of Economics, where he received a PhD in logic and philosophy of science (1979). His teachers at the University of Otago included Pavel Tichý and Alan Musgrave, and at the LSE, John Watkins (his supervisor), and Colin Howson. Before moving to the United States he held positions at the University of Otago Oddie wrote a PhD on his new idea of truthlikeness which transformed into his book, ''Likeness to Truth''. and Massey University (where he was Professor and Chair of Philosophy from 1988 to 1994). At the University of Colorado he was elected Chair of Philosophy in 1997, and appointed Associate Dean for Humanities and the Arts in 2002. He is a past President of the Austr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imagination
Imagination is the production or simulation of novel objects, sensations, and ideas in the mind without any immediate input of the senses. Stefan Szczelkun characterises it as the forming of experiences in one's mind, which can be re-creations of past experiences, such as vivid memories with imagined changes, or completely invented and possibly fantastic scenes. Imagination helps make knowledge applicable in solving problems and is fundamental to integrating experience and the learning process.Norman 2000 pp. 1-2 Brian Sutton-Smith 1988, p. 22 Kieran Egan 1992, pp. 50 As an approach to build theory, it is called "disciplined imagination". A basic training for imagination is listening to storytelling (narrative), in which the exactness of the chosen words is the fundamental factor to "evoke worlds". One view of imagination links it with cognition, seeing imagination as a cognitive process used in mental functioning. It is increasingly used - in the form of visual imagery - by c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ilkka Niiniluoto
Ilkka Maunu Olavi Niiniluoto (born March 12, 1946) is a Finnish philosopher and mathematician, serving as a professor of philosophy at the University of Helsinki since 1981. He is currently on leave from his position, having been appointed as rector of the University of Helsinki on August 1, 2003, for a five-year period. On April 25, 2008, he was chosen to succeed Kari Raivio as chancellor of the University of Helsinki, beginning 1 June 2008. Work A significant contribution to the philosophy of science, particularly to the topic of verisimilitude In philosophy, verisimilitude (or truthlikeness) is the notion that some propositions are closer to being true than other propositions. The problem of verisimilitude is the problem of articulating what it takes for one false theory to be clo ... or truth approximation, is his ''Truthlikeness'' (Synthese Library, Springer, 1987). Another notable publication is ''Critical Scientific Realism'' (Oxford University Press, 2002). In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Miller (philosopher)
David William Miller (born 19 August 1942, Watford) is an English philosopher and prominent exponent of critical rationalism. He taught in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Warwick in Coventry, UK. where he is Reader in Philosophy. He has been Honorary Treasurer of the British Society for the Philosophy of Science. He was educated at Woodbridge School and Peterhouse, Cambridge. In 1964 he began to study Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics. Soon afterwards he became one of Karl Popper's research assistants. In a series of papers in the 1970s, Miller and others uncovered defects in Popper's formal definition of verisimilitude, previously a mostly ignored aspect of Popper's theory. A substantial literature developed in the two decades following, including papers by Miller, to assess the remediability of Popper's approach. Miller's '' Critical Rationalism: A Restatement and Defence'' is an attempt to expound, defend, and extend an approac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some sources claim the term was coined by Pythagoras ( BCE), although this theory is disputed by some. Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument, and systematic presentation. in . Historically, ''philosophy'' encompassed all bodies of knowledge and a practitioner was known as a '' philosopher''."The English word "philosophy" is first attested to , meaning "knowledge, body of knowledge." " natural philosophy," which began as a discipline in ancient India and Ancient Greece, encompasses astronomy, medicine, and physics. For example, Newton's 1687 ''Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy'' later became classified as a book of physics. In the 19th century, the growth of modern research ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Henry Harris (philosopher)
John Henry Harris, Baron Harris of Greenwich, (5 April 1930 – 11 April 2001) was an English journalist, political aide and politician. After serving as a local councillor and political advisor and aide to a number of Labour politicians including Roy Jenkins, he was created a life peer in order to become Minister of State for Home Affairs in the Wilson and Callaghan governments between 1974 and 1979. He became a founder member of the Social Democrats, becoming the Liberal Democrats Chief Whip in the House of Lords between 1994 and 2001. Early life Harris was born on 5 April 1930 in Pinner, Middlesex, to Alfred George Harris and his wife, May. He was educated at Pinner County Grammar School before working as a journalist and completing National Service with the Directorate of Army Legal Services. Political career He became assistant editor of '' Forward'', a left-wing weekly newspaper, when it was brought to London in 1957, which was the start of his career in politics. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Empirical Evidence
Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. Empirical evidence is of central importance to the sciences and plays a role in various other fields, like epistemology and law. There is no general agreement on how the terms ''evidence'' and ''empirical'' are to be defined. Often different fields work with quite different conceptions. In epistemology, evidence is what justifies beliefs or what determines whether holding a certain belief is rational. This is only possible if the evidence is possessed by the person, which has prompted various epistemologists to conceive evidence as private mental states like experiences or other beliefs. In philosophy of science, on the other hand, evidence is understood as that which '' confirms'' or ''disconfirms'' scientific hypotheses and arbitrates between competing theories. For this role, it is importan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corroboration
Corroborating evidence, also referred to as corroboration, is a type of evidence in law. Types and uses Corroborating evidence tends to support a proposition that is already supported by some initial evidence, therefore confirming the proposition. For example, W, a witness, testifies that she saw X drive his automobile into a green car. Meanwhile, Y, another witness, testifies that when he examined X's car, later that day, he noticed green paint on its fender. There can also be corroborating evidence related to a certain source, such as what makes an author think a certain way due to the evidence that was supplied by witnesses or objects.For more information on this type of reasoning, see: Casuistry. Another type of corroborating evidence comes from using the Baconian method, i.e., the method of agreement, method of difference, and method of concomitant variations. These methods are followed in experimental design. They were codified by Francis Bacon, and developed further by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Empirical Research
Empirical research is research using empirical evidence. It is also a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience. Empiricism values some research more than other kinds. Empirical evidence (the record of one's direct observations or experiences) can be analyzed quantitatively or qualitatively. Quantifying the evidence or making sense of it in qualitative form, a researcher can answer empirical questions, which should be clearly defined and answerable with the evidence collected (usually called data). Research design varies by field and by the question being investigated. Many researchers combine qualitative and quantitative forms of analysis to better answer questions that cannot be studied in laboratory settings, particularly in the social sciences and in education. In some fields, quantitative research may begin with a research question (e.g., "Does listening to vocal music during the learning of a word list have an effect on later mem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Critical Rationalism
Critical rationalism is an epistemological philosophy advanced by Karl Popper on the basis that, if a statement cannot be logically deduced (from what is known), it might nevertheless be possible to logically falsify it. Following Hume, Popper rejected any inductive logic that is ampliative, i.e., any logic that can provide more knowledge than deductive logic. In other words if we cannot assert it logically, we should at the least try to logically falsify it, which led Popper to his falsifiability criterion. Popper wrote about critical rationalism in many works, including: '' The Logic of Scientific Discovery'' (1934/1959), ''The Open Society and its Enemies'' (1945), '' Conjectures and Refutations'' (1963), '' Unended Quest'' (1976), and '' The Myth of the Framework'' (1994). Criticism, not support Critical rationalists hold that scientific theories and any other claims to knowledge can and should be rationally criticized, and (if they have empirical content) can and shou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ken Gemes
Ken Gemes is Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London. His primary interests are Nietzsche and philosophy of science. Education and career Gemes earned his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in 1990 with a dissertation in philosophy of science working with Clark Glymour and Wesley Salmon Wesley Charles Salmon (August 9, 1925 – April 22, 2001) was an American philosopher of science renowned for his work on the nature of scientific explanation. He also worked on confirmation theory, trying to explicate how probability theory via .... He taught at Yale University for ten years before moving to Birkbeck in 2000. Philosophical work Gemes's work has covered a wide range of philosophical issues, from technical concerns of logical content to Nietzsche's account of philosophy as the "last manifestation of the ascetic ideal". Selected publications * ''The Oxford Handbook of Nietzsche'', Ken Gemes and John Richardson, eds. Oxford University Press, 2013 *' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
