Muutke küpsiste eelistusi

Experience and Prediction: An Analysis of the Foundations and the Structure of Knowledge [Pehme köide]

  • Formaat: Paperback / softback, 277 pages, kõrgus x laius x paksus: 216x140x26 mm, kaal: 578 g
  • Ilmumisaeg: 30-Apr-2006
  • Kirjastus: University of Notre Dame Press
  • ISBN-10: 0268040559
  • ISBN-13: 9780268040550
Teised raamatud teemal:
  • Formaat: Paperback / softback, 277 pages, kõrgus x laius x paksus: 216x140x26 mm, kaal: 578 g
  • Ilmumisaeg: 30-Apr-2006
  • Kirjastus: University of Notre Dame Press
  • ISBN-10: 0268040559
  • ISBN-13: 9780268040550
Teised raamatud teemal:
Hans Reichenbach (1891–1953) was a formidable figure in early-twentieth-century philosophy of science. Educated in Germany, he was influential in establishing the so-called Berlin Circle, a companion group to the Vienna Circle founded by his colleague Rudolph Carnap. The movement they founded—usually known as "logical positivism," although it is more precisely known as "scientific philosophy" or "logical empiricism"—was a form of epistemology that privileged scientific over metaphysical truths. Reichenbach, like other young philosophers of the exact sciences of his generation, was deeply impressed by the far-reaching changes in physics brought about by Einstein's special and general theories of relativity. Reichenbach responded to scientific advances by doing fundamental work in space-time theories, in quantum mechanics, in statistical mechanics, and in the development of probability theory—making him the most important philosopher of physics in the first generation of logical empiricism.
Forced from his academic position by the Nazi race laws in 1933, Reichenbach wrote Experience and Prediction at the University of Istanbul, where had had fled, expressly to introduce logical positivism to English speakers. In the two decades following World War II, during the explosion of scientific advances in North America, logical positivism was the reigning theory of the philosophy of science and Reichenbach was at the peak of his career. But, inevitably, support for logical positivism began to wane as it became obvious that the justification of scientific theories could not be entirely resolved by relying on strictly formal, technical processes.
The growth of the discipline of the history of philosophy of science, which has created an audience of scholars eager for seminal classics in scientific philosophy, and the evidence supporting a historicist paradigm within logical positivism are two important reasons to make Experience and Prediction available once again.
"Hans Reichenbach's Experience and Prediction is one of the most important books in twentieth-century philosophy of science. Its author was, along with Rudolf Carnap, one of the two principal ambassadors to North America of the exciting new European philosophical movement known here under the names 'Logical Positivism' and 'Scientific Philosophy.' In 1938, when the book was published, Reichenbach was an exile from his native Germany, teaching in Istanbul, Turkey, and about to emigrate to the United States to take up a prestigious position at UCLA. He wrote Experience and Prediction in English as his calling card to his new American colleagues. More than any other single book, Experience and Prediction set the agenda for the new discipline of the philosophy of science that was to emerge after World War II as, perhaps, the most exciting new area in North American philosophy. Many of the problems still at the focus of discussion were given their classic formulations in this book. Long out of print, Experience and Prediction appears here in a new edition accompanied by a splendid historical introduction by the noted young philosopher and historian of the philosophy of science, Alan Richardson. A jewel of a book may once again be appreciated in its proper setting." —Don A. Howard, University of Notre Dame

Arvustused

"Experience and Prediction reprints the classic treatise by German-American philosopher of science Hans Reichenbach (1891-1953). . . Experience and Prediction breaks down the fundamental conundrums of existence, reduction, projection, construction, the nature of the ego, probability logic, and much more." Wisconsin Bookwatch

"Hans Reichenbach's Experience and Prediction is one of the most important books in twentieth-century philosophy of science. Its author was, along with Rudolf Carnap, one of the two principal ambassadors to North America of the exciting new European philosophical movement known here under the names 'Logical Positivism' and 'Scientific Philosophy.' In 1938, when the book was published, Reichenbach was an exile from his native Germany, teaching in Istanbul, Turkey, and about to emigrate to the United States to take up a prestigious position at UCLA. He wrote Experience and Prediction in English as his calling card to his new American colleagues. More than any other single book, Experience and Prediction set the agenda for the new discipline of the philosophy of science that was to emerge after World War II as, perhaps, the most exciting new area in North American philosophy. Many of the problems still at the focus of discussion were given their classic formulations in this book. Long out of print, Experience and Prediction appears here in a new edition accompanied by a splendid historical introduction by the noted young philosopher and historian of the philosophy of science, Alan Richardson. A jewel of a book may once again be appreciated in its proper setting." Don A. Howard, University of Notre Dame

". . . reprints the classic treatise by German-American philosopher of science Hans Reichenbach (1891-1953). . . Experience and Prediction breaks down the fundamental conundrums of existence, reduction, projection, construction, the nature of the ego, probability logic, and much more." Midwest Book Review

Introduction vii
Alan W. Richardson
Preface xli
I. MEANING PAGE
§
1. The three tasks of epistemology
3(13)
§
2. Language
16(3)
§
3. The three predicates of propositions
19(9)
§
4. The language of chess as an example, and the two principles of the truth theory of meaning
28(5)
§
5. Extension of the physical theory of truth to observation propositions of ordinary language
33(4)
§
6. Extension of the truth theory of meaning to observation propositions of ordinary language
37(9)
§
7. The meaning of indirect propositions, and the two principles of the probability theory of meaning
46(11)
§
8. Discussion of the verifiability theory of meaning
57(26)
II. IMPRESSIONS AND THE EXTERNAL WORLD
§
9. The problem of absolute verifiability of observation propositions
83(5)
§
10. Impressions and the problem of existence
88(5)
§
11. The existence of abstracta
93(7)
§
12. The positivistic construction of the world
100(5)
§
13. Reduction and projection
105(9)
§
14. A cubical world as a model of inferences to unobservable things
114(15)
§
15. Projection as the relation between physical things and impressions
129(6)
§
16. An egocentric language
135(10)
§
17. Positivism and realism as a problem of language
145(11)
§
18. The functional conception of meaning
156(7)
III. AN INQUIRY CONCERNING IMPRESSIONS
§
19. Do we observe impressions?
163(6)
§
20. The weight of impression propositions
169(10)
§
21. Further reduction of basic statements
179(8)
§
22. Weight as the sole predicate of propositions
187(8)
IV. THE PROJECTIVE CONSTRUCTION OF THE WORLD ON THE CONCRETA BASIS
§
23. The grammar of the word "existence"
195(3)
§
24. The different kinds of existence
198(5)
§
25. The projective construction of the world
203(22)
§
26. Psychology
225(23)
§
27. The so-called incomparability of the psychical experiences of different persons
248(10)
§
28. What is the ego?
258(4)
§
29. The four bases of epistemological construction
262(11)
§
30. The system of weights co-ordinated to the construction of the world
273(9)
§
31. The transition from immediately observed things to reports
282(15)
V PROBABILITY AND INDUCTION
§
32. The two forms of the concept of probability
297(5)
§
33. Disparity conception or identity conception?
302(10)
§
34. The concept of weight
312(7)
§
35. Probability logic
319(7)
§
36. The two ways of transforming probability logic into two-valued logic
326(8)
§
37. The aprioristic and the formalistic conception of logic
334(5)
§
38. The problem of induction
339(9)
§
39. The justification of the principle of induction
348(9)
§
40. Two objections against our justification of induction
357(6)
§
41. Concatenated inductions
363(10)
§
42. The two kinds of simplicity
373(14)
§
43. The probability structure of knowledge
387(20)
INDEX 407
Alan W. Richardson is professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia.

Hans Reichenbach (18911953), German-American philosopher of science, was born in Hamburg. From 1920 to 1926 he taught at the Technische Hochschule in Stuttgart, from 1926 to 1933 at the University of Berlin, from 1933 to 1938 at the University of Istanbul, and from 1938 to 1953 at the University of California. His untimely death prevented him from presenting the William James lectures at Harvard in 1953.