Both an anthology and an introductory textbook, Philosophy of Science: The Central Issues offers instructors and students a comprehensive anthology of fifty-two primary texts by leading philosophers in the field and provides extensive editorial commentary that places the readings in a wide philosophical context.
(*= New to this Edition) Preface
General Introduction
1 | Science and Pseudoscience
Introduction
Karl Popper, Science: Conjectures and Refutations
Thomas S. Kuhn, Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research?
Imre Lakatos, Science and Pseudoscience
Paul R. Thagard, Why Astrology Is a Pseudoscience
Michael Ruse, Creation-Science Is Not Science
Larry Laudan, Commentary: Science at the BarCauses for Concern
Commentary
2 | Rationality, Objectivity, and Values in Science
Introduction
Thomas S. Kuhn, The Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions
Thomas S. Kuhn, Objectivity, Value Judgment, and Theory Choice
Ernan McMullin, Rationality and Paradigm Change in Science
Larry Laudan, Kuhns Critique of Methodology
Helen E. Longino, Values and Objectivity
Kathleen Okruhlik, Gender and the Biological Sciences
Commentary
3 | The Duhem-Quine Thesis and Underdetermination
Introduction
Pierre Duhem, Physical Theory and Experiment
W. V. Quine, Two Dogmas of Empiricism
Donald Gillies, The Duhem Thesis and the Quine Thesis
Larry Laudan, Demystifying Underdetermination
*Colin Howson and Peter Urbach, The Duhem Problem
Commentary
4 | Induction, Prediction, and Evidence
Introduction
Peter Lipton, Induction
Karl Popper, The Problem of Induction
Wesley C. Salmon, Rational Prediction
Carl G. Hempel, Criteria of Confirmation and Acceptability
Peter Achinstein, Explanation v. Prediction: Which Carries More Weight?
*Nelson Goodman, The New Riddle of Induction
Commentary
5 | Confirmation and Relevance: Bayesian Approaches
Introduction
Wesley C. Salmon, Rationality and Objectivity in Science
*Deborah G. Mayo, A Critique of Salmons Bayesian Way
*Alan Chalmers, The Bayesian Approach
Paul Horwich, Therapeutic Bayesianism
Commentary
6 | Models of Explanation
Introduction
Rudolf Carnap, The Value of Laws: Explanation and Prediction
Carl G. Hempel, Two Basic Types of Scientific Explanation
Carl G. Hempel, The Thesis of Structural Identity
Carl G. Hempel, Inductive-Statistical Explanation
Peter Railton, A Deductive-Nomological Model of Probabilistic Explanation
*Philip Kitcher, Explanatory Unification
*James Woodward, The Manipulability Conception of Causal Explanation
Commentary
7 | Laws of Nature
Introduction
A. J. Ayer, What Is a Law of Nature?
Fred I. Dretske, Laws of Nature
D. H. Mellor, Necessities and Universals in Natural Laws
Nancy Cartwright, Do the Laws of Physics State the Facts?
Commentary
8 | Intertheoretic Reduction
Introduction
Ernest Nagel, Issues in the Logic of Reductive Explanations
Paul K. Feyerabend, How to Be a Good Empiricist
*Jerry A. Fodor, Special Sciences
Philip Kitcher, 1953 and All That: A Tale of Two Sciences
Commentary
9 | Empiricism and Scientific Realism
Introduction
Grover Maxwell, The Ontological Status of Theoretical Entities
Bas C. van Fraassen, Arguments Concerning Scientific Realism
Alan Musgrave, Realism versus Constructive Empiricism
Larry Laudan, A Confutation of Convergent Realism
*Juha T. Saatsi, On the Pessimistic Induction and Two Fallacies
Ian Hacking, Experimentation and Scientific Realism
David B. Resnik, Hackings Experimental Realism
*Martin Carrier, What Is Right with the Miracle Argument
Arthur Fine, The Natural Ontological Attitude
Alan Musgrave, NOAs ArkFine for Realism
Commentary
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Glossary
Bibliography
Name Index
Subject Index
J. A. Cover is professor of philosophy at Purdue University. Leaving a research post after completing a B.S. in biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, Davis, he took a B.A. in philosophy at Syracuse University, where he later received his M.A. and Ph.D. Published widely in journals and books on issues in early modern philosophy, metaphysics, and philosophy of science, he is coeditor of Central Themes in Early Modern Philosophy (Hackett, 1990), coauthor of Theories of Knowledge and Reality, Second Edition (McGraw-Hill, 1994), coauthor of Leibniz on Substance and Individuation (Cambridge, 1999), and coeditor of Leibniz: Nature and Freedom (Oxford, 2005). Martin Curd is associate professor of philosophy at Purdue University. He has a B.A. in natural sciences from Cambridge University and a Ph.D. in history and philosophy of science from the University of Pittsburgh. Working mainly in philosophy of science and epistemology, he is coeditor of The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science (2008). Christopher Pincock is associate professor of philosophy at The Ohio State University. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley in 2002. Pincock has published articles in the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mathematics and the history of analytic philosophy. His book Mathematics and Scientific Representation (Oxford) was published in 2012.
