This book solves a century-old key problem in the philosophy of science by providing the first successful solution that differentiates between disciplines, claims, and attitudes that are scientific and those that are not. This is of profound social relevance, as sharpening and improving our understanding of the nature of science would benefit human well-being, including in educational, financial, medical, legal, regulatory, and political endeavours. The book executes a multi-criterial scientific demarcation project. This allows for the demarcation not only of science from pseudoscience but also of science from other non-scientific fields. In this way, it provides a unique and intensional scientific demarcation in philosophy of science. This book is of great interest to philosophers of science, epistemologists, educators, and anyone designing policies or deciding matters concerning science, such as legislators, regulators, magistrates, and judges.
Authors note on the text.- Abstract.- Acknowledgements.- List of
abbreviations.- Part I: Retackling the Demarcation Problem.
Chapter 1: The
Multicriterial Approach to the Problem of Demarcation.
Chapter 2: A Survey
of the Properties of Science for Multicriterial Demarcation.- Part II: Case
Studies.
Chapter 3: The Properties of Genethliac Astrology.
Chapter 4: The
Properties of Parapsychology.
Chapter 5: The Properties of Creation
Science.
Chapter 6: The Properties of Homeopathy.
Chapter 7: The
Properties of Feng Shui.
Chapter 8: The Properties of Common Sense.
Chapter
9: The Properties of Art.
Chapter 10: The Properties of Religion.
Chapter
11: The Properties of Analytic Philosophy.
Chapter 12: The Properties of
History.
Chapter 13: The Properties of the Formal Sciences.
Chapter 14: The
Properties of Physics.
Chapter 15: The Properties of Chemistry.
Chapter 16:
The Properties of Astronomy.
Chapter 17: The Properties of Biology.
Chapter
18: The Properties of Psychology.
Chapter 19: The Properties of Sociology.-
Part III: A Working Demarcation.
Chapter 20: Concluding Remarks: Theoretical
Import and Practical Applications.- Appendix 1: Fuzzy Logic for the
Demarcation of Science.- Appendix 2: Social Beliefs without Entirely Social
Causes.- Index.
Damian Fernandez-Beanato is an epistemologically-oriented professional philosopher and historian of science. He has earned multiple degrees, including a Licentiate degree in History from the University of Buenos Aires, a Master's Degree in Epistemology and History of Science from UNTreF University, and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Bristol, England. He has also published several peer-reviewed academic articles on the topic of the proposed book.
He specializes in the general philosophy of science, particularly the method of science and the demarcation of science from non-science, which he has been researching full-time for almost a decade. During his doctoral research at Bristol, he developed the first accurate method for identifying non-scientific disciplines, claims, and attitudes. This revolutionary technique would finally be presented in full form in this book.
He has been teaching logic, methodology of science, general philosophy of science, epistemology, and scientific demarcation at different universities, on different continents, and for a wide range of audiences (students of every academic discipline, and from well-to-do students to inmates, and everything in between) since 2014.
