56 results for "Science"

Fact and relevance: essays on historical method

Postan, M. M.
A collection of fourteen essays in which Professor Postan draws together for the first time his contributions to the debate on historical method, and discusses from a variety of different angles, the inter-relation of history and the social sciences. After making, in his first three essays, a direct statement of his point of view, the author deals with two main aspects of the subject: time sequences and theoretical relevance of facts. He then proceeds to exemplify his point of view more particularly with relation to macro-economics and to certain specific issues within economic history as well as to economic history in general. In the final two chapters, one is on Karl Marx, the other on Hugh Gaitskell, he seeks to describe the intellectual climate in which the debate on methodology was held and in which his opinions on the subject were formed. The essays contained in this book will be of interest to all those involved in the social sciences, economics and history, as well as to those specifically concerned with historical methodology.
Cambridge University Press 2008-09-11 187 pages

Experience and theory: an essay in the philosophy of science

Körner, Stephan
Originally published in 1966. This volume analyzes the general structure of scientific theories, their relation to experience and to non-scientific thought. Part One is concerned with the logic underlying empirical discourse before its subjection to the various constraints, imposed by the logico-mathematical framework of scientific theories upon their content. Part Two is devoted to an examination of this framework and, in particular, to showing that the deductive organization of a field of experience is by that very act a modification of empirical discourse and an idealization of its subject matter. Part Three analyzes the concordance between theories and experience and the relevance of science to moral and religious beliefs.
Routledge 2013-10-14 250 pages

Mathematics, science and epistemology

Lakatos, Imre
EditorsG++ introduction Part I Philosophy of Mathematics 1 Infinite regress and foundations of mathematics 2 A renaissance of empiricism in the recent philosophy of mathematics? 3 Cauchy and the continuum: the significance of non-standard analysis for the history and philosophy of mathematics 4 What does a mathematical proof prove? 5 The method of analysis-synthesis Part II Critical Papers 6 The problem of appraising scientific theories: three approaches 7 Necessity, Kineale and Popper 8 Changes in the problem of inductive logic 9 On Popperian historiography 10 Anomalies versus G++crucial experimentsG++ 11 Understanding Toulmin Part III Science and Education 12 A letter to the director of the London School of Economics 13 The teaching of the history of science 14 The social responsibility of science References Lakatos bibliography Indexes.
Cambridge University Press 1978 285 pages

Conflict and Complexity: Countering Terrorism, Insurgency, Ethnic and Regional Violence

Philip Vos Fellman,Yaneer Bar-Yam,Ali A. Minai
Complexity science affords a number of novel tools for examining terrorism, particularly network analysis and NK-Boolean fitness landscapes as well as other tools drawn from non-linear dynamical systems modeling. This book follows the methodologies of compex adaptive systems research in their application to aaddressing the problems of terrorism, specifically terrorist networks, their structure and various methods of mapping and interdicting them as well as exploring the complex landscape of network-centric and irregular warfare.
Springer 2014-12-10 304 pages

Theory in a time of excess: beyond reflection and explanation in religious studies scholarship

Aaron W. Hughes
What does it mean to "do theory" in the study of religion today? The terms "method and theory" are now found in course titles, curricula/degree requirements, area/comprehensive exams, and frequently listed as competencies on the CVs of scholars from across a wide array of subfields. Are we really that theoretically and methodologically sophisticated? While a variety of groups at annual scholarly conferences now regularly itemize theorizing among the topics that they examine and carry out, it seems that few of the many examples of doing theory today involve either meta-reflection on the practical conditions of the field or rigorously explanatory studies of religion's cause(s) or function(s). So, despite the appearance of tremendous advances in the field over the past 30 years, it can be argued that little has changed. Indeed, the term theory is today so widely understood as to make it coterminous with virtually all forms of scholarship on religion. This volume seeks to re-examine just what we ought to consider theory to signify. The book consists of distinct chapters penned by leading theorists in the field. The core of the book consists of statements written by an anthropologist of religion, a literary theorist, a specialist in cognitive science of religion, and a philosopher of religion. Each statement is then followed by shorter response papers, and concludes with a response by the theorist.
Equinox Publishing, Ltd 2017 205 pages

Models of discovery: and other topics in the methods of science

Simon, Herbert A.
In these essays, the author attacks the central problems in the philosophy of science from the viewpoint of a working scientist who relates the philosophical questions to methodological issues that have arisen in his own research. The essays deal with six main topics: the validation of hypotheses, the logic of causal ordering and its relation to the definability and identifiability of theoretical terms, the logic of imperatives and decisions, the structure of complex systems, the theory of scientific discovery, and the axiomization of scientific theories. He treats these topics in a unified way by employing the analytic tools of model theory and by putting the discovery of theories, rather than their testing, at the center of the stage. Questions surrounding the axiomization of theories are examined in the light of real examples (Newtonian mechanics and Ohm's law) rather than simplified, hypothetical ones. Formalisms are not avoided, but they are always used as a means and not as ends in themselves.--
D. Reidel Pub. Co 1977 456 pages

Economics and sociology

Lowe, Adolph
Arguing that the disciplines of economics and sociology are inter-related and vitally important to each other, this book discusses major issues such as the effects of urbanization, population growth, and the growth of various forms of nationalism from both economic and socio-political viewpoints. In addition the significance and limits of pure economics are examined, as are the sociological factors in modern economic theory, as well as power and economic law.
Routledge 2011 158 pages

Felix Kaufmann's theory and method in the social sciences

Kaufmann, Felix
This volume contains the English translation of Felix Kaufmann's (1895-1945) main work Methodenlehre der Sozialwissenschaften (1936). In this book, Kaufmann develops a general theory of knowledge of the social sciences in his role as a cross-border commuter between Husserl's phenomenology, Kelsen's pure theory of law and the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle. This multilayered inquiry connects the value-oriented reflections of a general philosophy of science with the specificity of the methods and theories of the social sciences, as opposed to abstract natural science and psychology. The core focus of the study is the attempt to elucidate how and under what conditions scientific knowledge about social facts, empirically justified and theoretically embedded, can be obtained. The empirical basis of knowledge within the social sciences forms a phenomenological concept of experience. According to Kaufmann, this concept of experience exhibits a complex structure. Within the meaning-interpretation of human action as the core of knowledge in the social sciences, this structure reaches out across the isolated act of verification toward the synthesis of external and internal experiences. The book opens with a detailed and useful introduction by Ingeborg K. Helling, which introduces the historical and theoretical background of Kaufmann's study and specifically illuminates his relation to Alfred Schütz and John Dewey. Finally, it contains interviews with and letters to members of his family, colleagues and students.
Springer 2014-06-03 357 pages

A system of pragmatic idealism. Vol.3hMetaphilosophical inquiries

Rescher, Nicholas
This is the third and final volume of A System of Pragmatic Idealism, a series that will synthesize the life's work of the philosopher Nicholas Rescher. Rescher's numerous books and articles, which address almost every major philosophical topic, reflect a unified approach: the combination of pragmatism and idealism characteristic of his thinking throughout his career. The three related but independently readable books of the series present Rescher's system as a whole. In combining leading ideas of European continental idealism and American pragmatism in a new way, Rescher has created an integrated philosophical position in which the central concepts of these two traditions become a coherent totality. The initial volume in the series was dedicated to epistemology, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of nature, while the second dealt with issues of value theory, ethics, and practical philosophy. In Volume III Rescher examines the nature of philosophical inquiry itself, seeking to affirm the classical conception of philosophy as a significant problem-solving enterprise that draws on the whole range of human experience to attempt to resolve the "big questions." Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Princeton University Press 1994-03-21 269 pages

Life forms and meaning structure

Schutz, Alfred
This volume contains a translation of four early manuscripts by Alfred Schutz, unpublished at the time, written between 1924 and 1928. The publication of these four essays adds much to our knowledge and appreciation of the wide range of Schutz's phenomenological and sociological interests. Originally published in 1987. The essays consist of: a challenging presentation of a phenomenology of cognition and a treatment of Bergson's conceptions of images, duration, space time and memory; a discussion of the meanings connected with the grammatical forms of language in general; a consideration of the relation between meaning-contents and literary forms in poetry, literary prose narration and dramatic presentation; and an examination of resemblances and differences in the inner forms and characteristics of the major theatrical art forms.
Routledge 2013-08-08 216 pages