HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

Akwa Ibom State University Press, 2013

The metaphysical basis of science 9

Nature, 1988

Monography, 2022

17 The word 'law' in the seventeenth century is synonymous with 'form', 'principle', and 'axiom'; it does not mean an empirical regularity contrary to what we hear today in the wake of the empiricism of the Humean tradition (lawlike regularities). And the determination exercised on a natural or social phenomenon by its form-or law, or structureis not conceived as a causal determination: it determines the phenomenon in the sense that it circumscribes its possible becomings. 18 Bacon advances a series of experimental rules: variation of experience, prolongation of experience, translation of experience, reversal of experience, etc. (F. Bacon, De Dignitate, liv. V, ch.II, 1623 19 Experience is therefore in no way reduced to causal investigation. 20 I describe the inductive nature of analysis in ch.4

Journal of emerging technologies and innovative research, 2018

2013

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Logical Empiricism and the Physical Sciences: From Philosophy of Nature to Philosophy of Physics, 2021

Naturphilosophie, or its English counterpart, philosophy of nature, has a long and fascinating history and has undergone significant changes over time. 1 During the 19th and 20th centuries, many forms of philosophy of nature emerged, from monographs of philosophical remarks by physicistsoften written as diversions and philosophically naïve-and the treatises of the German idealists-often ambiguous and scientifically naïve-to the philosophically motivated writings of revolutionary scientists. The logical empiricists' philosophy of nature and science, however, stands out for its ability to synthesize various forms of inquiries: while its roots reach deep into the neo-Kantian "Wissenschaftslehre" of its day, it was framed in the empiricist traditions of English philosophers and scientists of the modern era. It developed both traditions further with the help of Frege's and Russell's logic and amalgamated them with contemporary French thinking about the conventionalist theory and practice of science. (Katherine Dunlop discusses conventionalism in her contribution to this volume, especially with reference to Poincaré and Neurath.) As Hans Reichenbach (1931/1978, 383) claimed in his programmatic pamphlet on philosophy of nature, philosophy of nature constitutes a great triumph of rationalism.. .. However, modern philosophy of nature must also be regarded as a triumph of empiricism.. .. Modern empiricism does not contradict rationalism because knowledge is conceived as a system constructed by reason upon which experience exerts a regulative and selective influence.

Croatian Journal of Philosophy, 2015

A New Introduction is the recent contribution to textbooks in Philosophy of Science. This accessible introduction is intended not only for philosophy students but also for students and interested professionals from related fi elds, such as science and technology studies, humanities or social sciences. Aside from professionals the book is useful and informative for every reader interested in the subject assuming she has at least minimal knowledge on the subject. Since both authors work extensively on topics that broaden the traditional discussions in philosophy of science with accounts from social epistemology, sociobiology, sociology of science, political philosophy and ethical theory, Philosophy of Science: A New Introduction seems as a natural summary (extension) of their previous work. Although discussions in philosophy of science address these issues for more than a decade and have moved further from the debates that dominated the twentieth century, the book represents a novel attempt to incorporate contemporary philosophical accounts of science in a fruitful introduction. Authors reconsider the core questions in philosophy of science by taking into account debates about climate changes, the role of values in scientifi c practice, science policies, feminist and ecological critique, the interdisciplinarity and diversity of science considering the changes that occurred in the scientifi c practice and sciences themselves. The book is structured around six chapters and can be divided into two parts. The fi rst three chapters focus on content of the sciences while the last three consider the contexts in which scientifi c work is done. Chapter 1 gives a good overview of the connection between science and philosophy introducing the relevant questions through climate change debates and disputes concerning racial differences. The examples force us to ask philosophical questions. What is the evidence and what does it entitle people to believe? Who has the authority to make scientifi c judgments? How should we decide about future science policies? Questions like these lead to more general concerns about whether natural sciences are the uniquely best sources of human knowledge, setting standards that ought to be achieved in all fi elds of inquiry (p. 3). A brief history of science gives us further insight into how philosophers and scientist addressed these ques-

Shells and Pebbles: Interesting finds on the shores of the history of science

As historians, we historicize. Indeed, it is our firm belief that everything in our world is open to historical analysis and that, in the case of a job well done, the result will invariably be a deeper understanding of the object of our study. In fact, the more timeless and placeless this object appears to be, and therefore the more immune to historical analysis, the more interesting the outcome has often proved to be. We now have histories of ‘the modern fact’, ‘objectivity’, and of ‘truth’, that is to say precisely those aspects of science that one tends to see as universal and timeless. In this essay I would like to advocate a similar approach with regard to another notion that most scientists tend to take for granted, that of the ‘laws of nature’. To be more precise, I want to suggest three possible lines of attack that may deepen our understanding of this crucial concept, and therefore of science itself. The first aims at a conceptual history of the term, akin to what the Germans call ‘Begriffsgeschichte’; the second is a study of the ‘biography’ of specific laws, and the third looks at the distribution of such laws across the various disciplines. Strangely enough, many of these topics have so far barely been addressed by historians of science.