Philosophy of science : a contemporary introduction /
[Book]
Alex Rosenberg
3rd ed
New York :
Routledge,
2012
xii, 308 pages ;
25 cm
Routledge contemporary introductions to philosophy
Includes bibliographical references (pages 293-298) and index
Philosophy of Science -- Why is Philosophy of Science important? -- Scientific explanation -- Why do laws explain? -- Causation, inexact laws and statistical probabiliteis -- Laws and explanation in Biology and the "Special Sciences" -- The structure of scientific theories -- Epistemic and metaphysical issues about scientific theories -- Theory construction vs. Model building -- Induction and probability -- Confirmation, falsification, underdetermination -- Challenges from the history of science -- Naturalism in the Philosophy of Science -- Contested character of science -- Science, relativism and objectivity
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"Any serious student attempting to better understand the nature, methods, and justification of science will value Alex Rosenberg's updated and substantially revised Third Edition of Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction. Weaving lucid explanations with clear analyses, the volume is as a much-used, thematically oriented introduction to the field. New features of the Third Edition include more coverage of the history of the philosophy of science, more fully developed material on the metaphysics of causal and physical necessity, more background on the contrast between empiricism and rationalism in science, and new material on the structure of theoretical science (with expanded coverage of Newtonian and Darwinian theories and models) and the realism/antirealism controversy. Rosenberg also divides the Third Edition into fourteen chapters, aligning each chapter with a week in a standard semester-long course. Updated Discussion Questions, Glossary, Bibliography and Suggested Readings lists at the end of each chapter will make the Third Edition indispensable, either as a comprehensive stand-alone text or alongside the many wide ranging collections of articles and book excerpts currently available."--