This classic remains one of Karl Popper's most wide-ranging and popular works, notable not only for its acute insight into the way scientific knowledge grows, but also for applying those insights to politics and to history.

In this 1958 book, Professor Hanson turns to an equally important but comparatively neglected subject, the philosophical aspects of research and discovery.

In this work the distinguished physical chemist and philosopher, Michael Polanyi, demonstrates that the scientist's personal participation in his knowledge, in both its discovery and its validation, is an indispensable part of science itself. Even in the exact sciences, "knowing" is an art, of which the skill of the knower, guided by his personal commitment and his passionate sense of increasing contact with reality, is a logically necessary part. In the biological and social sciences this becomes even more evident. The (...) tendency to make knowledge impersonal in our culture has split fact from value, science from humanity. Polanyi wishes to substitute for the objective, impersonal ideal of scientific detachment an alternative ideal which gives attention to the personal involvement of the knower in all acts of understanding. His book should help to restore science to its rightful place in an integrated culture, as part of the whole person's continuing endeavor to make sense of the totality of his experience. In honor of this work and his The Study of Man Polanyi was presented with the Lecomte de Noüy Award for 1959. (shrink)

Science as Practice and Culture explores one of the newest and most controversial developments within the rapidly changing field of science studies: the move toward studying scientific practice--the work of doing science--and the associated move toward studying scientific culture, understood as the field of resources that practice operates in and on. Andrew Pickering has invited leading historians, philosophers, sociologists, and anthropologists of science to prepare original essays for this volume. The essays range over the physical and biological sciences and mathematics, (...) and are divided into two parts. In part I, the contributors map out a coherent set of perspectives on scientific practice and culture, and relate their analyses to central topics in the philosophy of science such as realism, relativism, and incommensurability. The essays in part II seek to delineate the study of science as practice in arguments across its borders with the sociology of scientific knowledge, social epistemology, and reflexive ethnography. (shrink)

"Descartes is rightly considered the father of modern philosophy" - Schopenhauer "The effect of this man on his age and the new age cannot be imagined broadly enough... René Descartes is indeed the true beginner of modern philosophy, insofar as it makes thinking the principle. "- Hegel "Descartes was the first to bring to light the idea of a transcendental science, which is to contain a system of knowledge of the conditions of possibility of all knowledge." - Kant A new (...) 2023 translation directly from the original manuscripts into English of Descartes' famous work "Rules for the Direction of the Mind" (Règles pour la direction de l'esprit). This edition contains a new introduction and afterword from the translator, as well as a timeline of Descartes' life and summaries of each of his works. Here, Descartes lays out a method for approaching problems and seeking knowledge. The importance of this work lies in the fact that it established the scientific method as a way of investigating the world, and had a significant influence on the development of modern science. This work is one of the foundational texts of Western Philosophy. (shrink)

"Bartley and Radnitzky have done the philosophy of knowledge a tremendous service. Scholars now have a superb and up-to-date presentation of the fundamental ideas of evolutionary epistemology." --Philosophical Books.

“There could be no fairer destiny for any. . . theory than that it should point the way to a more comprehensive theory in which it lives on, as a limiting case.” ALBERT EINSTEIN..

It is ironic that the prototype of the oscilloscope--for that is what Hertz's apparatus amounted to--should be instrumental in demonstrating that cathode rays have no closer relation to electricity than has light produced by an electric lamp. Indeed, Hertz argued that since "cathode rays are electrically indifferent,... the phenomenon most nearly allied to them is light.".

_Ideology and Utopia_ argues that ideologies are mental fictions whose function is to veil the true nature of a given society. They originate unconsciously in the minds of those who seek to stabilise a social order. Utopias are wish dreams that inspire the collective action of opposition groups which aim at the entire transformation of society. Mannheim shows these two opposing elements to dominate not only our social thought but even unexpectedly to penetrate into the most scientific theories in philosophy, (...) history and the social sciences. This new edition contains a new preface by Bryan S. Turner which describes Mannheim's work and critically assesses its relevance to modern sociology. The book is published with a comprehensive bibliography of Mannheim's major works. (shrink)

Wisdom of life.--Counsels and maxims.--Religion: a dialogue.--The art of literature.--Studies in pessimism.--On human nature.--The art of controversy.