This book argues against the view that mathematical knowledge is a priori,contending that mathematics is an empirical science and develops historically,just as ...

A scientific community cannot practice its trade without some set of received beliefs. These beliefs form the foundation of the "educational initiation that prepares and licenses the student for professional practice". The nature of the "rigorous and rigid" preparation helps ensure that the received beliefs are firmly fixed in the student's mind. Scientists take great pains to defend the assumption that scientists know what the world is like...To this end, "normal science" will often suppress novelties which undermine its foundations. Research (...) is therefore not about discovering the unknown, but rather "a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education". (shrink)

Thomas S. Kuhn's classic book is now available with a new index.

v. 1. The collective use and evolution of concepts.

Two books have been particularly influential in contemporary philosophy of science: Karl R. Popper's Logic of Scientific Discovery, and Thomas S. Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Both agree upon the importance of revolutions in science, but differ about the role of criticism in science's revolutionary growth. This volume arose out of a symposium on Kuhn's work, with Popper in the chair, at an international colloquium held in London in 1965. The book begins with Kuhn's statement of his position followed by (...) seven essays offering criticism and analysis, and finally by Kuhn's reply. The book will interest senior undergraduates and graduate students of the philosophy and history of science, as well as professional philosophers, philosophically inclined scientists, and some psychologists and sociologists. (shrink)

Recent philosophical accounts of mathematics increasingly focus on the quasi-Empirical rather than the formal aspects of the field, The praxis of how mathematics is done rather than the idealized logical structure and foundations of the theory. The ultimate test of any philosophy of mathematics, However idealized, Is its ability to account adequately for the factual development of the subject in real time. As a text case, The works and views of felix klein (1849-1925) were studied. Major advances in mathematics turn (...) out to be most adequately understood as shifts to new conceptualizations at different levels of idealization and abstraction. The implications of the model are explored with special reference to modern philosophical views of the nature and the warrants of mathematical claims to knowledge, And the methodology of the development of this knowledge. (shrink)