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  1. Intention, plans, and practical reason.Michael Bratman - 1987 - Cambridge: Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
    What happens to our conception of mind and rational agency when we take seriously future-directed intentions and plans and their roles as inputs into further practical reasoning? The author's initial efforts in responding to this question resulted in a series of papers that he wrote during the early 1980s. In this book, Bratman develops further some of the main themes of these essays and also explores a variety of related ideas and issues. He develops a planning theory of intention. Intentions (...)
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  • (1 other version)Actions, Reasons, and Causes.Donald Davidson - 1963 - Journal of Philosophy 60 (23):685.
    What is the relation between a reason and an action when the reason explains the action by giving the agent's reason for doing what he did? We may call such explanations rationalizations, and say that the reason rationalizes the action. In this paper I want to defend the ancient - and common-sense - position that rationalization is a species of ordinary causal explanation. The defense no doubt requires some redeployment, but not more or less complete abandonment of the position, as (...)
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  • Scientific Realism: How Science Tracks Truth.Stathis Psillos - 1999 - New York: Routledge.
    Scientific realism is the optimistic view that modern science is on the right track: that the world really is the way our best scientific theories describe it. In his book, Stathis Psillos gives us a detailed and comprehensive study which restores the intuitive plausibility of scientific realism. We see that throughout the twentieth century, scientific realism has been challenged by philosophical positions from all angles: from reductive empiricism, to instrumentalism and to modern sceptical empiricism. _Scientific Realism_ explains that the history (...)
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  • The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation.Ernest Nagel - 1961 - New York, NY, USA: Harcourt, Brace & World.
    Introduction: Science and Common Sense Long before the beginnings of modern civilization, men ac- quired vast funds of information about their environment. ...
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  • Science, truth, and democracy.Philip Kitcher - 2001 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Striving to boldly redirect the philosophy of science, this book by renowned philosopher Philip Kitcher examines the heated debate surrounding the role of science in shaping our lives. Kitcher explores the sharp divide between those who believe that the pursuit of scientific knowledge is always valuable and necessary--the purists--and those who believe that it invariably serves the interests of people in positions of power. In a daring turn, he rejects both perspectives, working out a more realistic image of the sciences--one (...)
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  • The Scientific Image.William Demopoulos & Bas C. van Fraassen - 1982 - Philosophical Review 91 (4):603.
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  • Exceeding our grasp: science, history, and the problem of unconceived alternatives.P. Kyle Stanford - 2006 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    The incredible achievements of modern scientific theories lead most of us to embrace scientific realism: the view that our best theories offer us at least roughly accurate descriptions of otherwise inaccessible parts of the world like genes, atoms, and the big bang. In Exceeding Our Grasp, Stanford argues that careful attention to the history of scientific investigation invites a challenge to this view that is not well represented in contemporary debates about the nature of the scientific enterprise. The historical record (...)
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  • Theory change in science: strategies from Mendelian genetics.Lindley Darden - 1991 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    This innovative book focuses on the development of the gene theory as a case study in scientific creativity.
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  • Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason.Hugh J. McCann & M. E. Bratman - 1991 - Noûs 25 (2):230.
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  • (1 other version)The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation.Ernest Nagel - 1961 - Mind 72 (287):429-441.
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  • (1 other version)The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation.Ernest Nagel - 1962 - Philosophy 37 (142):372-374.
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  • (1 other version)The Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation.Ernest Nagel - 1981 - Science and Society 45 (4):475-480.
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  • The Natural Ontological Attitude.Arthur I. Fine - 1984 - In Jarrett Leplin (ed.), Scientific Realism. University of California Press. pp. 261--77.
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  • On the current status of the issue of scientific realism.Richard Boyd - 1983 - Erkenntnis 19 (1-3):45 - 90.
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  • (1 other version)Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason.M. E. Bratman - 1991 - Noûs 25 (2):230-233.
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  • Unifying Scientific Theories: Physical Concepts and Mathematical Structures.Margaret Morrison - 2000 - Cambridge University Press.
    This book is about the methods used for unifying different scientific theories under one all-embracing theory. The process has characterized much of the history of science and is prominent in contemporary physics; the search for a 'theory of everything' involves the same attempt at unification. Margaret Morrison argues that, contrary to popular philosophical views, unification and explanation often have little to do with each other. The mechanisms that facilitate unification are not those that enable us to explain how or why (...)
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  • Unnatural attitudes: Realist and instrumentalist attachments to science.Arthur Fine - 1986 - Mind 95 (378):149-179.
    The realist programme has degenerated by now to the point where it is quite beyond salvage. A token of this degeneration is that there are altogether too many realisms. It is as though by splitting into a confusing array of types and kinds, realism has hoped that some one variety might yet escape extinct. I shall survey the debate, and some of these realisms, below. Here I would just point out the obvious; that in so far as the successes of (...)
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  • Scientific Realism and Naturalistic Epistemology.Richard Boyd - 1980 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1980:613-662.
    A realistic and dialectical conception of the epistemology of science is advanced according to which the acquisition of instrumental knowledge is parasitic upon the acquisition, by successive approximation, of theoretical knowledge. This conception is extended to provide an epistemological characterization of reference and of natural kinds, and it is integrated into recent naturalistic treatments of knowledge. Implications for several current issues in the philosophy of science are explored.
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  • Well‐Ordered Science.Philip Kitcher - 2001 - In Science, truth, and democracy. New York: Oxford University Press.
    The question is answered by introducing an ideal, the ideal of well‐ordered science In well‐ordered science the inquiries pursued are those that would have been selected by a well‐informed group of deliberators dedicated to working cooperatively with one another. Well‐ordered science is contrasted with vulgar democracy and with elitism. The chapter suggests various ways in which our current practice of the sciences falls short of the ideal.
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  • Genes.Philip Kitcher - 1982 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 33 (4):337-359.
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  • Theory and truth: philosophical critique within foundational science.Lawrence Sklar - 2000 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Skeptics have cast doubt on the idea that scientific theories give us a true picture of an objective world. Lawrence Sklar examines three kinds of skeptical arguments about scientific truth, and explores the important role they play within foundational science itself. Sklar demonstrates that these kinds of philosophical critique are employed within science, and reveals the clear difference between how they operate in a scientific context and more abstract philosophical contexts. The underlying theme of Theory and Truth is that science (...)
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  • (2 other versions)Unifying Scientific Theories. Physical Concepts and Mathematical Structures.Margaret Morrison - 2001 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 63 (2):430-431.
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  • (2 other versions)Unifying Scientific Theories: Physical Concepts and Mathematical Structures.Margaret Morrison - 2001 - Philosophical Quarterly 51 (204):405-408.
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  • Yes, but… Some Skeptical Remarks on Realism and Anti‐Realism.Howard Stein - 1989 - Dialectica 43 (1‐2):47-65.
    This paper argues that the much discussed issue between "scientific realism" and "instrumentalism" has not been clearly drawn. Particular attention is paid to the claim that only realism can "explain" the success of scientific theories and---more especially---the progressively increasing success of such theories in a coherent line of inquiry. This claim is used to attempt to reach a clearer conception of the content of the realist thesis that underlies it; but, it is here contended, that attempt fails, and the claim (...)
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  • (1 other version)Instrumentalism, parsimony, and the akaike framework.Elliott Sober - 2002 - Proceedings of the Philosophy of Science Association 2002 (3):S112-S123.
    Akaike’s framework for thinking about model selection in terms of the goal of predictive accuracy and his criterion for model selection have important philosophical implications. Scientists often test models whose truth values they already know, and they often decline to reject models that they know full well are false. Instrumentalism helps explain this pervasive feature of scientific practice, and Akaike’s framework helps provide instrumentalism with the epistemology it needs. Akaike’s criterion for model selection also throws light on the role of (...)
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  • On Understanding: Maxwell on the Methods of Illustration and Scientific Metaphor.Jordi Cat - 2001 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 32 (3):395-441.
    In this paper I examine the notion and role of metaphors and illustrations in Maxwell's works in exact science as a pathway into a broader and richer philosophical conception of a scientist and scientific practice. While some of these notions and methods are still at work in current scientific research-from economics and biology to quantum computation and quantum field theory-, here I have chosen to attest to their entrenchment and complexity in actual science by attempting to make some conceptual sense (...)
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  • (1 other version)Instrumentalism, Parsimony, and the Akaike Framework.Elliott Sober - 2002 - Philosophy of Science 69 (S3):S112-S123.
    Akaike's framework for thinking about model selection in terms of the goal of predictive accuracy and his criterion for model selection have important philosophical implications. Scientists often test models whose truth values they already know, and they often decline to reject models that they know full well are false. Instrumentalism helps explain this pervasive feature of scientific practice, and Akaike's framework helps provide instrumentalism with the epistemology it needs. Akaike's criterion for model selection also throws light on the role of (...)
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  • (1 other version)Realism: Deconstructing the debate.Simon Blackburn - 2002 - Ratio 15 (2):111–133.
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  • (1 other version)Realism: Deconstructing the Debate.Simon Blackburn - 2003 - Ratio 15 (2):111-133.
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  • Innovation in Maxwell's Electromagnetic Theory: Molecular Vortices, Displacement Current and Light.Daniel M. Siegel & D. B. Wilson - 1994 - Annals of Science 51 (3):317-318.
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  • (1 other version)Instrumentalism Revisited.Elliott Sober - 1999 - Critica 31 (91):3-39.
    The logical empiricists said some good things about epistemology and scientific method. However, they associated those epistemological ideas with some rather less good ideas about philosophy of language. There is something epistemologically suspect about statements that cannot be tested. But to say that those statements are meaningless is to go too far. And there is something impossible about trying to figure out which of two empirically equivalent theories is true. But to say that those theories are synonymous is also to (...)
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  • Representing genes: classical mapping techniques and the growth of genetical knowledge.Marcel Weber - 1998 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 29 (2):295-315.
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  • The scientific image twenty years later.Arthur Fine - 2001 - Philosophical Studies 106 (1-2):107 - 122.
    What we represent to ourselves behind the appear- ances exists only in our understanding . . . [having] only the value of memoria technica or formula whose form, because it is arbitrary and irrelevant, varies . . . with the standpoint of our culture.
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  • Models of data and theoretical hypotheses: a case-study in classical genetics.Marion Vorms - 2010 - Synthese 190 (2):293-319.
    Linkage (or genetic) maps are graphs, which are intended to represent the linear ordering of genes on the chromosomes. They are constructed on the basis of statistical data concerning the transmission of genes. The invention of this technique in 1913 was driven by Morgan's group's adoption of a set of hypotheses concerning the physical mechanism of heredity. These hypotheses were themselves grounded in Morgan's defense of the chromosome theory of heredity, according to which chromosomes are the physical basis of genes. (...)
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  • Theorizing and Representational Practices in Classical Genetics.Marion Vorms - 2011 - Biological Theory 7 (4):311-324.
    In this paper, I wish to challenge theory-biased approaches to scientific knowledge, by arguing for a study of theorizing, as a cognitive activity, rather than of theories, as abstract structures independent from the agents’ understanding of them. Such a study implies taking into account scientists’ reasoning processes, and their representational practices. Here, I analyze the representational practices of geneticists in the 1910s, as a means of shedding light on the content of classical genetics. Most philosophical accounts of classical genetics fail (...)
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  • (1 other version)Instrumentalism Revisited.Elliott Sober - 2001 - The Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 10 (91):59-68.
    Instrumentalism is usually understood as a semantic thesis: scientific theories are neither true nor false, but are merely instruments for making predictions. Scientific realists are on firm ground when they reject this semantic claim. This paper focuses on epistemological rather than semantic instrumentalism. This form of instrumentalism claims that theories are to be judged by their ability to make accurate predictions, and that predictive accuracy is the only consideration that matters in the end. I consider how instrumentalism is related to (...)
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  • Reconceiving the Gene: Seymour Benzer's Adventures in Phage Genetics.Frederic Lawrence Holmes & William C. Summers - 2007 - Journal of the History of Biology 40 (2):376-379.
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  • Book Reviews. [REVIEW]Jonathan Weiner - 1999 - Journal of the History of Biology 32 (3):557-582.
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