The book was planned and written as a single, sustained argument. But earlier versions of a few parts of it have appeared separately. The object of this book is both to establish the existence of the paradoxes, and also to describe a non-Pascalian concept of probability in terms of which one can analyse the structure of forensic proof without giving rise to such typical signs of theoretical misfit. Neither the complementational principle for negation nor the multiplicative principle for conjunction applies (...) to the central core of any forensic proof in the Anglo-American legal system. There are four parts included in this book. Accordingly, these parts have been written in such a way that they may be read in different orders by different kinds of reader. (shrink)

In this book van Fraassen develops an alternative to scientific realism by constructing and evaluating three mutually reinforcing theories.

One of the cornerstone books of Western philosophy, Critique of Pure Reason is Kant's seminal treatise, where he seeks to define the nature of reason itself and builds his own unique system of philosophical thought with an approach known as transcendental idealism. He argues that human knowledge is limited by the capacity for perception and attempts a logical designation of two varieties of knowledge: a posteriori, the knowledge acquired through experience; and a priori, knowledge not derived through experience. This accurate (...) translation by J. M. D. Meiklejohn offers a simple and direct rendering of Kant's work that is suitable for readers at all levels. (shrink)

In the Critique of Judgement, Kant offers a penetrating analysis of our experience of the beautiful and the sublime. He discusses the objectivity of taste, aesthetic disinterestedness, the relation of art and nature, the role of imagination, genius and originality, the limits of representation, and the connection between morality and the aesthetic. He also investigates the validity of our judgements concerning the degree in which nature has a purpose, with respect to the highest interests of reason and enlightenment. The work (...) profoundly influenced the artists, writers, and philosophers of the classical and romantic period, including Hegel, Schelling, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. In addition, it has remained a landmark work in fields such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, the Frankfurt School, analytical aesthetics, and contemporary critical theory. Today it remains an essential work of philosophy, and required reading for all with an interest in aesthetics. (shrink)

Presents general information about meteorology, weather, and climate and includes more than thirty activities to help study these topics, including making a ...

Feyerabrend argues that intellectual progress relies on the creativity of the scientist, against the authority of science.

Described by the philosopher A.J. Ayer as a work of 'great originality and power', this book revolutionized contemporary thinking on science and knowledge. Ideas such as the now legendary doctrine of 'falsificationism' electrified the scientific community, influencing even working scientists, as well as post-war philosophy. This astonishing work ranks alongside The Open Society and Its Enemies as one of Popper's most enduring books and contains insights and arguments that demand to be read to this day.

Toward theory a homuncular of believing For years and years, philosophers took thoughts and beliefs to be modifications of incorporeal Cartesian egos. ...

Against the traditional view, Alvin Goldman argues that logic, probability theory, and linguistic analysis cannot by themselves delineate principles of rationality or justified belief. The mind's operations must be taken into account.

1 Knowledge and Justification This book is an investigation of one central problem which arises in the attempt to give a philosophical account of empirical ...

PARTI The Philosophical Situation: A Critical Appraisal We must begin with the mistake and find out the truth in it. That is, we must uncover the source of ...

In this sequence of philosophical essays about natural science, the author argues that fundamental explanatory laws, the deepest and most admired successes of modern physics, do not in fact describe regularities that exist in nature. Cartwright draws from many real-life examples to propound a novel distinction: that theoretical entities, and the complex and localized laws that describe them, can be interpreted realistically, but the simple unifying laws of basic theory cannot.

Offering a new approach to scientific explanation, this book focuses initially on the explaining act itself.

In the New Essays on Human Understanding, Leibniz argues chapter by chapter with John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, challenging his views about knowledge, personal identity, God, morality, mind and matter, nature versus nurture, logic and language, and a host of other topics. The work is a series of sharp, deep discussions by one great philosopher of the work of another. Leibniz's references to his contemporaries and his discussions of the ideas and institutions of the age make this a fascinating (...) and valuable document in the history of ideas. The work was originally written in French, and the version by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett, based on the only reliable French edition (published in 1962), first appeared in 1981 and has become the standard English translation. It has been thoroughly revised for this series and provided with a new and longer introduction, a chronology on Leibniz's life and career and a guide to further reading. (shrink)

This paper investigates the revolutionary conceptual changes that took place when the phlogiston theory of Stahl was replaced by the oxygen theory of Lavoisier. Using techniques drawn from artificial intelligence, it represents the crucial stages in Lavoisier's conceptual development from 1772 to 1789. It then sketches a computational theory of conceptual change to account for Lavoisier's discovery of the oxygen theory and for the replacement of the phlogiston theory.

This paper argues that it has been widely assumed by philosophers of science that the cumulative retention of explanatory success is a "sine qua non" for making judgements about the progress or rational preferability of one theory over another. It has also been assumed that it is impossible to make objective, Comparative judgements of the acceptability of rival theories unless all the statements of both theories could be translated into a common language. This paper seeks to show that both these (...) dogmas are mistaken; that progress without cumulativity and comparability without commensurability are both viable. (shrink)

The official model of explanation proposed by the logical empiricists, the covering law model, is subject to familiar objections. The goal of the present paper is to explore an unofficial view of explanation which logical empiricists have sometimes suggested, the view of explanation as unification. I try to show that this view can be developed so as to provide insight into major episodes in the history of science, and that it can overcome some of the most serious difficulties besetting the (...) covering law model. (shrink)

Reviews evidence which suggests that there may be little or no direct introspective access to higher order cognitive processes. Ss are sometimes unaware of the existence of a stimulus that importantly influenced a response, unaware of the existence of the response, and unaware that the stimulus has affected the response. It is proposed that when people attempt to report on their cognitive processes, that is, on the processes mediating the effects of a stimulus on a response, they do not do (...) so on the basis of any true introspection. Instead, their reports are based on a priori, implicit causal theories, or judgments about the extent to which a particular stimulus is a plausible cause of a given response. This suggests that though people may not be able to observe directly their cognitive processes, they will sometimes be able to report accurately about them. Accurate reports will occur when influential stimuli are salient and are plausible causes of the responses they produce, and will not occur when stimuli are not salient or are not plausible causes. (shrink)

This is a unique book. It is excellently written, crammed with information, wise and a pleasure to read.' ---Daniel C. Dennett, Tufts University.

The object of this paper is to show why recent research in the psychology of deductive and probabilistic reasoning does not have.

Thoughts and other mental states are defined by their role in a functional system. Since it is easier to determine when we have knowledge than when reasoning has occurred, Gilbert Harman attempts to answer the latter question by seeing what assumptions about reasoning would best account for when we have knowledge and when not. He describes induction as inference to the best explanation, or more precisely as a modification of beliefs that seeks to minimize change and maximize explanatory coherence. Originally (...) published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

THE LIFE Of FRANCIS BACON, LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND. THE ancient Egyptians had a law, which ordained that the actions and characters of their dead ...

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Scientific discovery is often regarded as romantic and creative - and hence unanalyzable - whereas the everyday process of verifying discoveries is sober and more suited to analysis. Yet this fascinating exploration of how scientific work proceeds argues that however sudden the moment of discovery may seem, the discovery process can be described and modeled. Using the methods and concepts of contemporary information-processing psychology (or cognitive science) the authors develop a series of artificial-intelligence programs that can simulate the human thought (...) processes used to discover scientific laws. The programs - BACON, DALTON, GLAUBER, and STAHL - are all largely data-driven, that is, when presented with series of chemical or physical measurements they search for uniformities and linking elements, generating and checking hypotheses and creating new concepts as they go along. "Scientific Discovery examines the nature of scientific research and reviews the arguments for and against a normative theory of discovery; describes the evolution of the BACON programs, which discover quantitative empirical laws and invent new concepts; presents programs that discover laws in qualitative and quantitative data; and ties the results together, suggesting how a combined and extended program might find research problems, invent new instruments, and invent appropriate problem representations. Numerous prominent historical examples of discoveries from physics and chemistry are used as tests for the programs and anchor the discussion concretely in the history of science. Pat Langley is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information and Computer Science at the University of California, Irvine.Herbert Simon is a Professor in the Departments of Psychology, Computer Science, and Philosophy at Carnegie-Mellon University. Gary L. Bradshaw is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology and Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Jan M. Zytkow is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at Wichita State University. (shrink)

v. 1-2. Principles of philosophy and Elements of logic.--v. 3-4. Exact logic (published papers) and The simplest mathematics.--v. 5-6. Pragmatism and pragmaticism and Scientific metaphysics.--v. 7. Science and philosophy.--v. 8. Reviews, correspondence and bibliography.

This paper examines Alvin Goldman's discussion of acceptance and uncertainty in chapter 15 of his book, Epistemology and Cognition. Goldman discusses how acceptance and rejection of beliefs might be understood in terms of "winner-take-all" connectionist networks. The paper answers some of the questions he raises in his epistemic evaluation of connectionist programs. The major tool for doing this is a connectionist model of explanatory coherence judgments (Thagard, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 1989). Finally, there is a discussion of problems for Goldman's (...) general epistemological project that arise if one adopts a different approach to connectionism based on distributed representations. (shrink)