Widely acclaimed as the most authoritative and accessible one-volume dictionary available in English this second edition offers an even richer, more comprehensive, and more up-to-date survey of ideas and thinkers written by an international team of 436 contributors. Includes the most comprehensive entries on major philosophers, 400 new entries including over 50 on preeminent contemporary philosophers, extensive coverage of rapidly developing fields such as the philosophy of mind and applied ethics, more entries on non-Western philosophy than any comparable volume, and (...) increased coverage of Continental philosophy. (shrink)

How distinct is European philosophy of science? The first step is to characterize what is or might be considered as ‘European philosophy of science’. The second is to analyse philosophy of the social sciences as a relevant case in the European contribution to philosophy of science. ‘European perspective’ requires some clarification, which can be done from two main angles: the historical approach and the thematic view. Thus, there are several structural and dynamic things to be considered in European philosophy of (...) science and compare with other conceptions: the topics discussed; the contents proposed; and the style of thought used. The case of philosophy of the social sciences is relevant for the historical approach and for the thematic view. Historically, the Erklären–Verstehen methodological controversy arose in this continent, where the main authors and most of the influential approaches are located. Thematically, we can consider the contributions made by these European approaches... (shrink)

The main question of this article is given by its title: how inclusive is European philosophy of science? Phrased in this way, the question presupposes that, as a mature discipline, philosophy of science should provide an inclusive account of its subject area. I first provide an explanation of the notion of an inclusive philosophy of science. This notion of an inclusive philosophy of science is specified by discussing three general topics that seem to be missing from, or are quite marginal (...) in, restricted philosophy of science. These topics are the philosophy of historical inquiry, the role of technology in science, and the socio-political and moral dimensions of science. On this basis, I address the question whether European philosophy of science qualifies as more inclusive as compared with Anglo-American philosophy of science. (shrink)

Surprisingly, modified versions of the confirmation theory (Carnap and Hempel) and truth approximation theory (Popper) turn out to be smoothly sythesizable. The glue between the two appears to be the instrumentalist methodology, rather than that of the falsificationalist. The instrumentalist methodology, used in the separate, comparative evaluation of theories in terms of their successes and problems (hence, even if already falsified), provides in theory and practice the straight road to short-term empirical progress in science ( à la Laudan). It is (...) also argued that such progress is also functional for all kinds of truth approximation: observational, referential, and theoretical. This sheds new light on the long-term dynamics of science and hence on the relation between the main epistemological positions, viz., instrumentalism (Toulmin, Laudan), constructive empiricism (Van Fraassen), referential realism (Hacking, Cartwright), and theory realism of a non-essentialist nature (constructive realism à la Popper). Readership: Open minded philosophers and scientists. The book explains and justifies the scientist's intuition that the debate among philosophers about instrumentalism and realism has almost no practical consequences. (shrink)

XIV The stability of a philosophical construction will depend not only upon the solidity of the blocks, of the pillars and architraves that make it up, but also upon the way in which all these parts are connected. Of course, it will not be possible to argue for every single part of a philosophical building: to do so would mean to embark in a virtually endless enterprise. Accordingly, some of the parts of a philosophical building will have to be taken (...) from the literature on the subject as 'ready made' or 'semi-finished' elements, while others will be argued for in the course of building. This is what happened in my work too. In some cases (for in stance, in the case of epistemic relativism), my concern was to illustrate theses which I believed to be sufficiently consolidated, rather than to ar gue for them. In other cases - where I was directly engaged in building the theory that I want to fonnulate - I did exactly the opposite. This is what I have tried to achieve, for example, for those proper architraves of my construction, viz. the connection between scepticism and metaphysi cal realism. and the thesis of the nonnative value of the fundamental epistemological notions (truth, objectivity, and rationality). (shrink)

The short answer to this question is a firm and unambiguous “yes and no”. The long answer will take the whole talk. Indeed, it could easily take an entire book. It is therefore unavoidable to take recourse here and there to simplifying shortcuts and polemical exaggerations, in order to get the message clear.

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Volume 26, Issue 3, Page 354-357, September 2012.

In Europe and throughout the world, competence in English is spreading at a speed never achieved by any language in human history. This growing dominance of English is frequently perceived as being grossly unjust. This book is the first systematic treatment of the of the normative aspects of language policy and how this relates to justice.

Continental philosophy of science has developed alongside mainstream analytic philosophy of science. But where continental approaches are inclusive, analytic philosophies of science are not–excluding not merely Nietzsche’s philosophy of science but Gödel’s philosophy of physics. As a radicalization of Kant, Nietzsche’s critical philosophy of science puts science in question and Nietzsche’s critique of the methodological foundations of classical philology bears on science, particularly evolution as well as style (in art and science). In addition to the critical (in Mach, Nietzsche, Heidegger (...) but also Husserl just to the extent that continental philosophy of science tends to depart from a reflection on the crisis of foundations), other continental philosophies of science include phenomenology (Husserl, Bachelard, Merleau‐Ponty, etc.) and hermeneutics (Heidegger, Gadamer, Heelan, etc.), especially incorporating history of science (Nietzsche, Mach, Duhem, Butterfield, Feyerabend, etc.). Examples are drawn from the philosophy of sciences (chemistry, geology, and biology) other than physics. (shrink)

Social choice and welfare economics are subjects at the frontier of many disciplines. Even if economics played the major role in their development, sociology, psychology and, principally, political science, mathematics and philosophy have been central for the manifold inventiveness of the employed methods and for the diversity of the studied topics. This phenomenon can be compared with game theory, a subject which has, of course, many connections with social choice and welfare. This fact is reflected by the disciplinary origins of (...) the contributors to the subject and, as an anecdote, by the disciplinary origins of the board of editors of this journal. Philosophers are expected to contribute mainly to the study of social justice and related ethical questions. But there is a tradition among logicians for studying voting theory. A famous example is C. L. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), even though the complete works of Dodgson on voting occupy only a few pages. A major recent example is Michael Dummett. Michael Dummett is famous among social choice theorists for his joint paper with Robin Farquharson published in Econometrica in 1961. Later he wrote two important books on voting (Dummett (1984, 1997); for an overview see Salles (2006)). But it must be outlined that Michael Dummett is also, and above all, one of the greatest contemporary philosophers whose work on the German logician Frege, on intuitionism, realism, anti-realism, justificationism has been central for the development of analytical philosophy in the second part of the last century and in this century (an example is the Symposium in a recent issue of Mind (see Peacocke (2005) and Dummett (2005)). Sir Michael Dummett is Wykeham Professor of Logic emeritus at Oxford University. His interview was conducted at New College, Oxford in September 2004. (shrink)

One of the difficulties facing the philosopher of science today is the divide between historical epistemology and analytic philosophy of science. For over half a century these two traditions have followed independent and divergent paths. Historical epistemology, which originated in France in the early twentieth century, has recently been reformulated by a number of scholars such as Lorraine Daston, Ian Hacking, and Hans-Jörg Rheinberger. Elaborating novel historical methods, they seek to provide answers to major questions in the field. In the (...) light of this situation, my article examines the cultural barrier that explains the uneasy relationship between the two traditions. This barrier hinges on a number of factors—institutional, political and social—that are bound up with the philosophical issues in question. By resorting both to historical study and logical analysis, the new historical epistemology incites us to move beyond a rather sterile antagonism. (shrink)