Science and Partial Truth

TRAMA

In the past thirty years, two fundamental issues have emerged in the philosophy of science. One concerns the appropriate attitude we should take towards scientific theories--whether we should regard them as true or merely empirically adequate, for example. The other concerns the nature of scientific theories and models and how these might best be represented. In this ambitious book, da Costa and French bring these two issues together by arguing that theories and models should be regarded as partially rather than wholly true. They adopt a framework that sheds new light on issues to do with belief, theory acceptance, and the realism-antirealism debate. The new machinery of "partial structures" that they develop offers a new perspective from which to view the nature of scientific models and their heuristic development. Their conclusions will be of wide interest to philosophers and historians of science.

NOTE EDITORE

Da Costa and French explore the consequences of adopting a "pragmatic" notion of truth in the philosophy of science--in other words, accepting a theory as valid when it may only be partially true rather than wholly true. Their framework sheds new light on issues dealing with belief, theory acceptance, and the realism-antirealism debate, as well as the nature of scientific models and their heuristic development.

ALTRE INFORMAZIONI

• Condizione: Nuovo
• ISBN: 9780195156515
• Collana: Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Science
• Dimensioni: 159 x 23.6 x 245 mm Ø 1 gr
• Formato: Copertina rigida
• Pagine Arabe: 272