It started with Copernicus
Subtitle: vital questions about science
By: Keith Parsons
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 429
ISBN-13: 9781616149291
Subjects: Science; Methodology; Philosophy; Constructive realism; History
Notes: Expansion and revision of: Copernican questions: a concise invitation to the philosophy of science. Boston : McGraw-Hill, 2005. With three entirely new chapters.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Copernican questions, 2006 ; It started with Copernicus, 2014; title: Copernican questions. What was Copernicus's revolution? ; What happens when your world changes? ; Copernican questions : rationality and realism ; The plan of the book; title: Is science really rational? : the problem of incommensurability. Incommensurability of standards ; Incommensurability of values ; Incommensurability of meaning ; Evaluating meaning incommensurability ; Conversion : a concluding case study; title: A walk on the wild side : social constructivism, postmodernism, feminism, and that old-time religion. The constructivist challenge ; Postmodernism attacks! ; Is "objectivity" what a man calls his subjectivity? ; Is science godless?; title: Ascending the slippery slope : scientific progress and truth. The evils of Whig history ; Social-constructivist history ; Does science converge toward truth? ; Assessing Laudan's Critique of Convergent Realism ; Scientists' own realism ; Could we be wrong about everything?; title: Truth of consequences? Electrons : real particles or convenient fictions? ; Van Fraassen's constrictive empiricism ; Do we observe through microscopes? ; But what about things that are really unobservable? ; So what really is the goal of science?; title: Mysteries of methods. Induction and deduction ; Aristotle : the first methodologist ; Bacon : scientific method renovated? ; The hypothetico-deductive method ; Hume on induction ; Popper and the rejection of induction ; Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE) to the rescue?; title: If you have science, who needs philosophy? The limits of science? ; The breakdown of philosophy ; Naturalizing epistemology ; Naturalizing ethics ; Philosophy in an age of science; title: Science, scientism, and being human. Mind : physical or spiritual? ; Science and the human image ; Ape, angel, or neither?