Causality and Explanation 1st Edition by Wesley C. Salmon (PDF)

Description

For over two decades Wesley Salmon has helped to shape the course of debate in philosophy of science. He is a major contributor to the philosophical discussion of problems associated with causality and the author of two influential books on scientific explanation. This long-awaited volume collects twenty- six of Salmon’s essays, including seven that have never before been published and others difficult to find. Part I comprises five introductory essays that presuppose no formal training in philosophy of science and form a background for subsequent essays. Parts II and III contain Salmon’s seminal work on scientific explanation and causality. Part IV offers survey articles that feature advanced material but remain accessible to those outside philosophy of science. Essays in Part V address specific issues in particular scientific disciplines, namely, archaeology and anthropology, astrophysics and cosmology, and physics. Clear, compelling, and essential, this volume offers a superb introduction to philosophy of science for nonspecialists and belongs on the bookshelf of all who carry out work in this exciting field. Wesley Salmon is renowned for his seminal contributions to the philosophy of science. He has powerfully and permanently shaped discussion of such issues as lawlike and probabilistic explanation and the interrelation of explanatory notions to causal notions. This unique volume brings together twenty-six of his essays on subjects related to causality and explanation, written over the period 1971-1995. Six of the essays have never been published before and many others have only appeared in obscure venues. The volume includes a section of accessible introductory pieces, as well as more advanced and technical pieces, and will make essential work in the philosophy of science readily available to both scholars and students.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐If you were forced to rely on only one book on the philosophy of science today (2002), this would be the one. A collection of 26 essays, CAUSALITY AND EXPLANATION represents the state of the art. Salmon dedicates the book to Carl G. Hempel, who developed the deductive-nomological, or covering law model of scientific explanation.Clearly, then, Salmon is no post-Kuhnian epistemological radical. There is progress beyond Hempel, but it is not in the social constructionist direction. Not for Salmon, anyway, and not for me either. Rather, it points in the direction of probabilistic, stochastic, explanation replacing the vestiges of Laplacian determinism.Many of the essays are quite dense, but the book contains a Key of sorts, in the form of three essays that are grouped as “Concise Overviews.” Read these first and the rest makes much more sense. Salmon is an analytical philosopher, and analytical philosophy is a tradition that values clarity of expression. This book is a marvelous accomplishment. It has proved quite useful in clarifying my thinking as I try to teach sociology undergraduates the scientific method, particularly on the distinction between deterministic and probabilistic causation. It is truly sad that it is not read by everyone who ever runs into Thomas Kuhn and the postmodern vector that he inspired.

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