Theory and Truth: Philosophical Critique within Foundational Science by Lawrence Sklar (PDF)

Description

Skeptics have cast doubt on the idea that scientific theories give us a true picture of an objective world. Lawrence Sklar examines three kinds of skeptical arguments about scientific truth, and explores the important role they play within foundational science itself. Sklar demonstrates that these kinds of philosophical critique are employed within science, and reveals the clear difference between how they operate in a scientific context and more abstract philosophical contexts. The underlying theme of Theory and Truth is that science and philosophy are essential to one another. Sklar advances the claim that one cannot understand the methods of science without a comprehension of philosophy, and one cannot fruitfully pursue philosophy of science without understanding fundamental science as well.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Makes refreshing and enlightening reading, in comparison to the usual very dry, rarefied discussions of methodology…. Exemplary, and always anchored in the concrete details of real scientific theorizing…. [It] demonstrate[s] the virtues of a sober and careful appraisal of the issues concerning realism about scientific theories. I shall be urging those of my students intoxicated by the excesses of social constructivism to study them closer.”–Peter Menzies, Times Literary Supplement About the Author Lawrence Sklar is William K. Frankena Collegiate Professor and Professor of Philosophy, University of Michigan. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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

⭐I’m writing this review partially as a corrective to the previous review (“Awful book”), and partially because I enjoyed the book as much as I did.First, just because a reader doesn’t have the patience or background to make sense of the theoretical allusions Sklar provides in _Theory and Truth_ (TT), does not make the book awful. It makes it rich and, oh, I don’t know, the published version of professional academic lectures.Second, Sklar’s diffidence about going into too much detail, and his attendant apologies for being so brief, bespeak the originally spoken nature of the material, but also conveys Sklar’s humility, which, perhaps, for some is an “awful” attribute for philosophers.Two things I found most intriguing about TT were a) how Sklar made it an almost explicit axiom of his analysis that “normal science”, or “naive” scientific work by actual scientists, should trump philosophical principles, and b) the wide range of material Sklar presented to show how philosophical all “foundational science” is. A similar method was used by Stanley Jaki in his _The Road of Science_, except that Jaki focused more on the historical precedents for philosphical methods in science. Sklar’s TT, written a century later, not only enjoys access to newer developments in physics but also focuses on the immanent operations of “everyday science” to make many of the same points.TT is an engaging corrective to the surge in anti-realism of late, but also does show how pitiable realists can be: science needs metaphysics to secure real truth and truth needs God to secure true scientia. A careful reading of TT will, I suggest, bare out this thesis, even though it’s hardly a thesis Sklar would endorse, I imagine.

⭐This is such an awful book that I couldn’t even finish it. Perhaps I shouldn’twrite a review but since no one else has written, I think someone should say something. The writing style is terrible; the only way to describe it is ponderous.He spends an inordinately long amount of time with a litany about all the things he doesn’t intend to discuss, then apologizes at length about how the brevity of the format will keep him from really discussing in detail the examples he has chosen to consider. The examples are usually just listed by name with little comment or when he does comment the comments are banal and what everyone already knows.

⭐(1) Das Buch ist in Inhalt und Aufmachung erstklassig – (2) Der Preis ist angemessen – (3) Die Lieferung erfolgte in angemessener Frist – (4) in summa: Die Geschäftsabwicklung war perfekt.

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