Science and Philosophy

Résumé du livre

Philosophy and science, once intimately connected, are widely seen today as different disciplines. While scientists continue to probe ever deeper into nature, philosophers seem merely to pursue their own obscure internecine disputes. Such a view is shown by Derek Gjertsen in his penetrating and original study to be both naïve and ill-informed. Science is not now, nor has it ever been, the monolithic and stable structure of legend. Much recent work in the philosophy of science calls many such assumptions into question. Can scientists, for example, offer a definitive picture of reality when their theories seem to change so frequently? Or, again, how do we judge what is to be part of science? How can scientists be justified in excluding astrology from their consideration while readily accepting such equally predictive, yet often unsuccessful, disciplines as metrology and economics? There and many other questions are pursued in detail in a work that ranges from ancient science to quantum theory, from Aristotle to Einstein, and from number theory to Renaissance magic, Confucius and parapsychology. Only a critical philosophical approach, Derek Gjersten argues, can put such persistent problems into their proper context and offer any hope of escape from traditional slogans and attitudes.