Philosophy of Science

About the Author(s)

Gillian Barker, Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy, Western University, Ontario, Canada, and Philip Kitcher, John Dewey Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University

Gillian Barker is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Western University and a founding member of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy, an interdisciplinary research center fostering academic inquiry and public discussion concerning issues at the intersection between philosophy and the sciences. Philip Kitcher is John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia. He is the author of books and articles on issues in the philosophy of science. He has been President of the American Philosophical Association (Pacific Division) and Editor-in-Chief of Philosophy of Science. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he also received the Prometheus Prize, awarded by the American Philosophical Association for work in expanding the frontiers of science and philosophy.

Table of Contents

Each chapter ends with Suggestions for Further Reading.
CHAPTER 1: SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY
1.0 Scientific disputes and philosophical questions
1.1 Modern science: A brief history
1.2 Images of Science
CHAPTER 2: THE ANALYTIC PROJECT
2.0 Demarcating Science
2.1 Confirmation
, 2.1.1 The Hypothetico-Deductive Method
, 2.1.2 Confirmation and Probabilities
2.2 Theories
2.3 Explanation
2.4 Failures—and Successes
CHAPTER 3: THE VIEW FROM THE SCIENCES
3.0 The sciences on their own terms
3.1 The ideal of unified science
3.2 The ineradicability of causation
3.3 Against the supernatural
3.4 Making sense of ourselves
3.5 Naturalizing knowledge
CHAPTER 4: SCIENCE, HISTORY, AND SOCIETY
4.0 More than anecdote
4.1 Frameworks and revolutions
4.2 The bogey of relativism
4.3 Success, truth, and progress
4.4 Progress without truth?
CHAPTER 5: CRITICAL VOICES
5.0 A mixture of challenges
5.1 Diversity and the feminist critique
5.2 The cultural critique
5.3 The ecological critique
5.4 Anti-science
5.5 Science as a social endeavor
5.6 Knowledge and power
CHAPTER 6: SCIENCE, VALUES, AND POLITICS
6.0 The aims of the sciences
6.1 Values and choices
6.2 The autonomy of the sciences
6.3 Powers behind the lab
6.4 What do "we" want to know?
6.5 Deciding what we know
6.6 Conclusion
, Suggestions for Further Reading

Reviews

"This new textbook from Barker and Kitcher is a wonderful attempt to create a new thoroughly more modern kind of general philosophy of science course that embraces the true expansiveness of the field and the modern concern of philosophers to move beyond traditional epistemological and metaphysical debates In a very short space of text, this book makes a highly accessible case for an open and inclusive philosophy of science." - Metascience

"This is a fine book. It provides interesting insights into the philosophy of science underpinning most natural-science research Villy Søgaard, University of Southern Denmark"