Product Description

The Comprehensibility of the Universe puts forward a radically new conception of science. At present scientific enquiry is shaped by the orthodox view that in accepting or rejecting theories scientists are impartial with respect to evidence and make no permanent assumptions about the world independently of the evidence. Nicholas Maxwell argues that this view is untenable, and that we need a new orthodoxy, which sees science as making a hierarchy of increasingly attenuated metaphysical assumptions about the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe. This new conception has significant implications, as Maxwell explains. One is that it is part of current scientific knowledge that the universe is comprehensible, even physically comprehensible. A second is that metaphysics and philosophy are central to scientific knowledge. A third is that science possesses a rational, though fallible, method of discovery. A fourth is that we need a new understanding of scientific method and rationality. Maxwell points the way towards the solution, within his new conception, of long-standing philosophical problems about science, concerning simplicity, induction, and progress. His goal is the reform not just of the philosophy of science but of science itself, and the healing of the rift between the two.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1719991 in Books
• Published on: 1998-10-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

Anjan Chakravartty, THES, 24/09/99
"Maxwell performs a heroic feat in making the physics accessible to the non-physicist ... Philosophically, there is much here to stimulate and provoke ... those who share Maxwell's intuitions about progress, even those uncommitted to "theories of everything", will find encouragement here for thinking about how one does justice to such a possibility."

Review
This is not a book to read quickly or easily, but I hope that many may make the effort, because it seems to me to be an important contribution to the philosophy of physics. (British Journal for the Philosophy of Science )

Maxwell performs a heroic feat in making the physics accessible to the non-physicist ... Philosophically, there is much here to stimulate and provoke ... those who share Maxwell's intuitions about progress, even those uncommitted to "theories of everything", will find encouragement here for thinking about how one does justice to such a possibility. (Anjan Chakravartty, THES )

This admirably ambitious book contains more thought-provoking material than can even be mentioned here. Maxwell's treatment of the descriptive problem of simplicity, and his novel proposals about quantum mechanics deserve special note. (The Philosophical Review )

About the Author
Nicholas Maxwell is Emeritus Reader in Philosophy of Science at the University of London.

Customer Reviews

What critics said about The Comprehensibility of the Universe
"Nicholas Maxwell's ambitious aim is to reform not only our philosophical understanding of science but the methodology of scientists themselves ... Maxwell's aim oriented empiricism [is] intelligible and persuasive ... the main ideas are important and appealing ... an important contribution to the philosophy of physics."
J.J.C. Smart, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 51, 2000, pp. 907-911.

"Maxwell has clearly spent a lifetime thinking about these matters and passionately seeks a philosophical conception of science that will aid in the development of an intelligible physical worldview. He has much of interest to say about the development of physical thought since Newton. His comprehensive coverage and sophisticated treatment of basic problems within the philosophy of science make the book well worth studying for philosophers of science as well as for scientists interested in philosophical and methodological matters pertaining to science." Professor Cory F. Juhl, International Philosophical Quarterly, vol. XL, No. 4, December 2000, pp. 517-8.

"Maxwell performs a heroic feat in making the physics accessible to the non-physicist ... Philosophically, there is much here to stimulate and provoke . . . there are rewarding comparisons to be made between the functional roles assigned to Maxwell's metaphysical "blueprints" and Thomas Kuhn's paradigms, as well as between Maxwell's description of theoretical development and Imre Lakatos's methodology of scientific research programmes."
Dr.Anjan Chakravartty, Times Higher Education Supplement, 24 September 1999, p. 24.

"Maxwell ... has shown that it is absurd to believe that science can proceed without some basic assumptions about the comprehensibility of the universe . . . Throughout this book, Maxwell has meticulously argued for the superiority of his view by providing detailed examples from the history of physics and mathematics . . . The Comprehensibility of the Universe attempts to resurrect an ideal of modern philosophy: to make rational sense of science by offering a philosophical program for improving our knowledge and understanding of the universe. It is a consistent plea for articulating the metaphysical presuppositions of modern science and offers a cure for the theoretical schizophrenia resulting from acceptance of incoherent principles at the base of scientific theory."
Professor Leemon McHenry, Mind, vol. 109, January 2000, pp. 162-166.

"This admirably ambitious book contains more thought-provoking material than can even be mentioned here. Maxwell's treatment of the descriptive problem of simplicity, and his novel proposals about quantum mechanics deserve special note. In his view the simplicity of a theory is (and should be) judged by the degree to which it exemplifies the current blueprint of physicalism, that blueprint determining the terminology in which the theory and its rivals should be compared. This means that the simplicity of a theory amounts to the unity of its ontology, a view that allows Maxwell to offer an explanation of our conflicting intuitions that terminology matters to simplicity, and that it is utterly irrelevant. Maxwell's distinctive views about what is wrong with quantum mechanics grow out of his adherence to aim-oriented empiricism: the much-discussed problem of measurement is for him a superficial consequence of the deeper problem that the ontology of the theory is not unified, in that no one understands how one entity could be both a wave and a particle. In response to this problem Maxwell finds between the metaphysical cracks a way to fuse micro-realism and probabilism, which leads him to a proposal to solve the measurement problem by supplementing quantum mechanics with a collapse theory distinct from the recent and popular one of Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber. Maxwell's highly informed discussions of the changing ontologies of various modern physical theories are enjoyable, and the physical and mathematical appendix of the book should be a great help to the beginner."
Professor Sherrilyn Roush, The Philosophical Review, vol. 110, January 2001, pp. 85-7.

"Nicholas Maxwell has struck an excellent balance between science and philosophy . . . The detailed discussions of theoretical unification in physics - from Newton, Maxwell and Einstein to Feynman, Weinberg and Salam - form some of the best material in the book. Maxwell is good at explaining physics . . . Through the interplay of metaphysical assumptions, at varying distances from the empirical evidence Maxwell shows, rather convincingly, that in the pursuit of rational science the inference from the evidence to a small number of acceptable theories, out of the pool of rival ones, is justifiable . . . Its greatest virtue is the detailed programme for a modern version of natural philosophy. Along the way, Maxwell homes in on the notion of comprehensibility by the exclusion of less attractive alternatives. In an age of excessive specialization the book offers a timely reminder of the close link between science and philosophy. There is a beautiful balance between concrete science and abstract philosophy . . . In the "excellently written Appendix some of the basic mathematical technicalities, including the principles of quantum mechanics, are very well explained . . . Einstein held that 'epistemology without science becomes an empty scheme' while 'science without epistemology is primitive and muddled'. Maxwell's new book is a long-running commentary on this aphorism."
Dr. Friedel Weinert, Philosophy, vol. 75, April 2000, pp. 296-309.

"some of [Maxwell's] insights are of everlasting importance to the philosophy of science, the fact that he stands on the shoulders of giants (Hume, Popper) notwithstanding . . . My overall conclusion is that Universe is an ideal book for a reading group in philosophy of science or in philosophy of physics. Many of the pressing problems of the philosophy of science are discussed in a lively manner, controversial solutions are passionately defended and some new insights are provided; in particular the chapter on simplicity in physics deserves to be read by all philosophers of physics."
Dr. F. A. Muller, Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics, vol. 35, 2004, pp. 109-110 & 117.

"In The Comprehensibility of the Universe, Nicholas Maxwell develops a bold, new conception of the relationship between philosophy and science...Maxwell has a metaphysically rich, evolutionary vision of the self-correcting nature of science...The work is important...An added benefit of Maxwell's analysis...is the possibility of a positive, fruitful relationship to emerge between science and the philosophy of science...his important and timely critique of the reigning empiricist orthodoxy...what does it mean to say simplicity is a theoretical virtue? And why should we prefer simple to complex theories? Maxwell provides an admirable discussion of these issues. He also provides a useful discussion of simplicity in the context of theory unification - simple theories are unifying theories - and illustrates his points with examples drawn from Newtonian physics and Maxwellian electrodynamics...It is hard to do justice to the richness of Maxwell's discussion in this chapter. I can only say that this is a chapter that will repay serious study...Maxwell turns his attention to issues surrounding the theoretical character of evidence, the idea of scientific progress and the question as to whether there is a method of discovery....The discussion of these matters - as with the other topics covered in this book - is conceptually rich and technically sophisticated. A useful antidote, in fact, to the settled orthodoxy surrounding these philosophical issues...Maxwell has written a book that aims to put the metaphysics back in physics. It is ambitious in scope, well-argued, and deserves to be seriously studied."
Professor Niall Shanks, Metascience vol. 9, 2000, pp. 294-8.