Product Description

What is science? Is there a real difference between science and myth? Is science objective? Can science explain everything? This Very Short Introduction provides a concise overview of the main themes of contemporary philosophy of science. Beginning with a short history of science to set the scene, Samir Okasha goes on to investigate the nature of scientific reasoning, scientific explanation, revolutions in science, and theories such as realism and anti-realism. He also looks at philosophical issues in particular sciences, including the problem of classification in biology, and the nature of space and time in physics. The final chapter touches on the conflicts between science and religion, and explores whether science is ultimately a good thing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20156 in Books
• Published on: 2002-05-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Synopsis
What is science? Is there a real difference between science and myth? Is science objective? Can science explain everything? This Very Short Introduction provides a concise overview of the main themes of contemporary philosophy of science. Beginning with a short history of science to set the scene, Samir Okasha goes on to investigate the nature of scientific reasoning, scientific explanation, revolutions in science, and theories such as realism and anti-realism. He also looks at philosophical issues in particular sciences, including the problem of classification in biology, and the nature of space and time in physics. The final chapter touches on the conflicts between science and religion, and explores whether science is ultimately a good thing.

About the Author
Samir Okasha is currently Lecturer in Philosophy, University of York. He has published numerous articles in philosophy journals, in the areas of philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, and epistemology. He has previously held a Jacobean Fellowship in Philosophy at University of London and has taught at the University of Mexico.

Customer Reviews

Great little book
I found this book very clear, comprehensible and enjoyable.

It starts off with a brief history of modern physics and some biology. It then discusses deduction and induction and goes on look at explanation in science and outlines problems associated with these ideas. It then outlines the realist v anti-realist debate.

The philosophy of Popper and Kuhn are critically outlined and there is a chapter on the critics of science. There is also a chapter on specific problems in physics, biology and psychology.

Because there is obviously limited space in a book of this size, it is unable to cover some of the important philosophies of science that have been developed since Kuhn.

However, I thought this book was well written and ideal for the layman wanting an intoduction to this field, and certainly whets the appetite to find out more. Thoroughly recommended.

A fantastic introduction
The "A Very Short Introduction" series doesn't always come up with good books, but this one is a gem. It really is. It introduces the basics first: deduction, induction, etc. and goes on to talk about the problem of induction, Hume's criticism of it, whether thinking about probability and causation can help. The discussion moves then onto realists vs. anti-realists. The highly influential philosopher Thomas Kuhn is also well covered. Finally, the book covers some problems in biology and physics and generally that result from science. The book is brief and you can read it in a long evening or maybe two short ones, if you're not already familiar with the subject. Most importantly, the author manages to realise that newcomers to the subject deserve a gentle ride, and he does this by writing very accessibly and using plenty of easy-to-understand examples. I would recommend this to anybody trying to find a way into the philosophy of science. Of course, being a "very short introduction" this book doesn't tend to go into very much detail or cover everything that philosophy of science entails. But a very short introduction can't have everything. For beginners I think it is ideal, and that is what it aims to be. Highly recommended.

Reasonable Overview For The Interested
What do philosophers think about science? This book provides a brief history of the philosophy of science, describes some logical assumptions in the practice of science and problems in science, and discusses Thomas Kuhn's scientific revolutions. The book concludes with a discussion on science and society.

Philosophy of science, as described in this book, seems to have become a rather esoteric subject removed the daily practice of scientists and the everyday use of science. Some questions that spring to mind but which are not covered in this book: Does the publication and independent verification of results lead to the self-correcting nature of science? Why is the simplest explanation the best? How can scientists who cannot easily perform experiments, such as astronomers and sociologists, make verifiable theories?

Chapter 6 presents three problems in science: Newton's view of absolute space, the classification (by feature or by genetics) of living creatures and the whether the mind is modular or not. It's not clear to me how the philosophy of science can help in resolving these problems. Newton's view was probably driven by his desire to prove the literal truth of the Bible. In this day and age of automated indexing systems, does it really matter which method is used to classify creatures? Finally, shouldn't scientists collect more data before deciding if the mind is modular or not?

This book covers a number of topics in the field but fortunately doesn't get bogged down in a deep technical discussion on any single topic. It is a reasonable overview of the topic for the interested reader and one of the better books in the "Very Short Introduction" series.