Greek Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science

ISBN-13: 9780792307174 / Angielski / Twarda / 1990 / 439 str.

P. Nicolacopoulos; Pantelis Nicolacopoulos

Opis

Our Greek colleagues, in Greece and abroad, must know (indeed they do know) how pleasant it is to recognize the renaissance of the philosophy of science among them with this fine collection. Classical and modern, technical and humane, historical and logical, admirably original and respectfully traditional, these essays will deserve close study by philosophical readers throughout the world. Classical scholars and historians of science likewise will be stimulated, and the historians of ancient as well as modern philosophers too. Reviewers might note one or more of the contributions as of special interest, or as subject to critical wrestling (that ancient tribute); we will simply congratulate Pantelis Nicolacopoulos for assembling the essays and presenting the book, and we thank the contributors for their works and for their happy agreement to let their writings appear in this book. R. S. C. xi INTRODUCTORY REMARKS Neither philosophy nor science is new to Greece, but philosophy of science is. There are broader (socio-historical) and more specific (academic) reasons that explain, to a satisfactory degree, both the under-development of philosophy and history of science in Greece until recently and its recent development to international standards. It is, perhaps, not easy to have in mind the fact that the modem Greek State is only 160 years old (during quite a period of which it was consider- ably smaller than it is today, its present territory having been settled after World War II).

Spis treści

I: Science Classical Greece.- 1. The Role of Observation in Plato’s Conception of Astronomy.- 2. The Unity of Scientific Inquiry and Categorial Theory in Aristotle.- 3. Knowledge and Belief in Plato’s Republic.- 4. Some Thoughts on Explanation in Ancient Philosophy.- 5. Alcmeon’s and Hippocrates’s Concept of Aetia.- 6. Experience and Causal Explanation in Medical Empiricism.- 7. Soul as Attunement: An Analogy or a Model?.- 8. The Hypotheses of Mathematics in Plato’s Republic and His Contribution to the Axiomatization of Geometry.- 9. Rediscovering Some Stoic Arguments.- 10. Models of Change: A Common Ground for Ancient Greek Philosophy and Modern Science.- 11. Criteria Concerning the Birth of a New Science: The Case of Greek Astronomy.- II: Science and the Modern Greek Enlightenment.- 12. The Idea of Science in the Modern Greek Enlightenment.- 13. The History of the Theory of Natural Sciences: A Paradigm.- III: Science Studies.- 14. Evolutionary Epistemology on Universals as Innate Classificatory Devices.- 15. The Development of Freudian Theory: The Role of the ‘Centre’ and the ‘Excentric’ in Theory Production and Diffusion.- 16. Law and Economics: Methodological Problems in Their Interdisciplinary Cooperation.- IV: Studies of Physics.- 17. From Gases and Liquids to Fluids: The Formation of New Concepts During the Development of Theories of Liquids.- 18. A Matter of Order: A Controversy between Heisenberg and London.- 19. Once Again on the Meaning of Physical Concepts.- 20. Locality: A New Enigma for Physics.- V: Philosophical Studies.- 21. Schlick’s Epistemology and Its Contribution to Modern Empiricism.- 22. On Theoretical Terms.- 23. Leibniz on Density and Sequential or Cauchy Completeness.- 24. Frege: Theory of Meaning or Philosophy of Science?.- 25. The Plato-Wittgenstein Route to the Pragmatics of Falsification.- 26. Wittgenstein, Rationality and Relativism.- Notes on the Authors.