Historical Pragmatics: Philosophical Essays

ISBN-13: 9789048143290 / Angielski / Miękka / 2010 / 370 str.

Robert E. Butts

Opis

The thirteen essays in this volume (except for the one on Leibniz, which has not been published before) are selected works of Robert E. Butts, originally published over a period of many years. Most of the essays analyze aspects of the work of Galileo, Leibniz, Kant and Whewell; others deal with the question of the unity of the sciences and with the question of toleration in academe. The papers share a common philosophical commitment to principle of pragmatism, and seek to show that pragmatism emerges historically in unexpected places. Emphasis is placed upon issues in methodology and theory of knowledge. The book will appeal to those interested in history of modern philosophy, history and philosophy of science, and the philosophical fortunes of pragmatism.

Spis treści

Bibliographical Note. Introduction. Part I: Early Modern Philosophy of Science. 1. Some tactics in Galileo's propaganda for the mathematization of scientific experience. 2. Leibniz on choosing between rival scientific hypotheses. Pragmatic Episode 1. 3. Philosophers as professional relativists. Part II: Kant's Philosophy of Science. 4. Kant's schemata as semantical rules. 5. The methodological structure of Kant's metaphysics of science. 6. Teleology and scientific method in Kant's Critique of Judgment. 7. The grammar of reason: Hamann's challenge to Kant. Pragmatic Episode 2. 8. Metaphysics, methodology and the pragmatic unity of the sciences. Part III: Whewell and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy of Science. 9. Necessary truth in Whewell's theory of science. 10. Whewell's logic of induction. 11. Consilience of inductions and the problem of conceptual change in science. 12. Whewell on Newton's rules of philosophizing. 13. `A purely scientific temper': Victorian expressions of the ideal of an autonomous science. Bibliography. Index of Names and Subjects.