On Science, Inference, Information and Decision-Making: Selected Essays in the Philosophy of Science

ISBN-13: 9789401062138 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 242 str.

A. Szaniawski; A. Chmielewski; Jan Wolenski

Opis

There are two competing pictures of science. One considers science as a system of inferences, whereas another looks at science as a system of actions. The essays included in this collection offer a view which intends to combine both pictures. This compromise is well illustrated by Szaniawski's analysis of statistical inferences. It is shown that traditional approaches to the foundations of statistics do not need to be regarded as conflicting with each other. Thus, statistical rules can be treated as rules of behaviour as well as rules of inference. Szaniawski's uniform approach relies on the concept of rationality, analyzed from the point of view of decision theory. Applications of formal tools to the problem of justice and division of goods shows that the concept of rationality has a wider significance. Audience: The book will be of interest to philosophers of science, logicians, ethicists and mathematicians.

Spis treści

I: On Science. 1. Some Remarks on the Philosophy of Science. 2. Information and Decision as Tools of Philosophy of Science. 3. Method and Creativity in Science. 4. Sociology and Models of Rational Behaviour. 5. Mathematical Models and Social Facts. 6. Science as a Search for Information. II: On Inference. 7. Inference or Behaviour? 8. A Note on Confirmation of Statistical Hypotheses. 9. On Some Basic Patterns of Statistical Inference. 10. A Method of Deciding Between N Statistical Hypotheses. 11. A Pragmatic Justification of Rules of Statistical Inference. 12. On Sequential Inference. 13. Interpretations of the Maximum Likelihood Principle. III: On Information and Decision Making. 14. Some Remarks Concerning the Criterion of Rational Decision Making. 15. The Concept of Distribution of Goods. 16. The Value of Perfect Information. 17. Questions and Their Pragmatic Value. 18. Two Concepts of Information. 19. Types of Information and Their Role in the Methodology of Science. 20. Information in Decision Making. Some Logical Aspects. 21. Decision Making and Future Research. Some Theoretical Problems. 22. On Formal Aspects of Distributive Justice. 23. Philosophy and Decision Making. 24. The Concept of Unreliable Information. 25. On Defining Information. Appendix. 26. Rationality as a Value.