The Dappled World: A Study of the Boundaries of Science

ISBN-13: 9780521644112 / Angielski / Miękka / 1999 / 260 str.

Nancy Cartwright

Opis

In this book Nancy Cartwright argues against a vision of a uniform world completely ordered under a single elegant theory, and proposes instead a patchwork of laws of nature. Combining classic and newly written essays, The Dappled World offers important methodological lessons for both the natural and the social sciences, and will interest anyone who wants to understand how modern science works.

Recenzje

'Written with a literary sensitivity, knocks numerous nails square on the head … provides a wonderful antidote to the abundant quack-medicine views of what science is and an excellent example of progress in philosophical thought.' The Times Higher Education Supplement

Spis treści

Introduction; Part I. Where Do Laws of Nature Come From?: 1. Fundamentalism versus the patchwork of laws; 2. Fables and models; 3. Nomological machines and the laws they produce; Part II. Laws and their Limits: 4. Aristotelian natures and the modern experimental method; 5. Causal diversity, causal stability; 6. Ceteris paribus laws and the socio-economic machines; 7. Probability machines: chance set-ups and economic models; Part III. The Boundaries of Quantum and Classical Physics and the Territories they Share: 8. How bridge principles set the domain of quantum theory; 9. How quantum and classical theories relate.