The Metaphysics of Science and Aim-Oriented Empiricism: A Revolution for Science and Philosophy

ISBN-13: 9783030041427 / Angielski / Twarda / 2019 / 228 str.

Nicholas Maxwell

Recenzje

"Maxwell's views deserve more attention and his contributions should be recognized by philosophical community. Overall, I recommend the book to anyone interested in the recent debates in the metaphysics of science and Maxwell's take on these issues." (Ali Barzegar, Metapsychology Online Reviews, Vol. 23 (39), September 24, 2019)

Spis treści

Preface

Part I

Chapter 1. Early Work on The Metaphysics of Science.

Chapter 2. Subsequent Work on Essentialism and the Mind/Body Problem.

Part II

Chapter 3. Aim-Oriented Empiricism: Exposition, and Implications for Science and the Philosophy of Science.

Chapter 4. Aim-Oriented Empiricism and the Metaphysics of Science: 2007 to 2017.

Part III

Chapter 5. Broader Implications: Academic Inquiry for a Wiser World.

Appendix. Refutation of Kripke on Rigid Designators and Essentialism.

O autorze

Dr. Nicholas Maxwell - I have devoted much of my working life to arguing that we need to bring about a revolution in academia so that it seeks and promotes wisdom and does not just acquire knowledge. I have published twelve books on this theme: What’s Wrong With Science? (Bran's Head Books, 1976), From Knowledge to Wisdom (Blackwell, 1984), The Comprehensibility of the Universe (Oxford University Press, 1998), The Human World in the Physical Universe (Rowman and Littlefield, 2001), Is Science Neurotic? (Imperial College Press, 2004), Cutting God in Half - And Putting the Pieces Together Again (Pentire Press, 2010, How Universities Can Help Create a Wiser World: The Urgent Need for an Academic Revolution (Imprint Academic, 2014), Global Philosophy: What Philosophy Ought to Be (Imprint Academic, 2014), Two Great Problems of Learning: Science and Civilization (Rounded Globe, 2016), a free ebook available online, In Praise of Natural Philosophy: A Revolution for Thought and Life (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2017), Understanding Scientific Progress: Aim-Oriented Empiricism (Paragon House, 2017), and Karl Popper, Science and Enlightenment (UCL Press, 2017). I have also published many papers on this theme and on such diverse subjects as scientific method, the rationality of science, the philosophy of the natural and social sciences, the humanities, quantum theory, causation, the mind-body problem, aesthetics, and moral philosophy. For a book about my work see L. McHenry, ed., Science and the Pursuit of Wisdom: Studies in the Philosophy of Nicholas Maxwell (Ontos Verlag, 2009). For nearly thirty years I taught philosophy of science at University College London, where I am now Emeritus Reader. In 2003 I founded Friends of Wisdom, an international group of academics and educationalists concerned that universities should seek wisdom and not just acquire knowledge (see http://www.ucl.ac.uk/friends-of-wisdom). I have appeared on BBC Radio 4 "Start the Week", and on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's  "Ideas" Programme. I have lectured in Universities and at Conferences all over the UK, in Europe, USA, Canada, and Taiwan. For more about my work see http://www.ucl.ac.uk/from-knowledge-to-wisdom. 'Arguing for Wisdom in the University', a brief intellectual autobiography published in 2012, and many other articles are available online at  http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/view/people/ANMAX22.date.html.

Blurb

This book tackles two fundamental problems: How can our human world exist and best flourish embedded as it is in the physical universe? What role do untestable, metaphysical ideas about the nature of the physical universe play in science?

In connection with the first, it is argued that physics is concerned only with a highly selective aspect of all that there is - that aspect that determines how events unfold. Physics ignores human experience and consciousness, first because they are not needed to fulfil the predictive and explanatory tasks of physics, and second because they must be ignored if physics is to develop the beautifully explanatory theories that it does develop.

In connection with the second fundamental problem, it is argued that physics, as a result of accepting unified theories only, makes a highly problematic metaphysical assumption about the nature of the physical universe: it is such that some unknown, unified "theory of everything" is true. Precisely because this assumption is so profoundly problematic, it needs to be made explicit within physics, so that it can be critically assessed and, we may hope, improved. The author puts forward a revolutionary philosophy of science called aim-oriented empiricism (AOE), designed to facilitate improvement in the metaphysics of physics, as physics proceeds.

The author has devoted many years developing AOE and publishing papers on it. Here he spells out the implications of AOE for the metaphysics of science. The main body of the book expounds and critically assesses many key works in the metaphysics of science published from 2007 to 2018. The book concludes by considering the broader implications of aim-oriented empiricism, for science, for academic inquiry and, even, for the future of humanity.