In this collection we finally find the philosophy of technology, a young and rapidly developing area of scholarly interest, making contact with history of science and technology, and mainstream epistemological and metaphysical issues. The sophistication of these papers indicates the maturity of the field as it moves away from the advocacy of anti-technology ideological posturing toward a deeper understanding of the options and restraints technological developments provide.
The papers presented here take us over a threshold into the real world of complicated social and technological...

This book is about is more than a subdiscipline within the field of economics---it is about a new field named -public choice political economy- that gradually evolved during the 1970s and 1980s at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, Virginia. What is the field Public Choice Political Economy all about? How did it originate? Who were the main architects and builders? What values and work habits motivated the work? Finally, how did the facts about the development of public choice political economy stack up against what we know about science in general and how it has developed?

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This book is about is more than a subdiscipline within the field of economics---it is about a new field named -public choice political economy- that gradually evolved during the 1970s and 1980s at Virginia Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg, Virginia. What is the field Public Choice Political Economy all about? How did it originate? Who were the main architects and builders? What values and work habits motivated the work? Finally, how did the facts about the development of public choice political economy stack up against what we know about science in general and how it has developed?

...

The essays in this volume are the result of a workshop held at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in April, 1979. The assembled group was diverse, comprised of philosophers, economists, and statisticians. But it was not the complete group on which we had initially planned. Richard Rudner was in France on sabbatical and was unable to fly back for the occa- sion. His untimely death the following summer saddened us all, for we lost not just a colleague but a friend. This book is dedicated to him out of the spirit of friendship and in appreciation for the ground breaking work he...

In this essay I am concerned with the problem of conceptual change. There are, needless to say, many ways to approach the issue. But, as I see it, the problem reduces to showing how present and future systems of thought are the rational extensions of prior ones. This goal may not be attainable. Kuhn, for example, suggests that change is mainly a function of socio-economic pressures (taken broadly). But there are some who believe that a case can be made for the rationality of change, especially in science. Wilfrid Sellars is one of those. While Sellars has developed a full account of the...

The papers presented here derive from the 4th International Confe:--ence on History and Philosophy of Science held in Blacksburg, Virginia, U. S. A. , November 2-6, 1982. The Conference was sponsored by the I nternational Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). Particular thanks go to L. Jonathan Cohen, Secretary of the Union, as well as to Dean Henry Bauer of the College of Arts & Sciences, Wilfred Jewkes and the Center for Programs in the Humanities, Arthur Donovan and the Center for the Study of Science in Society...

As science becomes more deeply embedded in a complex technological infrastructure, has this changed the relationship between the sciences and the various technologies that support them? As our technologies help shrink our world, can we restrict our ethical concerns or must we find a way to face the fact that we are now one world? What do new forms of architecture say about whom we are? Is the design process the new epistemological paradigm? The answers to all of these is "yes" according to Joseph C. Pitt (VirginaTech).

Doing Philosophy of Technology presents an updated and...

In this essay I am concerned with the problem of conceptual change. There are, needless to say, many ways to approach the issue. But, as I see it, the problem reduces to showing how present and future systems of thought are the rational extensions of prior ones. This goal may not be attainable. Kuhn, for example, suggests that change is mainly a function of socio-economic pressures (taken broadly). But there are some who believe that a case can be made for the rationality of change, especially in science. Wilfrid Sellars is one of those. While Sellars has developed a full account of the...

The papers presented here derive from the 4th International Confe:--ence on History and Philosophy of Science held in Blacksburg, Virginia, U. S. A. , November 2-6, 1982. The Conference was sponsored by the I nternational Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). Particular thanks go to L. Jonathan Cohen, Secretary of the Union, as well as to Dean Henry Bauer of the College of Arts & Sciences, Wilfred Jewkes and the Center for Programs in the Humanities, Arthur Donovan and the Center for the Study of Science in Society...

The essays in this volume are the result of a workshop held at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in April, 1979. The assembled group was diverse, comprised of philosophers, economists, and statisticians. But it was not the complete group on which we had initially planned. Richard Rudner was in France on sabbatical and was unable to fly back for the occa- sion. His untimely death the following summer saddened us all, for we lost not just a colleague but a friend. This book is dedicated to him out of the spirit of friendship and in appreciation for the ground breaking work he...