According to a long tradition in philosophy of science, a clear cut distinction can be traced between a context of discovery and a context of justification. This tradition dates back to the birth of the discipline in connection with the Circles of Vienna and Berlin, in the twenties and thirties of last century. Convicted that only the context of justification is pertinent to philosophy of science, logical empiricists identified its goal with the "rational reconstruction" of scientific knowledge, taken as the clarification of the logical structure of science, through an analysis of its...

This volume broadens our concept of reasoning and rationality to allow for a more pluralistic and situational view of human thinking as a practical activity. Drawing on contributors across disciplines including philosophy, economics, psychology, statistics, computer science, engineering, and physics, "Reasoning, Rationality, and Probability" argues that the search for strong theories should leave room for the construction of context-sensitive conceptual tools. Both science and everyday life, the authors argue, are too complex and multifaceted to be forced into ready-made schemata.

This volume sheds new light on the multifarious personality of Bruno de Finetti and his outstanding contributions not only to probability and statistics, but also to economics and philosophy. Rather than focusing on de Finetti s technical work on probability, the essays collected here address the philosophy underpinning all of de Finetti s writings, a view Richard Jeffrey labelled radical probabilism . Special attention is devoted to de Finetti s ideas on economics, which are inspired by the same philosophical approach, while an effort is made to highlight some lesser known aspects of de...

This is a collection of essays on various issues in the philosophy of science, with special emphasis on the foundations of probability and statistics, and quantum mechanics. The main topics are: subjective probability, Bayesian statistics, probability kinematics, causal decision making, and probability and realism in quantum mechanics.

The Institute Vienna Circle held a conference in Vienna in 2003, Cambridge and Vienna Frank P. Ramsey and the Vienna Circle, to commemorate the philosophical and scientific work of Frank Plumpton Ramsey (1903 1930). This Ramsey conference provided not only historical and biographical perspectives on one of the most gifted thinkers of the Twentieth Century, but also new impulses for further research on at least some of the topics pioneered by Ramsey, whose interest and potential are greater than ever.

Ramsey did pioneering work in several fields, practitioners of which rarely know of...

Thisvolume combines the theoretical and historical perspective focusing on the specific features of a European philosophy of science. On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Institute Vienna Circle the Viennese roots and influences will be addressed, in addition.There is no doubt that contemporary philosophy of science originated mainly in Europe beginning in the 19th century and has influenced decisively the subsequent development of globalized philosophy of science, esp. in North America. Recent research in this field documents some specific characteristics of philosophy of science...

The essays in this volume cover a wide array of topics related to the work of Merrilee and Wesley Salmon. It includes discussions of scientific explanation, rationality, inference and induction, social behaviour, philosophy of physics and biology. Some of the essays have been written with an historical perspective. The volume is completed by a long commentary on the papers, written by Merrilee and Wesley Salmon. Audience: Scholars and researchers in such fields as philosophy of science, epistemology, philosophy of the natural and social sciences, history of contemporary philosophy, and...

According to a long tradition in philosophy of science, a clear cut distinction can be traced between a context of discovery and a context of justification. This tradition dates back to the birth of the discipline in connection with the Circles of Vienna and Berlin, in the twenties and thirties of last century. Convicted that only the context of justification is pertinent to philosophy of science, logical empiricists identified its goal with the "rational reconstruction" of scientific knowledge, taken as the clarification of the logical structure of science, through an analysis of its...

The present volume contains the proceedings of the conference on "Prob ability, dynamics and causality" that took place in Luino on June 15-17, 1995. This was the third conference on topics related to the foundations of probability and statistics held in Luino, following that on "Probability, statistics and inductive logic" (1981) and that on "Statistics in science" (1988). 1 Like the previous ones, the conference brought together people working on the foundations of probability and statistics, as well as their applica tion to science. The meeting opened with a session on "Exchangeability"...

This volume sheds light on still unexplored issues and raises new questions in the main areas addressed by the philosophy of science. The areas examined in the book are: formal methods, the philosophy of the natural and life sciences, the cultural and social sciences, the physical sciences and the history of the philosophy of science.