Concerning Natural Experimental Philosophie


Book Description

The copy of A Letter to Peter du Moulin from which this facsimile is taken is in the National Library of Scotland, pressmark NG. 1341.c.1(8). The first and only issue, it runs to 36 pages with a title page and blank preliminary leaf, and cost sixpence; it is coarsely and probably hurriedly printed, with an error on the title page: to make sense of 'Prebendarie of the same Church, ' the &c. after Casaubon's name should have been expanded to read 'and Prebendarie of Christ-Church, Canterbury.' An obliging contemporary has annotated the copy with the names of those whom Casaubon alludes to indirectly. There is no date in the pamphlet other than on the title page, and the only evidence for a more precise dating, in the absence of any ms. or notes for it, is in a letter written by Casaubon to J.G. Graevius on July 19th, 1668, from Cambridge. Casaubon and Graevius (1632-1703), Professor of Politics, History and Eloquence in the University of Utrecht, were accustomed to bewail the contemporary state of the republic of letters in their correspondence, and on this occasion Casaubon wrote: Prima mali labes a Philosophia Cartesiana, quae stultae iuventuti et novitatis avidae bonos lade ad Experimenta ventum est, in quibus nunc omnis eruditio, tibros excussit e manibus.




Experimental Philosophy


Book Description

Experimental philosophy uses experimental research methods from psychology and cognitive science in order to investigate both philosophical and metaphilosophical questions. It explores philosophical questions about the nature of the psychological world - the very structure or meaning of our concepts of things, and about the nature of the non-psychological world - the things themselves. It also explores metaphilosophical questions about the nature of philosophical inquiry and its proper methodology. This book provides a detailed and provocative introduction to this innovative field, focusing on the relationship between experimental philosophy and the aims and methods of more traditional analytic philosophy. Special attention is paid to carefully examining experimental philosophy's quite different philosophical programs, their individual strengths and weaknesses, and the different kinds of contributions that they can make to our philosophical understanding. Clear and accessible throughout, it situates experimental philosophy within both a contemporary and historical context, explains its aims and methods, examines and critically evaluates its most significant claims and arguments, and engages with its critics.







The Philosophy Of Scientific Experimentation


Book Description

The Philosophy of Scientific Experimentation focuses on the identification and clarification of philosophical issues in experimental science.Since the late 1980s, the neglect of experiment by philosophers and historians of science has been replaced by a keen interest in the subject. In this volume, a number of prominent philosophers of experiment directly address basic theoretical questions, develop existing philosophical accounts, and offer novel perspectives on the subject, rather than rely exclusively on historical cases of experimental practice.Each essay examines one or more of six interconnected themes that run throughout the collection: the philosophical implications of actively and intentionally interfering with the material world while conducting experiments; issues of interpretation regarding causality; the link between science and technology; the role of theory in experimentation involving material and causal intervention; the impact of modeling and computer simulation on experimentation; and the philosophical implications of the design, operation, and use of scientific instruments.




"Be Sober and Reasonable"


Book Description

Be Sober and Reasonable deals with the theological and medical critique of “enthusiasm” in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and with the relationship between enthusiasm and the new natural philosophy in that period. “Enthusiasm” at that time was a label ascribed to various individuals and groups who claimed to have direct divine inspiration — prophets, millenarists, alchemists, but also experimental philosophers, and even philosophers like Descartes. The book attempts to combine the perspectives of Intellectual history, Church history, history of medicine, and history of science, in analysing the various reactions to enthusiasm. The central thesis of the book is that the reaction to enthusiasm, especially in the Protestant world, may provide one important key to the origins of the Enlightenment, and to the processes of secularization of European consciousness.










Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences


Book Description

This Encyclopedia offers a fresh, integrated and creative perspective on the formation and foundations of philosophy and science in European modernity. Combining careful contextual reconstruction with arguments from traditional philosophy, the book examines methodological dimensions, breaks down traditional oppositions such as rationalism vs. empiricism, calls attention to gender issues, to ‘insiders and outsiders’, minor figures in philosophy, and underground movements, among many other topics. In addition, and in line with important recent transformations in the fields of history of science and early modern philosophy, the volume recognizes the specificity and significance of early modern science and discusses important developments including issues of historiography (such as historical epistemology), the interplay between the material culture and modes of knowledge, expert knowledge and craft knowledge. This book stands at the crossroads of different disciplines and combines their approaches – particularly the history of science, the history of philosophy, contemporary philosophy of science, and intellectual and cultural history. It brings together over 100 philosophers, historians of science, historians of mathematics, and medicine offering a comprehensive view of early modern philosophy and the sciences. It combines and discusses recent results from two very active fields: early modern philosophy and the history of (early modern) science. Editorial Board EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Dana Jalobeanu University of Bucharest, Romania Charles T. Wolfe Ghent University, Belgium ASSOCIATE EDITORS Delphine Bellis University Nijmegen, The Netherlands Zvi Biener University of Cincinnati, OH, USA Angus Gowland University College London, UK Ruth Hagengruber University of Paderborn, Germany Hiro Hirai Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands Martin Lenz University of Groningen, The Netherlands Gideon Manning CalTech, Pasadena, CA, USA Silvia Manzo University of La Plata, Argentina Enrico Pasini University of Turin, Italy Cesare Pastorino TU Berlin, Germany Lucian Petrescu Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium Justin E. H. Smith University de Paris Diderot, France Marius Stan Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA Koen Vermeir CNRS-SPHERE + Université de Paris, France Kirsten Walsh University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada




Science as Social Existence


Book Description

In this bold and original study, Jeff Kochan constructively combines the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) with Martin Heidegger’s early existential conception of science. Kochan shows convincingly that these apparently quite different approaches to science are, in fact, largely compatible, even mutually reinforcing. By combining Heidegger with SSK, Kochan argues, we can explicate, elaborate, and empirically ground Heidegger’s philosophy of science in a way that makes it more accessible and useful for social scientists and historians of science. Likewise, incorporating Heideggerian phenomenology into SSK renders SKK a more robust and attractive methodology for use by scholars in the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). Kochan’s ground-breaking reinterpretation of Heidegger also enables STS scholars to sustain a principled analytical focus on scientific subjectivity, without running afoul of the orthodox subject-object distinction they often reject. Science as Social Existence is the first book of its kind, unfurling its argument through a range of topics relevant to contemporary STS research. These include the epistemology and metaphysics of scientific practice, as well as the methods of explanation appropriate to social scientific and historical studies of science. Science as Social Existence puts concentrated emphasis on the compatibility of Heidegger’s existential conception of science with the historical sociology of scientific knowledge, pursuing this combination at both macro- and micro-historical levels. Beautifully written and accessible, Science as Social Existence puts new and powerful tools into the hands of sociologists and historians of science, cultural theorists of science, Heidegger scholars, and pluralist philosophers of science.