World Changes
World Changes

Author: Paul Gordon Horwich

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

Published: 2024-02-20

Total Pages: 367

ISBN-13: 0822991756

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Thomas Kuhn is viewed as one of the most influential (and controversial) philosophers of science, and this re-release of a classic examination of one of his seminal works reflects his continuing importance. In World Changes, the contributors examine the work of Kuhn from a broad philosophical perspective, comparing earlier logical empiricism and logical positivism with the new philosophy of science inspired by Kuhn in the early 1960s. The nine chapters offer interpretations of his major work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and subsequent writings. The introduction outlines the significant concepts of Kuhn's work that are examined and is followed by a brief appraisal of Kuhn by Carl Hempel. The chapters discuss topics that include: a systematic comparison of Kuhn and Carnap viewing similarities and differences; the disputation of absolute truth; rational theory evaluation and comparison; applying theory to observation and the relation of models in a new conceptualization of theory content; and interpreting Kuhn's plurality-of-worlds thesis. The volume also presents four historical papers that speak to Kuhn's views on lexical structures and concept-formation and their antecedents. The afterward, by Kuhn himself, reviews his own philosophical development, his thoughts on the dynamics of scientific growth, and his response to issues raised by the contributors and other interpreters of his work.

The Correspondence of Charles Hutton
The Correspondence of Charles Hutton

Author: Benjamin Wardhaugh

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-12-08

Total Pages: 430

ISBN-13: 0192527231

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This book contains all the letters that are known to survive from the correspondence of Charles Hutton (1737-1823). Hutton was one of the most prominent British mathematicians of his generation; he played roles at the Royal Society, the Royal Military Academy, the Board of Longitude, the 'philomath' network and elsewhere. He worked on the explosive force of gunpowder and the mean density of the earth, wining the Royal Society's Copley medal in 1778; he was also at the focus of a celebrated row at the Royal Society in 1784 over the place of mathematics there. He is of particular historical interest because of the variety of roles he played in British mathematics, the dexterity with which he navigated, exploited and shaped personal and professional networks in mathematics and science, and the length and visibility of his career. Hutton corresponded nationally and internationally, and his correspondence illustrates the overlapping, the intersection and interaction of the different networks in which Hutton moved. It therefore provides new information about how Georgian mathematics was structured socially, and how mathematical careers worked in that period. It provides a rare and valuable view of a mathematical culture that would substantially cease to exist when British mathematics embraced continental methods from the early ninetheenth century onwards. Over 130 letters survive, from 1770 to 1822, but they are widely scattered (in nearly thirty different archives) and have not been catalogued or edited before. This edition situates the correspondence with an introduction and explanatory notes.