Author: Avijit Lahiri

Publisher: Avijit Lahiri

Published: 2023-09-20

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13:

The book is an engaging discourse on a number of interesting and deep issues relating to how Science inquires into Nature. It constitutes a critique of the received view that objectivity and logic are the cornerstones of science, and emphasises the role of inductive inference, of which an essential feature is that, compared to its deductive counterpart, the correspondence between evidence and conclusion is not unique, and that it entails a fundamental element of choice or decision. Induction takes place in the mind of the individual and also in the collective mental process of a scientific community. More precisely, the process of inductive inference is essentially dependent on beliefs, tied to affect and emotions, mostly playing their role in a substratum of conscious, deductive activity. In this the scientific process, which involves induction and deduction in complementary roles, is seen to have deeply cognitive roots. Building around this basic perception and drawing from diverse current trends of research, the book adopts a naturalist approach to pose a critique of a widespread but naive version of scientific realism. The presentation is lucid, informal, and witty, mainly addressed to general readers, though the discourse is at once deep, intriguing and provoking wherein it will prove to be of value to specialists in the areas of philosophy of science and cognitive science.