Logic Matters
Logic Matters

Author: Peter Thomas Geach

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1972

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 9780520018518

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Logical Empiricism
Logical Empiricism

Author: Paolo Parrini

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre

Published: 2010-06-15

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 0822970724

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Logical empiricism, a program for the study of science that attempted to provide logical analyses of the nature of scientific concepts, the relation between evidence and theory, and the nature of scientific explanation, formed among the famed Vienna and Berlin Circles of the 1920s and '30s and dominated the philosophy of science throughout much of the twentieth century. In recent decades, a "post-positivist" philosophy, deriding empiricism and its claims in light of more recent historical and sociological discoveries, has been the ascendant mode of philosophy and other disciplines in the arts and sciences.This book features original research that challenges such broad oppositions. In eleven essays, leading scholars from many nations construct a more nuanced understanding of logical empiricism, its history, and development, offering promising implications for current philosophy of science debates.Tapping rich resources of unpublished material from archives in Haarlem, Konstanz, Pittsburgh, and Vienna, contributors conduct a deep investigation into the origins and development of the Vienna and Berlin Circles. They expose the roots of the philosophy in such varied sources as Cassirer, Poincaire, Husserl, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein. Important connections between the empiricists and other movements—neo-empiricism, British empiricism—are vigorously explored.Building on these historical studies, a critical reevaluation emerges that shrinks the distance between old and new philosophers of science, between "analytic" and "Continental" philosophy. A number of compelling recent debates, including those involving Kuhn, Feyerabend, Hesse, Glymour, and Hanson, are reopened to show the ways in which logical empiricist theory can still be validly applied.Logical Empiricism is the result of a remarkable conference, convened in the spirit of reflection and international cooperation, that took place in Florence, Italy, in 1999.

The Direction of Time
The Direction of Time

Author: Hans Reichenbach

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9780520074149

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Internationally known for his work in the theory of probability, symbolic logic, analysis of space and time, and philosophical problems of quantum physics, Hans Reichenbach (1891-1953) was one of the twentieth century's most incisive philosophers of science. In this, his last book, first published in 1956, he brought all his previous research and insight to bear on the most intractable and intriguing problem in physics: the elusive nature of time. This far-sighted work of philosophy illuminates the metaphysical questions with which contemporary researchers in cosmology and particle physics must contend. Arguing as he did throughout his career that developments in scientific knowledge must influence philosophy, Reichenbach shows how completely the Kantian a priori--and many of our most basic intuitions about the structure of space and time--are undermined by twentieth-century physics. He shows how the philosophical understanding of time is necessary to understanding contemporary problems of cosmology. This new edition of The Direction of Time, published in the year of Reichenbach's centennial, includes an introduction by Hilary Putnam, one of Reichenbach's most eminent students, describing the metaphysical assumptions and arguments embedded in Reichenbach's philosophy, and their importance for the development of contemporary philosophy pf science.