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Stathis Psillos's Top Book Recommendations

Want to know what books Stathis Psillos recommends on their reading list? We've researched interviews, social media posts, podcasts, and articles to build a comprehensive list of Stathis Psillos's favorite book recommendations of all time.

1

Dynamics of Reason

This book introduces a new approach to the issue of radical scientific revolutions, or "paradigm-shifts," given prominence in the work of Thomas Kuhn. The book articulates a dynamical and historicized version of the conception of scientific a priori principles first developed by the philosopher Immanuel Kant. This approach defends the Enlightenment ideal of scientific objectivity and universality while simultaneously doing justice to the revolutionary changes within the sciences that have since undermined Kant's original defense of this ideal.

Through a modified Kantian approach...
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Recommended by Stathis Psillos, and 1 others.

Stathis PsillosThis is, in many ways, a tour de force. According to Friedman, both Kant and the logical positivists shared a common project: the harmonization of the fundamental philosophical problems that are related to the structure and the possibility of knowledge with the scientific image of the world. (Source)

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2
During the last three decades, reflections on the growth of scientific knowledge have inspired historians, sociologists, and some philosophers to contend that scientific objectivity is a myth. In this book, Kitcher attempts to resurrect the notions of objectivity and progress in science by identifying both the limitations of idealized treatments of growth of knowledge and the overreactions to philosophical idealizations. Recognizing that science is done not by logically omniscient subjects working in isolation, but by people with a variety of personal and social interests, who cooperate and... more
Recommended by Stathis Psillos, and 1 others.

Stathis PsillosThe book aims to deflate the legend that science is a march to truth (to the one complete true story of the world) and that this is achieved by the use of a fully objective scientific method. But he aims to show how scientific progress and objectivity can still be defended, even though the legend is just a legend. (Source)

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3
How do we go about weighing evidence, testing hypotheses, and making inferences? According to the model of Inference to the Best Explanation, we work out what to infer from the evidence by thinking about what would actually explain that evidence, and we take the ability of a hypothesis to explain the evidence as a sign that the hypothesis is correct. In Inference to the Best Explanation, Peter Lipton gives this important and influential idea the development and assessment it deserves.

The second edition has been substantially enlarged and reworked, with a new...
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Recommended by Stathis Psillos, and 1 others.

Stathis PsillosHis book Inference to the Best Explanation is a model of lucidity, rigorous argumentation and philosophical depth. It made two editions in 1991 and in 2004, the second having substantially new material. (Source)

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4

The Scientific Image

In this book van Fraassen develops an alternative to scientific realism by constructing and evaluating three mutually reinforcing theories.
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Recommended by Stathis Psillos, and 1 others.

Stathis PsillosHe does not deny that unobservable entities exist. Rather, he says that one need not believe in their existence in order to have a reasonable view of science and its practice. (Source)

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5
Few can imagine a world without telephones or televisions; many depend on computers and the Internet as part of daily life. Without scientific theory, these developments would not have been possible.

In this exceptionally clear and engaging introduction to philosophy of science, James Ladyman explores the philosophical questions that arise when we reflect on the nature of the scientific method and the knowledge it produces. He discusses whether fundamental philosophical questions about knowledge and reality might be answered by science, and considers in detail the debate between...
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Recommended by Stathis Psillos, and 1 others.

Stathis PsillosWhat makes this book stand out is, on the one hand, the clarity by which it is written and, on the other hand, the in-depth coverage of issues not normally treated in general introductions to philosophy of science. (Source)

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