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    Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science
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    Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science
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    Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science
    Ebook221 pages7 hours

    Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science

    By Peter Godfrey-Smith

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    About this ebook

    How does science work? Does it tell us what the world is "really" like? What makes it different from other ways of understanding the universe? In Theory and Reality, Peter Godfrey-Smith addresses these questions by taking the reader on a grand tour of one hundred years of debate about science. The result is a completely accessible introduction to the main themes of the philosophy of science.

    Intended for undergraduates and general readers with no prior background in philosophy, Theory and Reality covers logical positivism; the problems of induction and confirmation; Karl Popper's theory of science; Thomas Kuhn and "scientific revolutions"; the views of Imre Lakatos, Larry Laudan, and Paul Feyerabend; and challenges to the field from sociology of science, feminism, and science studies. The book then looks in more detail at some specific problems and theories, including scientific realism, the theory-ladeness of observation, scientific explanation, and Bayesianism. Finally, Godfrey-Smith defends a form of philosophical naturalism as the best way to solve the main problems in the field.

    Throughout the text he points out connections between philosophical debates and wider discussions about science in recent decades, such as the infamous "science wars." Examples and asides engage the beginning student; a glossary of terms explains key concepts; and suggestions for further reading are included at the end of each chapter. However, this is a textbook that doesn't feel like a textbook because it captures the historical drama of changes in how science has been conceived over the last one hundred years.

    Like no other text in this field, Theory and Reality combines a survey of recent history of the philosophy of science with current key debates in language that any beginning scholar or critical reader can follow.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
    Release dateDec 1, 2009
    ISBN9780226300610
    Author

    Peter Godfrey-Smith

    Peter Godfrey-Smith is a professor in the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney. He is the author of the bestselling Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness, which has been published in more than twenty languages. His other books include Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science and Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection, which won the 2010 Lakatos Award.

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    • 4/5
      I'm reviewing this book as an instructor using it for an introduction to the Philosophy of Science. Godfrey-Smith is going for a general overview of the last one hundred or so years of debate in the philosophy of science, and it works well as a secondary source for that kind of course.One thing that Godfrey-Smith is able to do quite well in this volume is write in a conversational style that appeals to students. In a number of ways, it comes off as the written form of a good lecture. It contains moments of quick analysis, an informal tone and even a few jokes.It is also a strength of the book that Godfrey-Smith is clear about his own views and the ways in which they shape his analysis of the various views considered here. Students should recognize that these positions are not sacred or beyond the reach of their own criticism. Works like this which demonstrate a philosopher working with the ideas in addition to presenting them is a good model for the students to have.I think there are two main weaknesses with the book, both of which call for supplementation in course readings (indeed, I'd imagine both weaknesses are the results of design decisions by the author). First, the book is short and moves fast. Complex ideas are often left underdeveloped, and some ideas are presented a bit too quickly for the students (for example, the discussion of Quine's "Two Dogmas" is understandably quick given its place in the book, but does not provide enough space to explain what his arguments are). Pairing it with a set of primary source readings alleviates this rather nicely, since students will be expected to work out the details in their own reading, but can use Godfrey-Smith as some help and guidance for the big picture issues.The second of the weaknesses is that it does not provide sufficient historical context to debates about the scientific method in philosophy. At least an extra chapter discussing deductivism and inductivism and how they lead into Hypothetico-Deductivism (which does make an appearance) would be very helpful. This material lays the groundwork for some of the more complex ideas discussed later, and in some ways serves as an easier example to introduce the notion of a syntactic theory.I recommend this book as a supplementary reading for an introduction to philosophy of science course. It is probably too thin to use as a main text, but its clear presentation makes it ideal for giving students a leg up on more complex primary readings.

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