Naturvetenskapens filosofi

Scientific Essentialism defends the view that the fundamental laws of nature depend on the essential properties of the things on which they are said to operate, and are therefore …

This book argues that if we consider the ubiquity of small effect sizes in medicine, the extent of misleading evidence in medical research, the thin theoretical basis of many …

Both the special sciences and ordinary experience suggest that there are metaphysically emergent entities and features: macroscopic goings-on (including mountains, trees, humans, …

A Realist Theory of Science is one of the few books that have changed our understanding of the philosophy of science. In this analysis of the natural sciences, with a particular …

Metaphysicians speak of laws of nature in terms of necessity and universality; scientists do so in terms of symmetry and invariance. This book argues that no metaphysical account …

When the long-awaited day dawns and the aliens finally arrive on Earth, they might eat us and destroy the planet--or, just maybe, they might share the secrets of the Universe with …

J. Craig Wheeler, a leading astrophysicist and former president of the American Astronomical Society, argues that we must take charge of our technology now, before we lose the …

What fundamental account of the world is implicit in physical theory? Physics straightforwardly postulates quarks and electrons, but what of the more intangible elements, such as …

The emergence of objectivity in the mid-nineteenth-century sciences, as revealed through images in scientific atlases-a story of how lofty epistemic ideals fuse with workaday …

Laws of nature have long puzzled philosophers. What distinguishes laws from facts about the world that do not rise to the level of laws? How can laws be contingent and nevertheless …