News and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture, and other topics. The world’s most popular philosophy blog, since 2003.
My former colleagues at another university in Middle East have also been moved to online teaching indefinitely, with the students…
If much of the interest of high-quality papers lies between the lines—in the metaphorical fire that a paper lights in…
I would also recommend that potential grad students make inquiries into how far the compensation package actually goes towards cost…
It’s a mix. I’m still in the UAE with my family, and we feel safe. But some students and faculty…
In the above comment, Michel wrote: “As an aside, every once in a while I check out how the chatbots…
I could imagine LLMs having saved me a *ton* of time in graduate school–e.g., by having supplied reasonable answers to…
The McMaster Department of Philosophy has now put together the following notice commemorating Barry: Barry Allen: A Philosophical Life Barry…
MOVING TO FRONT FROM DECEMBER 13–MORE SUGGESTIONS WELCOME
Continuing our new series, I invite readers to name what they think are the best introductory texts to general philosophy of science and/or the best introductory texts to the philosophy of particular sciences, such as physics or biology. As before, don't just name a text, but say something about why you think it's particularly notable or valuable.
I would recommend Peter Godrey-Smith's Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science. It covers a lot of ground, and it's both clear enough and sophisticated enough that it would be appropriate to recommend as an introductory text to undergrads or graduate students.
I second the recommendation of Godfrey-Smith's Theory and Reality for general philosophy of science, and also his Philosophy of Biology.
I was also about to recommend Godfrey-Smith. I would add Susan Haack's "Defending Science: Within Reason". It has a bit more of a definite point of view than Godfrey-Smith's book, but it's still a good overview.
I've had a decade of good experience with Theory and Reality supplemented with Klee's (ed.) collection of essays Scientific Inquiry.
Above the cut in 'Very Short Introduction' series, imho:
http://www.concatenation.org/nfrev/okasha_philosophy_science.html
https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Science-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0198745583
'Further Reading' list at end is also worthwhile.
Ladyman's intro to general philosophy of science provides a very good overview. As for physics, I found both of Maudlin's books very informative.
All of the texts mentioned are good, though I would add Alan Chalmers' What is this thing called science? That's the text book that I use, though I combine it with the big anthology edited by Martin Curd, Jan Cover and Christopher Pincock, Philosophy of Science: The Central Issues. I also recommend Ian Hacking's Representing and Intervening especially on entity realism and the experimental argument for scientific realism.
I taught for many years a course called "Science and Pseudoscience", which was about the principles of scientific reasoning as illustrated by looking at claims that in many ways fall short of living up to those principles: UFO's, cryptozoology, creationism, ESP, etc. I used Ted Schick (Muhlenberg College) and Lewis Vaughn's "How to Think About Weird Things" (McGraw Hill, 7th ed., 2014) as text. It covers many intro phil of sci concepts, and a brief intro to logic, all in the context of the sorts of examples used in my course. I also had the students read a short essay by Lakatos, which was accessible because it was written for a radio broadcast. The book would not be sufficient for a phil majors course in philosophy of science, but works for an intro/general education course.
The Philosophy of Physics by Dean Rickles is a great accessible intoduction with to the field. It is well-organized giving a survey of key topics, and very helpful suggestions for further reading.
Another vote for Godrey-Smith's Theory and Reality, particularly for the pre-Popper sections. I haven't read another intro with the same balance of breadth and concision. NB: I would tread carefully on its treatment of Laudan and recommend readers also check out Laudan's brief dialogue "Science and Relativism" which is intended for a general audience, and addresses the gaps Godrey-Smith ascribe to his work. The latter is also an evergreen resource for rejoinders to attacks on Phil of Sci launched from the humanities.
Marc Lange's Introduction to the Philosophy of Physics is a very rich book covering some fairly unusual topics in classical physics. Extremely clear and well-written, with a generally metaphysics-friendly bent. It's great because students who've completed two semesters of college physics will be very well positioned to understand all the science in the book. That said, it isn't a survey of the classic "core" topics.
For students who also need a parallel introduction to the physics itself, the most user friendly textbook to the philosophy of relativity theory (and parts of quantum mechanics) is John Norton's online e-book "Einstein for Everyone".
Perhaps it is just because I am old or old-fashioned but I would rate Chalmers above Godfrey-Smith as a teaching text, good as Peter's book undoubtedly is. But maybe I am too immersed in the Pop-Lak-Kuhn-abend problematic.
For Philosophy of Biology I would recommend Sterelny and Griffiths Sex and Death, though I guess it could use an update.
There is a very good introductory philosophy of science book which hasn't been mentioned yet. Philosophy of Science (Text with Readings), by David Boersema. It is primarily aimed at undergraduates, but is very readable and my students report liking it a lot.
I have not performed anything like a full comparison of introductory philosophy of physics texts, but because no one has mentioned Toretti's /Philosophy of Physics/, I will. I read it myself when in need of an introduction, and it was so effective that I feel as though I still remember most of it nearly twenty years later. Its historical sensitivity provides what I think is the right balance between context of discovery and mathematical accuracy needed to properly understand the key ideas.
Alyssa Ney's book is another option. It is clear, interesting, and well developed, and does a better job with the metaphysics than either Godfrey-Smith or Ladyman. I've used it several times with a lot of success.
For many years I used the Chalmers book in our intro to phil sci module and Sklar's The Philosophy of Physics in our upper-level philosophy of physics classes (mostly attended by physics students). However both are now a bit out of date and 'dry' (at least according to the students!).
When I taught Philosophy of Science in the USA, I used Janet Kourany's Scientific Knowledge, and supplemented it with some more contemporary articles, for example, Psillos, Stanford, and Lipton. That worked quite well. The students learned something and produced good work. Now in Europe, teaching science students, specifically chemistry students, I use Eric Scerri's Very Short Introduction to the Periodic Table. I supplement it with other readings, like Kuhn, Popper, Peter Lipton, etc. Scerri's book is a useful way to motivate a number of philosophical debates with content from chemistry. For example, his chapter on Mendeleev is very good for a discussion of the predictivism/accommodation debate. This debate can seem rather unusual to scientists. And Scerri's last chapter on the many different periodic tables is useful for discussing realism and anti-realism in a way that speaks to chemists.
I would find interesting to create a course around Godfrey-Smith's "Theory & Reality" and "Philosophy of Biology" paired with Michael Esfeld's Holism in "Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Physics" and "Conservative Reductionism". I think this could be fruitful since this would allow moving back and forth between theorerical perspectives on science to scientific problems, while bringing together the problem areans physics, biology, and society in a way that allows to talk about methodology. On their own, these books might be "too specialist" but together they a re a fun platform for students who wonder how to transfer a "sci.phil" perspective into applicatin qu methdological discussions.
I'm not a philosopher. I'm a humanities academic who got interested in Philosophy of Science afew years ago. There have been several books that have been useful to me. These include Godfrey-Smith's Theory and Reality, Okasha's Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction, and Ladyman's Understanding Philosophy of Science. I also liked very much the Great Courses lectures by Jeffrey Kasser, Philosophy of Science. These rather dazzled me.
I believe no one of these would have been sufficient, by itself, for me to get the lay of the land. That may reflect my own learning habits, which seem to require some repetition in different wording to really get a handle on an idea. But it might also be a point that applies to other people. One of the ideas I have formed about philosophers based on my reading is "a philosopher is someone who understands the logic of a position immediately, or very nearly so, from a clear description of the argument." I feel that I am a non-philosopher with an interest in philosophy. I need to hear the same idea advanced and critiqued by several different people before I develop a feel for the subject. In reading philosophy, I have repeatedly had the feeling that someone has given an explanation that may be sufficient for other philosophers who think like him (usually him) but may not be for the general public (including me).
—–
KEYWORDS:
Primary Blog
Leave a Reply to alexander stingl Cancel reply