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Timothy Shanahan - The Pessimistic Induction, Häftad

Häftad, Engelska, 2026

The Pessimistic Induction

The Historical Challenge to Scientific Knowledge

Av Timothy Shanahan

659 kr

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Beskrivning
'All past beliefs about nature have sooner or later turned out to be false. On the record, therefore, the probability that any currently proposed belief will fare better must be close to zero.' So wrote the historian and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn. A substantial number of contemporary philosophers agree with that pessimistic induction from the history of science. If true, the implications of that inductive argument are profound, suggesting that current so-called scientific knowledge is not what it purports to be - namely, an enduring understanding of our world. The Pessimistic Induction expressed in Kuhn's remark has been extensively discussed in the philosophy of science but heretofore without a synoptic critical examination. Drawing on both the history and the philosophy of science, this book presents a detailed exploration of the Pessimistic Induction and defends an optimistic, yet not necessarily realist, view of an important class of current scientific knowledge claims.
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Timothy Shanahan is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles. He is the author or editor of six previous books and numerous scholarly articles and book chapters in philosophy, science, and film studies.

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'Shanahan's large-scale investigation of the Pessimistic Induction over the history of science presents a well-organized view of the last several decades' worth of writing on this topic and advances the discussion on several fronts. It covers exactly the right set of topics, given the current state of the debates about the Pessimistic Induction; it includes everything you need, and nothing you don't. For people new to the topic, it provides an excellent orientation to a sprawling field. For old hands, it offers a synoptic and cohesive fresh perspective on multiple frontiers of the debates about the Pessimistic Induction.' Greg Frost-Arnold, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

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