Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction

by Samir Okasha

Book Overview

How much faith should we place in what scientists tell us? Is it possible for scientific knowledge to be fully "objective?" What, really, can be defined as science? In the second edition of this Very... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0192802836
• ISBN13: 9780192802835
• Release Date: July 2002
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.9" x 4.4"

Customer Reviews

Excellent Introduction to the Subject

In my opinion, this book is probably among the best available introductions to the philosophy of science. It is also suitable for review purposes for those who already have some familiarity with the subject. The book manages to cover much ground in a short space because it is written very concisely, yet it is also easy to read because the writing style is very clear and straightforward. I warmly recommend this book without hesitation.

Excellent introduction

I read this book as an introduction to the philosophy of science to help me as part of my degree and found it has adressed all the necessary key issues and summarised them with clear and simplistic explanations that are easy to understand, especially for the non-philosophical readers! The straightforward explanation approach that the author uses also means that some of the more complex issues are compared and argued in a similarly pragmatic way. Key figures and dates are also given to help with further reading, however because the book is so concise i didn't need much more information for my studies . . bargain!

A great little primer to the Philosophy of Science

What this book claims to do, it does well. It is in the Oxford "Very Short Introductions" series, and so does not pretend to be anything but a cursory introduction to the field of Philosophy of Science. Given that caveat, the book is well-written, great fun to read, and is still likely to give us mere "laymen" in the field something to think about. Okasha assumes some scientific and philosophical knowledge on the part of the reader. There is not the space to dedicate explanations of specific scientists or scientific theories. The book appears to be for scientists rather than philosophers - he clearly goes into more detail describing the philosophical aspects than the scientific ones. At the same time, he tries not to take sides in the debates of the field, such as the importance of direct observation, the ideas of Kuhn (on scientific revolutions), Popper (on the definition of science), etc. He also covers the basic scientific issues such as causality, inductive vs. deductive reasoning, and how conflict can arise between science and religion. I'm not sure if a non-scientist will follow all Okasha's examples. However, it's probably unlikely that a non-scientist will pick up this book. This book has helped me immensely in preparing lectures for a module in "The Nature of Scientific Enquiry" for a general science course we have started this year. The clarity and conciseness with which the author presents the material makes this a nice little book, well worth the low cost.

Another Good VSI Title

Yet another excellent entrant in the VSI series. Okasha, Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of York, gives a well-organized quick tour of the main topics in the Philosophy of Science.Starting with an introductory chapter on "What is Science", he takes the reader on a tour of "Scientific Reasoning", "Explanation in Science", "Realism and anti-Realism", "Scientific Change and Revolutions". He then adds a chapter on three specific historical philosophical disputes in the Philosophy of Science: (1) the dispute between Newton and Leibniz about the nature of space (absolute or relative), (2) the dispute among three different schools of taxonomic classification in biology and (3) the dispute among psychologists about the 'modularity' of the human mind. He then ends with a wrap up chapter on some of the disputes about science ('Scientism', or an over-reliance on 'science' as a model for all of (or the only legitimate kind of) 'knowledge'; Science and Religion; and the debate around whether Science is 'value-free').In each case, he gives a very clear, even-handed overview of the arguments that have raged (since the 16th Century) about these topics. He is quite good at giving analogies or examples that make otherwise abstract propositions understandable. He deftly lays out (which is difficult to do) the reasons why philosophical questions about science are not resolvable by science itself, and thus why disputes over these topics continue even today (e.g., all 'empirical' scientific theories ultimately rest on concepts that are more or less 'metaphysical' - which doesn't mean that choosing among fundamental principals is simply a matter of taste, belief or faith (e.g., Creation Science is clearly not just as good a 'scientific' theory as Evolution), but it does help clarify the nature of the assumptions that serve as the foundations of our scientific beliefs). In Okasha's descriptions of the debates over these topics, I often couldn't tell from his writing anything about his own - one of the marks of a good introductory work.Given the importance of science to modern life, understanding the debates around the core concepts on which modern science rests (and the enormously broad reach (as well as the limits) of science as a way of generating knowledge), is something every educated modern person should do at some level. This little book is an excellent way to get started.

a great introduction

This is an excellent short introduction to philosophy of science. It's clearly written and very interesting. This would be an ideal first thing to read on the topic.