For those of you who want to have an overall picture of multiple topics with which the philosophy of
sciences is concerned, this book is an excellent introduction. The
discussion thread of this work which, in the beginning, was a course intended for students of engineering, is undoubtedly the discussion of the concept of
scientific truth. A short overview of the history of sciences (primarily Western: four lines are enough to evoke Arabian science and there is not trace works of Asian civilizations) makes it possible to reconsider the concepts of certainty and uncertainty , of truth . Old philosophical questions are titles of
chapter and are illustrated in a very
interesting and especially
accessible way even to a public made up of non-scientists. - Is everthing that is true demonstrable? The author evokes in particular the intrusion of the non-Euclidean geometries (Lobatchevski, Bolyai, Riemann) and the crisis in the bases of mathematics that Cantor starts with his theory of the infinity. Quantum physics: the philosophical debates that it causes are still topicality today. What is
science? In this chapter in particular the visions of Karl Popper are exposed (whose discussion of the scientific character of the Psychoanalysis and Marxism made debate at 20th century), the theory of the paradigms and the scientific revolutions of Thomas Kuhn and the famous work Against Methodology by Feyerabend. Of course, I overlook quantity of other topics or interesting aspects of this book. I would just like, to finish, underline the teaching effort made by the author to explain or develop scientific concepts or theories and to make them accessible to that brand of reader whose scientific level could be that of the college. This book appeared in 1992 under Editions of the Threshold (Points, Sciences)
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