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The Rationality of Science1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

James Robert Brown
Affiliation:
University of Toronto

Extract

William Newton-Smith is a fine young Canadian philosopher of science who has spent the last decade in productive thought at Balliol, Oxford. His new work, The Rationality of Science, follows hot on the heels of his other book, The Structure of Time (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980). And with them he establishes himself as a major force to be reckoned with in philosophical circles.

Type
Critical Notices/Etudes critiques
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1983

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References

2 The same doctrine can be found in Newton-Smith, William, The Structure of Time (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), 233Google Scholar, and The Underdetermination of Theory by Data”, Aristotelian Society, Supplementary vol. 52, 7191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 See Jammer, , The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics (New York: Wiley, 1975)Google Scholar, for details.

4 Putnam, H., Mathematics, Matter, and Method (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975).Google Scholar

5 Laudan, L., “A Confutation of Convergent Realism”, Philosophy of Science 48/1 (March 1981).Google Scholar

6 van Fraassen, B., The Scientific Image (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 This is not very serious since values of constants are usually expressed as being xy). As long as the value is within ± y then members of the sequence of claims about the value of the constant are all true.

8 I am indebted to Kathleen Okruhlik for valuable discussions, to the referee of this journal for suggestions, and to Alasdair Urquhart for saving me from a serious mistake.