Creative Understanding

Philosophical Reflections on Physics

By: Roberto Torretti

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Hardcover | 9 November 1990 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Hardcover
385 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
2.36 x 1.8 x 0.27

Hardcover

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"A pleasure to read. Gracefully written by a scholar well grounded in the relevant philosophical, historical, and technical background. . . . a helpfully clarifying review and analysis of some issues of importance to recent philosophy of science and a source of some illuminating insights."--Burke Townsend, "Philosophy of Science"

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Science Physics Philosophy Science in General Philosophy of Science Society & Culture Cultural Studies History of Ideas

Preface
Acknowledgments
Observation
Two main forms of observation
Conceptual grasp of the objects of observation
On the manifest qualities of things
Our understanding of the process of observation
Personal versus impersonal observation
On the relation between observed objects and receiver states
Concepts
Explaining and conceiving
Examples from Newton
Questions raised by conceptual innovation
Are there limits to conceptual innovation in science?
Self-classifying sense impressions
Kant's forms and categories
Carnap's observable predicates
Conceptual criticism as a catalyzer of scientific change
Reference without sense
Denoting and connoting
Putnam's attack on intensions
The meaning of natural kind terms
Speaking of quantities
'Mass' in classical and relativistic dynamics
Putnam's progress
Conceptual schemes
Appendix: Mathematical structures
Sets
Mappings
Echelon sets over a collection of sets
Structures
Isomorphism
Alternative typifications
Axiomatic set theory
Categories
Theories
The theory of free fall in Galileo's Discorsi
Mathematical constructs for natural philosophy
A structuralist view of physical theories
T-theoretical terms
To spell the phenomena
Approximation and idealization
On relations between theories
Intertheoretic reduction
Recapitulation and preview
Probability
Probability and the probable
Probability spaces
Chance setups
Probability as a limiting frequency
Probability as prevision
Probability as a physical propensity
Ideal chances
Necessity
Forms of necessity
Geometry
Mathematical physics
Cause and law
Notes
References
Index
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Creative Understanding

Philosophical Reflections on Physics

At a Glance

Hardcover

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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