Structures in Science, Softcover reprint of hardcover 1st ed. 2001
Heuristic Patterns Based on Cognitive Structures An Advanced Textbook in Neo-Classical Philosophy of Science
Synthese Library Series, Vol. 301

Although there is an abundance of highly specialized monographs, learned collections and general introductions to the philosophy of science, only a few 25 years. synthetic monographs and advanced textbooks have appeared in the last The philosophy of science seems to have lost its self-confidence. The main reason for such a loss is that the traditional analytical, logical-empiricist approaches to the philosophy of science had to make a number of concessions, especially in response to the work of Popper, Kuhn and Lakatos. With Structures in Science I intend to present both a synthetic mono graph and an advanced textbook that accommodates and integrates the insight of these philosophers, in what I like to call a neo-classical approach. The resulting monograph elaborates several important topics from one or more perspectives, by distinguishing various kinds of research programs, and various ways of explaining and reducing laws and concepts, and by summarizing an integrated explication (presented in From Instrumentalism to Constructive Realism, ICR) of the notions of confirmation, empirical progress and truth approximation.

Foreword. Part I: Units of Scientific Knowledge and Knowledge Acquisition. 1. Research programs and research strategies. 2. Observational laws and proper theories. Part II: Patterns of Explanation and Description. 3. Explanation and reduction of laws. 4. Explanation and description by specification. Part III: Structures in Interlevel and Interfield Research. 5. Reduction and correlation of concepts. 6. Levels, styles, and mind-body research. Part IV: Confirmation and Empirical Progress. 7. Testing and further separate evaluation of theories. 8. Empirical progress and pseudoscience. Part V: Truth, Product, and Concept Approximation. 9. Progress in nomological, explicative and design research. 10. Design research programs. Part VI: Capita Selecta. 11. Computational philosophy of science. 12. The structuralist approach to theories. 13. `Default-norms' in research ethics. Suggestions for further reading. Exercises. Notes. References. Index of Names. Index of Subjects.

Professor Theo Kuipers is the author of From Instrumentalism toConstructive Realism (Synthese Library 287, 2000). He is the leader of the Groningen Research Group `Cognitive Structures in Knowledge and Knowledge Development', which gained the highest possible scores in two successive assessments of Dutch philosophical research by international committees.