Azzouni – Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science

Jody Azzouni0415333547, 9780415333542

A fascinating study of the bounds between science and language, showing that the workings of language are compatible with the laws and methods of science, and that the language of science can be taken literally to describe the truth.

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Table of contents :
Book Cover……Page 1
Half-Title……Page 2
Series Title……Page 3
Title……Page 5
Copyright……Page 6
Contents……Page 7
Preface……Page 10
Acknowledgments……Page 12
General Introduction……Page 14
Part I.Procedural foundationalism……Page 23
1.Introduction to part I……Page 25
2.Program and scope……Page 28
3.Reductionism, confirmation holism, theoretical deductivism……Page 42
4.Some observations on reductionism and the “autonomy” of the special sciences……Page 49
5.Some comments on the philosophical implications of the use of idealizations in science……Page 59
6.Gross regularities……Page 73
7.Procedures and perceptual procedures……Page 81
8.Shedding perceptual procedures……Page 87
9.Conclusion to part I……Page 91
Part II. Two-tiered coherentism……Page 94
1.Introduction to part II……Page 96
2.Evidential centrality……Page 98
3.Ob-similar extensions and ob*-similar extensions……Page 105
4.Ob-similarity, observational regularities, reasons for incommensurability……Page 114
5.Kuhnian considerations and the accumulation of knowledge……Page 119
6.Perceptual impermeability and biotechnical incommensurability……Page 125
7.Methodological observations about epistemology, scepticism and truth……Page 129
Part III.Permuting reference……Page 144
1.Introduction to part III……Page 146
2.Formal considerations……Page 149
3.Quine’s version……Page 153
4.Field’s version……Page 165
5.Putnam’s version……Page 168
6.The ontological status of causality……Page 175
7.Some puzzles about reference……Page 182
8.Conclusion to part III……Page 188
Part IV. The transcendence of reference……Page 191
1.Introduction to part IV……Page 193
2.Troubles for naive naturalism……Page 196
3.The elusivity of reference……Page 206
4.Causality and reference: an analysis……Page 218
5.Transcending procedures……Page 225
6.Transcendence and its discontents……Page 236
General conclusion……Page 243
Bibliography……Page 246
Index……Page 258