Abstraction is a process wherein general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal signifiers, first principles, or other methods.
Postmodern philosophy is a philosophical movement that arose in the second half of the 20th century as a critical response to assumptions allegedly present in modernist philosophical ideas regarding culture, identity, history, or language that were developed during the 18th-century Age of Enlightenment. Postmodernist thinkers developed concepts like différance, repetition, trace, and hyperreality to subvert "grand narratives", univocity of being, and epistemic certainty. Postmodern philosophy questions the importance of power relationships, personalization, and discourse in the "construction" of truth and world views. Many postmodernists appear to deny that an objective reality exists, and appear to deny that there are objective moral values.
The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century. The scientific method involves careful observation coupled with rigorous scepticism, because cognitive assumptions can distort the interpretation of the observation. Scientific inquiry includes creating a hypothesis through inductive reasoning, testing it through experiments and statistical analysis, and adjusting or discarding the hypothesis based on the results.
Imre Lakatos was a Hungarian philosopher of mathematics and science, known for his thesis of the fallibility of mathematics and its "methodology of proofs and refutations" in its pre-axiomatic stages of development, and also for introducing the concept of the "research programme" in his methodology of scientific research programmes.
Relativism is a family of philosophical views which deny claims to objectivity within a particular domain and assert that valuations in that domain are relative to the perspective of an observer or the context in which they are assessed. There are many different forms of relativism, with a great deal of variation in scope and differing degrees of controversy among them. Moral relativism encompasses the differences in moral judgments among people and cultures. Epistemic relativism holds that there are no absolute principles regarding normative belief, justification, or rationality, and that there are only relative ones. Alethic relativism is the doctrine that there are no absolute truths, i.e., that truth is always relative to some particular frame of reference, such as a language or a culture. Some forms of relativism also bear a resemblance to philosophical skepticism. Descriptive relativism seeks to describe the differences among cultures and people without evaluation, while normative relativism evaluates the word truthfulness of views within a given framework.
Paul Karl Feyerabend was an Austrian philosopher best known for his work in the philosophy of science. He started his academic career as lecturer in the philosophy of science at the University of Bristol (1955–1958); afterwards, he moved to the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught for three decades (1958–1989). At various points in his life, he held joint appointments at the University College London (1967–1970), the London School of Economics (1967), the FU Berlin (1968), Yale University (1969), the University of Auckland, the University of Sussex (1974), and, finally, the ETH Zurich (1980–1990). He gave lectures and lecture series at the University of Minnesota (1958-1962), Stanford University (1967), the University of Kassel (1977) and the University of Trento (1992).
Scientism is the view that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality.
In philosophy of science and epistemology, the demarcation problem is the question of how to distinguish between science and non-science. It also examines the boundaries between science, pseudoscience and other products of human activity, like art and literature and beliefs. The debate continues after more than two millennia of dialogue among philosophers of science and scientists in various fields. The debate has consequences for what can be termed "scientific" in topics such as education and public policy.
Commensurability is a concept in the philosophy of science whereby scientific theories are said to be "commensurable" if scientists can discuss the theories using a shared nomenclature that allows direct comparison of them to determine which one is more valid or useful. On the other hand, theories are incommensurable if they are embedded in starkly contrasting conceptual frameworks whose languages do not overlap sufficiently to permit scientists to directly compare the theories or to cite empirical evidence favoring one theory over the other. Discussed by Ludwik Fleck in the 1930s, and popularized by Thomas Kuhn in the 1960s, the problem of incommensurability results in scientists talking past each other, as it were, while comparison of theories is muddled by confusions about terms, contexts and consequences.
Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge is a 1975 book by Austrian philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend. The central thesis of the book is that science should become an anarchic enterprise. In the context of the work, the term "anarchy" refers to epistemological anarchy, which does not remain within one single prescriptive scientific method on the grounds that any such method would restrict scientific progress. The work is notable in the history and philosophy of science partially due to its detailed case study of Galileo's hypothesis that the earth rotates on its axis and has since become a staple reading in introduction to philosophy of science courses at undergraduate and graduate levels.
The unity of science is a thesis in philosophy of science that says that all the sciences form a unified whole. The variants of the thesis can be classified as ontological and/or as epistemic/pragmatic. There are also philosophers who emphasize the disunity of science, which does not necessarily imply that there could be no unity in some sense but does emphasize pluralism in the ontology and/or practice of science.
Environmental philosophy is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with the natural environment and humans' place within it. It asks crucial questions about human environmental relations such as "What do we mean when we talk about nature?" "What is the value of the natural, that is non-human environment to us, or in itself?" "How should we respond to environmental challenges such as environmental degradation, pollution and climate change?" "How can we best understand the relationship between the natural world and human technology and development?" and "What is our place in the natural world?" Environmental philosophy includes environmental ethics, environmental aesthetics, ecofeminism, environmental hermeneutics, and environmental theology. Some of the main areas of interest for environmental philosophers are:
Reification is a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction is treated as if it were a concrete real event or physical entity. In other words, it is the error of treating something that is not concrete, such as an idea, as a concrete thing. A common case of reification is the confusion of a model with reality: "the map is not the territory".
Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend is an autobiography by philosopher Paul Feyerabend. The book details, amongst other things, Feyerabend's youth in Nazi-controlled Vienna, his military service, notorious academic career, and his multiple romantic conquests. The book's title, Killing Time is a play on the homophone Feierabend, a German compound noun meaning 'the workday's end and the evening following it'.
Criticism of science addresses problems within science in order to improve science as a whole and its role in society. Criticisms come from philosophy, from social movements like feminism, and from within science itself.
Paul Hoyningen-Huene is a German philosopher who specializes in general philosophy of science and research ethics. He is best known for his Neo-Kantian interpretation of Thomas S. Kuhn's ideas. Hoyningen-Huene, until 2014, held the chair for theoretical philosophy, particularly philosophy of science at Leibniz Universität Hannover (Germany) and was director of the Center for Philosophy and Ethics of Science.
Matteo Motterlini is an Italian philosopher of science, behavioral and neuroeconomist. He teaches at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University of Milan, Italy.
Conservation is an endeavour including “the preservation, maintenance, sustainable use, restoration, and enhancement of the natural environment”.
Farewell to Reason is a 1987 book by the Austrian philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend. The book includes some reprinted essays published in other venues and was published by Verso Books, which also published Against Method and Science in a Free Society. The primary goal of the book is to trace the historical origins of "rationalism" and argue for a version of relativism and cultural diversity.
The Gran conquista de Ultramar is a late 13th-century Castilian chronicle of the Crusades for the period 1095–1271. It is a work of compilation, translation and prosification of Old French and Old Occitan sources, mixing historical material with legends drawn from the epic chansons de geste. It was produced under royal patronage by Sancho IV and probably his father, Alfonso X.
