Smoke and Mirrors : How Science Reflects Reality - James Robert Brown

Smoke and Mirrors

How Science Reflects Reality

By: James Robert Brown

Hardcover | 3 February 1994 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

FREE SHIPPING

Hardcover


$349.98

Aims to ship in 7 to 10 business days

Realism is an enlightening story, a tale which enriches our experience and makes it more intelligible. Yet this wonderful picture of humanity's best efforts at knowledge has been badly bruised by numerous critics. James Robert Brown in Smoke and Mirrors fights back against figures such as Richard Rorty, Bruno Latour, Michael Ruse and Hilary Putnam who have attacked realist accounts of science.
But this volume is not wholly devoted to combating Rorty and others who blow smoke in our eyes; the second half is concerned with arguing that there are some amazing ways in which science mirrors the world. The role of abstraction, abstract objects and a priori ways of getting at reality are all explored in showing how science reflects reality.
Smoke and Mirrors is a defence of science and knowledge in general as well as a defence of a particular way of understanding science. It is of interest to all those who wish or need to know how science works.
Industry Reviews
"This is a simply splendid book. Jim Brown argues with vigor and wit for a strongly positive view of scientific realism. He puts his own arguments fairly and openly, showing that no one should lightly dismiss his case. In a comprehensive review, which itself justifies the work, he presents the positions of those whom he would refute with clarity and sympathy. Taking on a multitude of recent advocates of scientific anti-realism, he shows their weaknesses with a scalpel-like critical faculty. As one who is at the receiving end of Brown's attack, I very much hope that he is wrong. I fear he may be right." -Michael Ruse, University of Guelph ...James Brown has produced an innovative defense of a robust metaphysical and scientific realism...realism is the lens through which the rest of the ideas in the bo

More in Philosophy

Ikigai : The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life - Hector Garcia
What Philosophy Can Teach You About Being a Better Leader - Alison Reynolds
Meditations : The Annotated Edition - Marcus Aurelius

RRP $49.99

$38.75

22%
OFF
A History of Psychology : 8th Edition - From Antiquity to Modernity - Thomas Hardy Leahey
Satan : The Early Christian Tradition - Jeffrey Burton Russell

RRP $55.00

$52.25

Impersonal Passion : Language as Affect - Denise Riley

RRP $48.95

$46.50

Can One Live after Auschwitz? : A Philosophical Reader - Theodor Adorno
Practical Ethics - Peter Singer

RRP $55.95

$49.50

12%
OFF
A Practical Study of Argument : 7th Edition - Trudy Govier

RRP $194.95

$155.90

20%
OFF
Cicero : Pro Marco Caelio - Marcus Tullius Cicero

RRP $47.95

$41.35

14%
OFF