The Estonian philosopher of science Rein Vihalemm (1938–2015) left two prominent and fruitful philosophical-methodological legacies that continue to captivate philosophers of science: a methodological distinction of scientific disciplines and the practical realist philosophy of science. Edited by Ave Mets, Endla Lõhkivi, Peeter Müürsepp, and Jaana Eigi-Watkin, Practical Realist Philosophy of Science: Reflecting on Rein Vihalemm's Ideas explores some of these fruits that have sprung from philosophy of science, and the applications of those approaches through three main ideas: (back)grounds of the practical approach, metaphysics of practices, and special sciences. The first part features authors who juxtapose Vihalemm’s approach with those of prominent philosophers on the practical and material basis of cognition, providing support and refinement to his framework. The second part delves into the metaphysical aspects of science and practices, and comprehending them. The third part centers around examples of Vihalemm’s approach to specific scientific disciplines within chemistry, biology and humanities. These diverse implications outlined in this book, supported by solid ground and compelling argumentation, offer an original contribution to this field.

Grounds of Pragmatic Realism argues that Hegel’s philosophy from the 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit through his last Berlin lectures on philosophical psychology demonstates how Kant’s critique of rational judgment across his Critical corpus can be disentangled from Kant’s failed Transcendental Idealism and developed into a cogent, pragmatic realism, within which the social and historical aspects of rational inquiry and justification are shown to justify realism about the objects of empirical knowledge. Hegel’s demonstration reveals how deeply contemporary epistemology remains beholden to pre-Critical options, none of which are adequate to the natural sciences, nor to commonsense. Hegel recognised and justified (independently) Kant’s semantics of singular cognitive reference to particulars within space and time. Hegel’s analysis of mutual recognition develops Kant’s insights into the self-critical and inter-subjective aspects of rational judgment and justification, to show that none of us can be properly rational judges, nor can we properly justify our judgments rationally, without constructive self-criticism and without acknowledging and benefitting from constructive critical assessment by others.

In this innovative book, Hasok Chang constructs a philosophy of science for 'realistic people' interested in understanding and promoting the actual practices of inquiry in science and other knowledge-focused areas of life. Inspired by pragmatist philosophy, he reconceives the very notions of reality and truth on the basis of his concept of the 'operational coherence' of epistemic activities, and offers new pragmatist conceptions of truth and reality as operational ideals achievable in actual scientific practice. Rejecting the version of scientific realism that is concerned with claiming that our theories correspond to an ultimate reality, he proposes instead an 'activist realism': a commitment to do all that we can actually do to improve our knowledge of realities. His book will appeal to scholars and students in philosophy, science and the history of science, and all who are concerned about the place of science and empirical truth in society.

The philosophy of chemistry has emerged in recent years as a new and autonomous field within the Anglo-American philosophical tradition. With the development of this new discipline, Eric Scerri and Grant Fisher's "Essays in the Philosophy of Chemistry" is a timely and definitive guide to all current thought in this field. This edited volume will serve to map out the distinctive features of the field and its connections to the philosophies of the natural sciences and general philosophy of science more broadly. It will be a reference for students and professional alike. Both the philosophy of chemistry and philosophies of scientific practice alike reflect the splitting of analytical and continental scholastic traditions, and some philosophers are turning for inspiration from the familiar resources of analytical philosophy to influences from the continental tradition and pragmatism. While philosophy of chemistry is practiced very much within the familiar analytical tradition, it is also capable of trail-blazing new philosophical approaches. In such a way, the seemingly disparate disciplines such as the "hard sciences" and philosophy become much more linked.

This volume connects chemistry and philosophy in order to face questions raised by chemistry in our present world. The idea is first to develop a kind of philosophy of chemistry which is deeply rooted in the exploration of chemical activities. We thus work in close contact with chemists (technicians, engineers, researchers, and teachers). Following this line of reasoning, the first part of the book encourages current chemists to describe their workaday practices while insisting on the importance of attending to methodological, metrological, philosophical, and epistemological questions related to their activities. It deals with sustainable chemistry, chemical metrology, nanochemistry, and biochemistry, among other crucial topics. In doing so, those chemists invite historians and philosophers to provide ideas for future developments. In a nutshell, this part is a call for forthcoming collaborations focused on instruments and methods, that is on ways of doing chemistry. The second part of the book illustrates the multifarious ways to study chemistry and even proposes new approaches to doing so. Each approach is interesting and incomplete but the emergent whole is richer than any of its components. Analytical work needs socio-historical expertise as well as many other approaches in order to keep on investigating chemistry to greater and greater depth. This heterogeneity provides a wide set of methodological perspectives not only about current chemical practices but also about the ways to explore them philosophically. Each approach is a resource to study chemistry and to reflect upon what doing philosophy of science can mean. In the last part of the volume, philosophers and chemists propose new concepts or reshape older ones in order to think about chemistry. The act of conceptualization itself is queried as well as the relationships between concepts and chemical activities. Prefaced by Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, Roald Hoffmann, and by the President of the International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry, Rom Harré, this volume is a plea for the emergence of a collective cleverness and aims to foster inventiveness.

Winner: Cheryl Frank Memorial Prize for innovative writing on critical realism This new textbook offers a succinct yet broad introduction to critical realism, an increasingly popular approach to the philosophy of science that provides a holistic alternative to both positivism and postmodernism. This text sets out the central concepts, arguments and understandings in critical realism and relates them to social scientific practice. In addition to answering the question 'what is critical realism?', the authors consider critical realism in light of two crucial themes in contemporary society – neoliberalism and climate change – which run as common threads throughout the chapters. While some introductions to the topic focus exclusively on the work of Roy Bhaskar – critical realism's best-known proponent – this text covers a much wider range of thinkers and social researchers, and also features Key Concept boxes and CR in Action boxes throughout to aid the reader through this complex yet rewarding subject. This text is the perfect entry point for all those studying critical realism for the first time, or for those seeking to re-familiarise themselves with this approach. Whether you're studying critical realism as part of a broader course on the philosophy of science or seeking to apply critical realist methods to a particular research project, this book is essential reading for the social sciences, humanities and beyond.

This book is a novel synthesis of the philosophy and practice of science, covering its diverse theoretical, metaphysical, logical, philosophical, and practical elements. The process of science is generally taught in its empirical form: what science is, how it works, what it has achieved, and what it might achieve in the future. What is often absent is how to think deeply about science and how to apply its lessons in the pursuit of truth, in other words, knowing how to know. In this volume, David Teplow presents illustrative examples of science practice, history and philosophy of science, and sociological aspects of the scientific community, to address commonalities among these disciplines. In doing so, he challenges cherished beliefs and suggests to students, philosophers, and practicing scientists new, epistemically superior, ways of thinking about and doing science.

Social constructionists maintain that we invent the properties of the world rather than discover them. Is reality constructed by our own activity? Do we collectively invent the world rather than discover it? André Kukla presents a comprehensive discussion of the philosophical issues that arise out of this debate, analysing the various strengths and weaknesses of a range of constructivist arguments and arguing that current philosophical objections to constructivism are inconclusive. However, Kukla offers and develops new objections to constructivism, distinguishing between the social causes of scientific beliefs and the view that all ascertainable facts are constructed.

Examines the practical use of theory as a pedagogical aid and argues for a broader conception of rhetoric in the human sciences.

This text demonstrates that there is a politics model that unifies the discipline and structures its relationship to the other social sciences. It shows how this model underlies important works of applied research in all the main political science subfields.