Harold I Brown
Biographic Data
| ID | 1019671 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Harold I Brown |
| GIVEN NAMES | Harold I |
| FAMILY NAME | Brown |
| SIGNATURE | BROWN H I |
| AFFILIATIONS | Northern Illinois University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5533-9499 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 63 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 25 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1971 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Philosophie des sciences, 1950-2000
Philosophy of Science circa 1950-2000
Van Fraassen meets Popper
Interpretation, Constraint, and the Prospects of Scientific Realism
Interpretation, Constraint, and the Prospects of Scientific Realism I explore the interaction between theory-based interpretations of scientific evidence and constraints on theories provided by that evidence. Interpretation is often viewed as a source of error and a reason for scepticism about scientific results. But, I argue, while interpretation does generate epistemic risk, it also points to new sources of evidence that can constrain our theor…
Conceptual systems
Incommensurability reconsidered
Reason, Judgement and Bayes's Law
This paper argues that when used judiciously Bayes's law has a role to play in the evaluation of scientific hypotheses. Several examples are presented in which a rational response to evidence requires a judgement whether to apply Bayes's law or whether, for example, to redistribute prior probabilities. The paper concludes that reflection on Bayes's law illustrates how an adequate account of the rational evaluation of hypotheses requires an accoun…
A Theory-Laden Observation Can Test The Theory
Mudança científica
Os autores deste ensaio entendem que é preciso testar de forma mais completa as afirmações empíricas das recentes teorias da mudança científica. Tendo em vista facilitar tal empreendimento, apresentam-se em linguagem não-técnica as afirmações empíricas de Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos e Laudan, que estão organizadas por autor e por assunto. Ao final, inclui-se uma bibliografia de estudos de caso
Direct Realism, Indirect Realism, and Epistemology
The dispute between direct and indirect realism involves a combination of metaphysical and epistemological issues. According to indirect realism, perception is a triadic relation between a perceiver, a physical object that is perceived indirectly, and some private entity that is perceived directly. Standard objections to indirect realism derive immediately from the introduction of this third entity that supposedly stands between the perceiver and…
Rationality
Prospective realism
Cherniak on Scientific Realism
In the final chapter of Minimal Rationality Christopher Cherniak offers three arguments to show that an agent with finite cognitive resources is not capable of arriving at a true and complete theory of the universe. I discuss each of these arguments and show that Cherniak has not succeeded in making his antirealist case.
Scientific change
Sellars, concepts and conceptual change
Science and Values
Galileo on the Telescope and the Eye
How To Revive Empiricism
In recent years empiricism has been under persistent attack, and serious questions have been raised about the ability of empiricism to provide the basis for a viable philosophy of science. The attack has been sufficiently vigorous, and in some quarters sufficiently successful, that many now maintain that empiricism is dead. My aim in this paper is to argue that, rather than being ready for embalmment and emplacement in the museum of philosophic o…
Response to Siegel
Self-Reference in Logic and Mulligan Stew
The novel has always provided a vehicle for commenting on various aspects of human existence. We are familiar with the political novel, the historical novel, or the metaphysical novel, and in this sense Sorrentino's Mulligan Stew, with its running commentary on novels, novelists, critics and publishers, may be viewed as a critical novel. A critical novel, however, has a striking feature which it does not share with the other sorts of novels menti…
The Paradigm Paradigm and Related Notions
There is, in addition, a second reason for doubting that scientists reject paradigms because confronted with anomalies or counterinstances. In developing it my argument will itself foreshadow another of this essay's main theses. The reasons for doubt sketched above were purely factual; they were, that is, themselves counterinstances to a prevalent epistemological theory. As such, if my present point is correct, they can at best help to create a c…
Perception, Theory and Commitment
Objective Knowledge in Science and the Humanities
Philosophy of science is still, in the minds of many, identified with positivism. This is understandable since twentieth century philosophy of science originates with the work of the Vienna Circle. Positivism is most famous for the verification theory of meaning, the doctrine that the meaning of any proposition is the method by which it is verified, and that any nonanalytic locution which cannot be proven or disproven by some empirical test has n…
Galileo, the elements, and the tides
Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy
Scientific change
A Theory-Laden Observation Can Test The Theory
Mudança científica
Os autores deste ensaio entendem que é preciso testar de forma mais completa as afirmações empíricas das recentes teorias da mudança científica. Tendo em vista facilitar tal empreendimento, apresentam-se em linguagem não-técnica as afirmações empíricas de Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos e Laudan, que estão organizadas por autor e por assunto. Ao final, inclui-se uma bibliografia de estudos de caso
Prospective realism
Science and Values
Reason, Judgement and Bayes's Law
This paper argues that when used judiciously Bayes's law has a role to play in the evaluation of scientific hypotheses. Several examples are presented in which a rational response to evidence requires a judgement whether to apply Bayes's law or whether, for example, to redistribute prior probabilities. The paper concludes that reflection on Bayes's law illustrates how an adequate account of the rational evaluation of hypotheses requires an accoun…
Sellars, concepts and conceptual change
Response to Siegel
Incommensurability reconsidered
Cherniak on Scientific Realism
In the final chapter of Minimal Rationality Christopher Cherniak offers three arguments to show that an agent with finite cognitive resources is not capable of arriving at a true and complete theory of the universe. I discuss each of these arguments and show that Cherniak has not succeeded in making his antirealist case.
Galileo on the Telescope and the Eye
How To Revive Empiricism
In recent years empiricism has been under persistent attack, and serious questions have been raised about the ability of empiricism to provide the basis for a viable philosophy of science. The attack has been sufficiently vigorous, and in some quarters sufficiently successful, that many now maintain that empiricism is dead. My aim in this paper is to argue that, rather than being ready for embalmment and emplacement in the museum of philosophic o…
The Paradigm Paradigm and Related Notions
There is, in addition, a second reason for doubting that scientists reject paradigms because confronted with anomalies or counterinstances. In developing it my argument will itself foreshadow another of this essay's main theses. The reasons for doubt sketched above were purely factual; they were, that is, themselves counterinstances to a prevalent epistemological theory. As such, if my present point is correct, they can at best help to create a c…
Galileo, the elements, and the tides
Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy
Galileo, the elements, and the tides
Objective Knowledge in Science and the Humanities
Philosophy of science is still, in the minds of many, identified with positivism. This is understandable since twentieth century philosophy of science originates with the work of the Vienna Circle. Positivism is most famous for the verification theory of meaning, the doctrine that the meaning of any proposition is the method by which it is verified, and that any nonanalytic locution which cannot be proven or disproven by some empirical test has n…
Perception, Theory and Commitment
The Paradigm Paradigm and Related Notions
There is, in addition, a second reason for doubting that scientists reject paradigms because confronted with anomalies or counterinstances. In developing it my argument will itself foreshadow another of this essay's main theses. The reasons for doubt sketched above were purely factual; they were, that is, themselves counterinstances to a prevalent epistemological theory. As such, if my present point is correct, they can at best help to create a c…
Self-Reference in Logic and Mulligan Stew
The novel has always provided a vehicle for commenting on various aspects of human existence. We are familiar with the political novel, the historical novel, or the metaphysical novel, and in this sense Sorrentino's Mulligan Stew, with its running commentary on novels, novelists, critics and publishers, may be viewed as a critical novel. A critical novel, however, has a striking feature which it does not share with the other sorts of novels menti…
Response to Siegel
How To Revive Empiricism
In recent years empiricism has been under persistent attack, and serious questions have been raised about the ability of empiricism to provide the basis for a viable philosophy of science. The attack has been sufficiently vigorous, and in some quarters sufficiently successful, that many now maintain that empiricism is dead. My aim in this paper is to argue that, rather than being ready for embalmment and emplacement in the museum of philosophic o…
Galileo on the Telescope and the Eye
Scientific change
Sellars, concepts and conceptual change
Science and Values
Prospective realism
Cherniak on Scientific Realism
In the final chapter of Minimal Rationality Christopher Cherniak offers three arguments to show that an agent with finite cognitive resources is not capable of arriving at a true and complete theory of the universe. I discuss each of these arguments and show that Cherniak has not succeeded in making his antirealist case.
Rationality
Direct Realism, Indirect Realism, and Epistemology
The dispute between direct and indirect realism involves a combination of metaphysical and epistemological issues. According to indirect realism, perception is a triadic relation between a perceiver, a physical object that is perceived indirectly, and some private entity that is perceived directly. Standard objections to indirect realism derive immediately from the introduction of this third entity that supposedly stands between the perceiver and…
A Theory-Laden Observation Can Test The Theory
Mudança científica
Os autores deste ensaio entendem que é preciso testar de forma mais completa as afirmações empíricas das recentes teorias da mudança científica. Tendo em vista facilitar tal empreendimento, apresentam-se em linguagem não-técnica as afirmações empíricas de Kuhn, Feyerabend, Lakatos e Laudan, que estão organizadas por autor e por assunto. Ao final, inclui-se uma bibliografia de estudos de caso
Reason, Judgement and Bayes's Law
This paper argues that when used judiciously Bayes's law has a role to play in the evaluation of scientific hypotheses. Several examples are presented in which a rational response to evidence requires a judgement whether to apply Bayes's law or whether, for example, to redistribute prior probabilities. The paper concludes that reflection on Bayes's law illustrates how an adequate account of the rational evaluation of hypotheses requires an accoun…
Incommensurability reconsidered
Conceptual systems
Interpretation, Constraint, and the Prospects of Scientific Realism
Interpretation, Constraint, and the Prospects of Scientific Realism I explore the interaction between theory-based interpretations of scientific evidence and constraints on theories provided by that evidence. Interpretation is often viewed as a source of error and a reason for scepticism about scientific results. But, I argue, while interpretation does generate epistemic risk, it also points to new sources of evidence that can constrain our theor…
Van Fraassen meets Popper
Philosophie des sciences, 1950-2000
Philosophy of Science circa 1950-2000
Philosophy (20 works) · Epistemology (17 works) · Philosophy and History of Science (15 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Science and Climate Studies (8 works) · Philosophy of science (7 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Realism (5 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (4 works)