Described by the philosopher A.J. Ayer as a work of 'great originality and power', this book revolutionized contemporary thinking on science and knowledge. Ideas such as the now legendary doctrine of 'falsificationism' electrified the scientific community, influencing even working scientists, as well as post-war philosophy. This astonishing work ranks alongside The Open Society and Its Enemies as one of Popper's most enduring books and contains insights and arguments that demand to be read to this day.

Philosophy didn't just drop out of the air. Discover how philosophers used each other's works to develop their own with CENGAGE ADVANTAGE BOOKS: VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY: A HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY. Inside you'll be able to retrace philosopher's intellectual journeys and then figure out how to use that information in your own life. Plus, it's packed with stories, examples, illustrations, and study tools, so you'll be able to master the material with no problem.

We respect Herbert A. Simon as an established leader of empirical and logical analysis in the human sciences while we happily think of him as also the loner; of course he works with many colleagues but none can match him. He has been writing fruitfully and steadily for four decades in many fields, among them psychology, logic, decision theory, economics, computer science, management, production engineering, information and control theory, operations research, confirmation theory, and we must have omitted several. With all of them, he is at once the technical scientist and the philosophical critic and analyst. When writing of decisions and actions, he is at the interface of philosophy of science, decision theory, philosophy of the specific social sciences, and inventory theory (itself, for him, at the interface of economic theory, production engineering and information theory). When writing on causality, he is at the interface of methodology, metaphysics, logic and philosophy of physics, systems theory, and so on. Not that the interdisciplinary is his orthodoxy; we are delighted that he has chosen to include in this book both his early and little-appreciated treatment of straightforward philosophy of physics - the axioms of Newtonian mechanics, and also his fine papers on pure confirmation theory.

This text gives students a solid framework for understanding the major philosophical trends and concepts in Western Civilization, from the pre-Socratic era to the 20th century.

Apathy is death, and to find passion is to live. However, what of the maddening passions of amorous love and the love of oneself, aspiring toward the zenith of insanity and reckless abandon? Is there a gray area, perhaps foretold of by Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha? Is this abode of peace worth fighting for, and is it attainable? As this topsy-turvy tale of spirituality and discovery unfolds, we follow the lives of people resigned to live in the black and white, and we follow the utter destruction of the ego by heavenly fire—proof enough, perhaps, that to burden oneself with the attachments of the world can indeed lead to antithetical nirvana.

Unmatched in the quality of its world-renowned contributors, this companion serves as both a course text and a reference book across the broad spectrum of issues of concern to the philosophy of science.

This book examines the Socratic method of elenchus, or refutation. Refutation by its very nature is a conflict, which in the hands of Plato becomes high drama. The continuing conversation in which it occurs is more a test of character than of intellect. Dialogue and Discovery shows that, in his conversations, Socrates seeks to define moral qualities—moral essences—with the goal of improving the soul of the respondent. Ethics underlies epistemology because the discovery of philosophic truth imposes moral demands on the respondent. The recognition that moral qualities such as honesty, humility, and courage are necessary to successful inquiry is the key to the understanding of the Socratic paradox that virtue is knowledge. The dialogues receiving the most emphasis are the Apology, Gorgias, Protagoras, and Meno.

Causal questions are relevant to all sciences and social sciences, yet how we discover causal connections is no easy matter. Indeed, the choice of methods concerns the correct norms for the empirical study of the world. In this text, two experts on causation relate philosophical theory to scientific practice and propose nine new norms of discovery.