Understanding Philosophy of Science

"A good introduction is like a good appetiser in a meal. It’s meant to get you excited about what lies ahead, and it should prepare your senses for the main course. James Ladyman’s introduction is an excellent appetiser to a full meal of philosophy of science. But it can also stand on its own as a substantial main course. What makes this book stand out is, on the one hand, the clarity by which it is written and, on the other hand, the in-depth coverage of issues not normally treated in general introductions to philosophy of science. “James Ladyman’s introduction is an excellent appetiser to a full meal of philosophy of science” The book covers standard material that a novice or beginner should understand: the problem of the description and justification of scientific method (with particular emphasis on the justification of induction); Karl Popper’s falsificationism and its problems; Thomas Kuhn’s account of scientific revolutions; the relation between theory and observation. But it goes on to keep the reader up to speed with the intricate recent debates concerning scientific realism. The scientific realism debate is a key controversy concerning science in general. Roughly put, the question is whether there are good reasons to take science to be ‘on the right track’; to have latched onto reality. Scientific realism is the view that mature and predictively successful scientific theories are (approximately) true of the world; hence, the entities they posit (or entities like the ones posited) are part of reality. This optimistic view of science has been challenged in many ways. For instance, it is argued that empirical evidence systematically underdetermines theories, hence it is impotent in turning the evidential balance in favour of one theory. Or it is argued that the history of science is full of theories that were once empirically successful and yet were abandoned as false later on. It is then concluded that current theories will be abandoned as false in due course, despite their empirical successes. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter In the face of challenges such as the above, realists have retreated to weaker positions such as selective realism (only some parts of the theory, those that ‘fuel’ the empirical successes of the theory, get credit from these successes), structural realism (the theory gets the structure of the world right) and others. These (and other) developments, though utterly significant for understanding science’s relation to the world, are not treated in many recent textbooks. Ladyman’s book is a very welcome exception."