Mauricio Suárez (ed.)
Routledge (2008)
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Abstract |
Science is popularly understood as being an ideal of impartial algorithmic objectivity that provides us with a realistic description of the world down to the last detail. The essays collected in this book—written by some of the leading experts in the field—challenge this popular image right at its heart, taking as their starting point that science trades not only in truth, but in fiction, too. With case studies that range from physics to economics and to biology, _Fictions in Science_ reveals that fictions are as ubiquitous in scientific narratives and practice as they are in any other human endeavor, including literature and art. Of course scientific activity, most prominently in the formal sciences, employs logically precise algorithmic thinking. However, the key to the predictive and technological success of the empirical sciences might well lie elsewhere—perhaps even in scientists’ extraordinary creative imagination instead. As these essays demonstrate, within the bounds of what is empirically possible, a scientist’s capacity for invention and creative thinking matches that of any writer or artist
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Keywords | Science Philosophy Science Methodology |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
Reprint years | 2009, 2010 |
Buy this book | $49.20 new (10% off) $53.14 used (3% off) $54.95 from Amazon Amazon page |
Call number | Q175.F474 2009 |
ISBN(s) | 9780203890103 9780415887922 9780415990356 0415990351 0415887925 |
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Citations of this work BETA
An Agent-Based Conception of Models and Scientific Representation.Ronald N. Giere - 2010 - Synthese 172 (2):269–281.
Idealizations and Scientific Understanding.Moti Mizrahi - 2012 - Philosophical Studies 160 (2):237-252.
Imagination Extended and Embedded: Artifactual Versus Fictional Accounts of Models.Tarja Knuuttila - 2017 - Synthese 198 (Suppl 21):5077-5097.
How Do Models Give Us Knowledge? The Case of Carnot’s Ideal Heat Engine.Tarja Knuuttila & Mieke Boon - 2011 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 1 (3):309-334.
View all 35 citations / Add more citations
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