Title: A philosopher looks at Science

Author: John G. Kemeny

Category: Expository – Philosophy of Science

 

What is the book about as a whole?

The book is a review about the foundations of science seeing from the standpoint of a philosopher, it talks about the bases over which science is constructed on such as language, logic and the meaning of science itself.

 

What is being said in detail, and how?

In the first chapter Kemeny talks about Language and how it distinguish humans from other animals. It help us to convey meaning with others but at the same time is source of misunderstanding since the meaning is not unequivocal. Then it goes to Mathematics and how interesting is that by abstract operations they convey information correlated with our physical world. They do it without the problem of equivocation or lost in translation, the mathematics that a German scientist do can be easily understood by another scientist in Tunisia. Then the book talks about the Assumptions that we do in order to have Science. For example the most fundamental of these assumptions is that there exist Laws in nature that can be discovered and explain through means of science. Now if our task is to understand them we have to have other assumptions, first: that you can learn at all, second that you can learn an approximation of the law and finally that you can approximate the law as close as we wish. It also talks about probability and the role it has in science. Then about the Method, the way in which scientific knowledge is constructed and validated, the stages that it has.   

 

What are the author’s questions and problems?

Kemeny is looking forward to set the ground to a better understanding of science and its method. He is concerned about how to look at this process, its parts and its foundations in order to know what is that we call science. For him is really important not to lose the insight that a philosophical approach can give us of this endeavor for a philosopher can see beyond the actual constraints that science impose on itself. 

 

What of it?

This book is really important to anyone who wants to understand what Science is and what are its foundations. Very often we idealize the scientific endeavor and we forget that is a human activity. We say… Science says this or that… or Science have proven that…  Well if we don’t understand how it works and were is grounded even if we are scientists we will be missing the broader view of the world.

 

What books are connected with it? 

Consilience

Gödel, Escher, Bach

Taming the Infinite

Words and Rules