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Author Fisch, Menachem, author.

Title Creatively undecided : toward a history and philosophy of scientific agency / Menachem Fisch.

Publication Info. Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Item Status

Description 1 online resource (pages)
Physical Medium polychrome
Description text file
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents I (orientations) -- Two beginnings: an overture in the first person -- We (philosophers) -- The philosophical framework -- The problem for science -- Toward a narratology of scientific framework transitions -- Interlude the story so far and that to come -- They (a history) -- Peacock, Babbage, and the "heresy of the dots" -- Creatively undecided: the making of Peacock's two algebras -- Peacock's impact.
Summary Creatively Undecided offers a new way to look at how scientific understandings change. Thomas Kuhn has shown us how scientific practice and thinking depends on the normative framework in which it is conducted, but he and his followers have failed to show how such frameworks can be deemed the possible outcomes of the kind of critical assessment that Popper viewed as central to all rational deliberation. How can a scientist subject her standards to rational appraisal if that very act requires the use of those standards? The novel way out argued for in the book is to realize that exposure to external normative criticism is capable of destabializing normative commitment to a far greater extent than mere self-critique. Therefore, while science can only be transformed from within, by people who have standing in the field, criticism from the outside is essential. We may not be able to be sufficiently self-critical on our own, but trusted criticism from outside, even if resisted, can begin to change our perspective-at which point transformative self-criticism becomes a real option. The book's novel thesis, argued for philosophically in the first four chapters comprising Parts I and II, is put to the test of a detailed case study in the history of British mathematics in Part III.
Local Note eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America
Subject Science -- Philosophy.
Science -- Philosophy.
Ambiguity in science.
Ambiguity in science.
Mathematics -- England -- History -- 19th century.
England.
Mathematics.
Chronological Term 19th century
Subject Science -- History -- 19th century.
Science.
History.
08.35 philosophy of science.
SCIENCE / Philosophy & Social Aspects.
08.35 philosophy of science.
Chronological Term 1800-1899
Genre/Form History.
Other Form: Print version: Fisch, Menachem. Creatively undecided. Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2017 9780226514482 (DLC) 2017014001 (OCoLC)975860794
ISBN 9780226514659 (electronic book)
022651465X (electronic book)
9780226514482
022651448X
9780226514512
022651451X
0226514659 (e-book)