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84The problem of universalsPhilosophical Studies 28 (4). 1975.The pair democreteanism-Platonism (nothing/something is outside space-Time) differs from the pair nominalism-Realism (universals are/are not nameable entities). Nominalism need not be democretean, And democreateanism is nominalist only if conceptualism is rejected. Putnam's critique of nominalism is thus invalid. Quine's theory is democretean-When-Possible: quine is also a minimalist platonist. Conceptualists and realists agree that universals exist but not as physical objects. Nominalists accep…Read more
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1The notion of the modern nation-state: Popper and nationalismIn Ian Charles Jarvie & Sandra Pralong (eds.), Popper's Open society after fifty years: the continuing relevance of Karl Popper, Routledge. 1999.
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Technology, Philosophical and Social AspectsJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 18 (1): 322-331. 1987.
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The Legitimation of ScienceDiálogos. Revista de Filosofía de la Universidad de Puerto Rico 15 (35): 27. 1980.
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25The Manhattan Project and Its Long ShadowPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 41 (4): 574-595. 2011.A sequel to Shapin’s earlier work, The Scientific Life: A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation again solves the problem of induction by observing that researchers are decent. Shapin dismisses most of the literature on both the philosophy of science and (more so) on the sociology of science as ideologically biased and as irrelevant. Approaches to the book as light reading and as serious scholarly reading are considered before a critical summary is offered as a conclusion
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19This Message is for You. MaybePhilosophy and Literature 7 (1): 95-98. 1983.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THIS MESSAGE IS FOR YOU. MAYBE. by Joseph Agassi There is a mood often enough conjured in science fiction literature to be familiar to every fan, the mood of seemingly intentional yet probably remdom contact between two individuals across immense space-time expanses. The hero of a complicated chase story has lost contact with the mother planet, has long ago leuided on a strange pleuiet, emd there, right now, just walking across the p…Read more
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7The Gentle Art of Philosophical Polemics: Selected Reviews and CommentsOpen Court Publishing Company. 1988.
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15The Manhattan Project and Its Long Shadow (review)Philosophy of the Social Sciences 41 (4): 574-595. 2011.A sequel to Shapin’s earlier work, The Scientific Life: A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation again solves the problem of induction by observing that researchers are decent. Shapin dismisses most of the literature on both the philosophy of science and (more so) on the sociology of science as ideologically biased and as irrelevant. Approaches to the book as light reading and as serious scholarly reading are considered before a critical summary is offered as a conclusion.
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1Book Reviews : Thinking Matter: Materialism in Eighteenth-Century Britain. BY JOHN W. YOLTON. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984. Pp. xiv + 238. $29.50 (cloth), $12.95 (paper (review)Philosophy of the Social Sciences 16 (4): 526-528. 1986.
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31The Heuristic BentPhilosophy and Rhetoric 26 (1). 1993.The logic of questions is still very limited; there is a need for a specification of what is a problem, and what is a problem-situation — or what is an adequate solution to a problem in a given situation. A problem may seek its wording, and so may do the adequacy conditions or desiderata for its solution. For the inarticulate, there is no distinction between theoretical and practical problems. Their problem is a goal, the situation is the available routes to it, and no adequac y conditions.
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64The methodology of research projects: A sketchZeitschrift Für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 8 (1): 30-38. 1977.Summary There is a traditional reluctance among methodologists to study the ever increasingly important phenomenon of research-projects, research-project evaluations, etc. The reason for this is that projects are embedded in programs and programs in intellectual frameworks, or conceptual frameworks, or metaphysical systems. It sounds dogmatic to judge the product of research by a reference to a metaphysical system. Yet, first of all, it is not so dogmatic if judgment can go both ways, if we have…Read more
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18The Limited Rationality of TechnologyPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 49 (2): 160-166. 2019.Ingemar Nordin’s Using Knowledge: On the Rationality of Science, Technology, and Medicine is a critical rationalist examination of medicine as a social system, largely science-based, but including quackery. Thus rationality is limited, as befits the author’s fallibilism.
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78The last refuge of the scoundrelPhilosophia 4 (2-3): 315-317. 1974.Patriotism is a form of loyalty. The range of loyalty is from patriotism to friendship. Liberals were often accused of having no sense of loyalty. They usually tend to deny the charge ââ¬â even while refusing to take a loyalty oath. Even the liberal philosopher Sir Karl Popper has claimed (Open Society, i, ch. 10), that liberals can be better patriots than others. 1 find this line of defense erroneous and morally wrong. I find it much nicer, much more honest, to join Martin Buber in his taki…Read more
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92The Lakatosian revolutionIn R. S. Cohen, P. K. Feyerabend & M. Wartofsky (eds.), Essays in Memory of Imre Lakatos, Reidel. pp. 9--21. 1976.
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28the walls of the academy. The wall is defended by the idea that not only do experts possess knowledge beyond the ken of lay people, which is trivially true, but that there is an unbridgeable gulf between the two. The aim of this presentation, then, is to discuss the possibility of building a bridge between the ordinary educated citizen and the expert. The tool for this is the famous effort to disseminate scientific literacy, or more generally, any specific sophisticated literacy. The subject-mat…Read more
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14The Inductivist PhilosophyHistory and Theory 2 1-3. 1963.Bacon's inductivist philosophy of science divides thinkers into the scientific and the prejudiced, using as a standard the up-to-date science textbook. Inductivists regard the history of science as progressing smoothly, from facts rather than from problems, to increasingly general theories, undisturbed by contending scientific schools. Conventionalists regard theories as pigeonholes for classifying facts; history of science is the development of increasingly simple theories, neither true nor fal…Read more
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37The system of higher education always has a significant place in national political affairs. Politically indifferent academics may legitimately ignore this. Those concerned with the welfare of the system of higher education, however, cannot afford this luxury. Further, intellectuals, including academics, are a significant political factor even when passive. Even were all of them to ignore all politics, including the ever-present political importance of the educational system for national politic…Read more
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22Thomas Kuhn, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 4 (4): 351. 1966.
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6The logic of consensus and of extremesIn Fred D'Agostino & I. C. Jarvie (eds.), Freedom and Rationality, Reidel. pp. 3--21. 1989.
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2The Disorder of Things: Metaphysical Foundations of the Disunity of ScienceInternational Studies in Philosophy 34 (4): 168-170. 2002.
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7Towards Honest Public Relations of SciencePoznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 49 39-58. 1996.
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41To Dismiss "The Received View"Philosophy of the Social Sciences 42 (3): 449-456. 2012.This volume is a historical anthology of interesting views on science from antiquity to the twentieth century plus a defensive anthology of logical positivism, whose legacy deserves better: clear-eyed assessment and then putting to rest
Joseph Agassi
York University
D'Annunzio University of Chieti–Pescara
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D'Annunzio University of Chieti–PescaraOther
Areas of Specialization
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
History of Western Philosophy |
Philosophy, Misc |