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739After Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend: Recent Issues in Theories of Scientific Method (edited book)Kluwer Academic Publishers. 2000.Some think that issues to do with scientific method are last century's stale debate; Popper was an advocate of methodology, but Kuhn, Feyerabend, and others are alleged to have brought the debate about its status to an end. The papers in this volume show that issues in methodology are still very much alive. Some of the papers reinvestigate issues in the debate over methodology, while others set out new ways in which the debate has developed in the last decade. The book will be of interest to phi…Read more
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471A Selective Survey of Theories of Scientific MethodIn Robert Nola & Howard Sankey (eds.), After Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend: Recent Issues in Theories of Scientific Method, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 1-65. 2000.This is a survey of theories of scientific method which opens the book "After Popper, Kuhn and Feyerabend: Recent Issues in Theories of Scientific Method".
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339Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism (edited book)Bradford. 2008.Many philosophical naturalists eschew analysis in favor of discovering metaphysical truths from the a posteriori, contending that analysis does not lead to philosophical insight. A countercurrent to this approach seeks to reconcile a certain account of conceptual analysis with philosophical naturalism; prominent and influential proponents of this methodology include the late David Lewis, Frank Jackson, Michael Smith, Philip Pettit, and David Armstrong. Naturalistic analysis is a tool for locatin…Read more
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223Introducing the Canberra PlanIn David Braddon-Mitchell & Robert Nola (eds.), Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism, Mit Press. pp. 1--20. 2009.
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150The Worst Enemy of Science? Essays in Memory of Paul Feyerabend (review)Mind 110 (439): 813-817. 2001.
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133A Family Resemblance Approach to the Nature of Science for Science EducationScience & Education 20 (7-8): 591-607. 2011.Although there is universal consensus both in the science education literature and in the science standards documents to the effect that students should learn not only the content of science but also its nature, there is little agreement about what that nature is. This led many science educators to adopt what is sometimes called “the consensus view” about the nature of science (NOS), whose goal is to teach students only those characteristics of science on which there is wide consensus. This is a…Read more
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123‘Paradigms lost, or the world regained’ —An excursion into realism and idealism in scienceSynthese 45 (3): 317-350. 1980.Tensions between idealism and scientific realism have been resolved by an appeal to the theory/observation distinction. but many who support incommensurability reject the distinction in favor of a version of idealism, e.g., thomas kuhn who supports a version of relativist idealism in which the terms of a theory do refer, but only to a paradigm--relative world of entities. it is argued that the three kinds of idealism depend on a cluster theory of meaning for fixing the reference of scientific te…Read more
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106Fixing the reference of theoretical termsPhilosophy of Science 47 (4): 505-531. 1980.Kripke and Putnam have proposed that terms may be introduced to refer to theoretical entities by means of causal descriptions such as 'whatever causes observable effects O'. It is argued that such a reference-fixing definition is ill-formed and that theoretical beliefs must be involved in fixing the reference of a theoretical term. Some examples of reference-fixing are discussed e.g., the term 'electricity'. The Kripke-Putnam theory can not give an account of how terms may be introduced into sci…Read more
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77Nietzsche's theory of truth and beliefPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 47 (4): 525-562. 1987.
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76Incredulity towards Lyotard: a critique of a postmodernist account of science and knowledgStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 34 (2): 391-421. 2003.Philosophers of science have paid little attention, positive or negative, to Lyotard’s book The postmodern condition, even though it has been popular in other fields. We set out some of the reasons for this neglect. Lyotard thought that sciences could be justified by non-scientific narratives. We show why this is unacceptable, and why many of Lyotard’s characterisations of science are either implausible or are narrowly positivist. One of Lyotard’s themes is that the nature of knowledge has chang…Read more
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70The status of Popper's theory of scientific methodBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38 (4): 441-480. 1987.
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70Ramsification, reference fixing and incommensurabilityIn Paul Hoyningen-Huene & Howard Sankey (eds.), Incommensurability and Related Matters, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 91--121. 2001.
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67Nietzsche as Anti-Semitic Jewish Conspiracy TheoristCroatian Journal of Philosophy 3 (1): 35-62. 2003.Despite his strong objections to anti-Semitism, it will be argued that Nietzsche held a curious conspiracy theory about the Jews that is uniquely his own. Modern Jews, he declared, had the power to have mastery over Europe. And Ancient Jews exercised a remarkable power of self-preservation when they got others to accept the slave morality of Christianity. The second claim is shown to have a setting in Nietzsche’s own theory of the genealogy of morals. But it is argued that that theory is defecti…Read more
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58Theories of Scientific Method: An IntroductionAcumen Publishing. 2007.What is it to be scientific? Is there such a thing as scientific method? And if so, how might such methods be justified? Robert Nola and Howard Sankey seek to provide answers to these fundamental questions in their exploration of the major recent theories of scientific method. Although for many scientists their understanding of method is something they just pick up in the course of being trained, Nola and Sankey argue that it is possible to be explicit about what this tacit understanding of meth…Read more
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55Post‐modernism, a French cultural Chernobyl: Foucault on power/knowledgeInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 37 (1). 1994.Foucault appears to challenge traditional views of truth, reason, and knowledge in the doctrine of power/knowledge developed in his post?1970 writings. This doctrine applies to all the sciences (and to non?scientific and non?discursive practices that are not discussed here). Foucault's notions of discourse (1) and power (3) are sufficiently discussed to set out his explanatory theory of the cause of our discourses and their change. In (4) three theses concerning the power/knowledge link are dist…Read more
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50The strong programme for the sociology of science, reflexivity and relativismInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 33 (3). 1990.David Bloor has advocated a bold hypothesis about the form any sociology of science should take in setting out the four central tenets of his ?strong programme? (SP). The first section of this paper discusses how three of these tenets are best formulated and how they relate to one another. The second section discusses how reasons can be causes of belief and how such reasons raise a serious difficulty for SP. The third section discusses how SP is committed to a form of relativism about truth. The…Read more
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48Knowledge, discourse, power and genealogy in FoucaultCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 1 (2): 109-154. 1998.
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45Constructivism: Defense or a Continual Critical Appraisal A Response to Gil-Pérez et alScience & Education 12 (8): 787-797. 2003.
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45Varieties of structuralism Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-6 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9557-x Authors Robert Nola, Department of Philosophy, The University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland Mail Centre, Auckland, 1142 New Zealand Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796
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44Epistemic Relativism: A Constructive Critique, by Markus Seidel: Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, pp. x + 284, £60 (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93 (3): 628-629. 2015.
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39This is a collection of 23 papers plus an Introduction in a book which revives an old issue that some have declared to be long dead, viz., whether there is any way of demarcating science from other endeavors, but most importantly pseudoscience. This is a timely book that is well worth consulting since it breathes life back into an important problem. There is something in it for all, as the six parts into which it is divided indicate: “What’s the problem with the demarcation problem?”; “History a…Read more
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37Observation and Growth in Scientific KnowledgePSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1986. 1986.In the writings of scientists we find claim to the effect that we can observe items such as pulsars, gravity waves, quarks, electrons, etc. An epistemological theory, originally developed by Dretske and modified by Jackson, is used to give an account of such claims and the extent to which they may be deemed correct. The theory eschews talk of the theory-ladenness of observation while giving an account of how our observation reports may evolve with growth in scientific knowledge. The theory is pa…Read more
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36There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy: A dialogue on realism and constructivismStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 25 (5): 689-727. 1993.
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35Some observations on a Popperian experiment concerning observationJournal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 21 (2): 329-346. 1990.Summary In several places Popper describes a little experiment in which an audience is given the non-specific command âObserve!â He draws a number of conclusions from this experiment, in particular that observation takes place in the presence of theoretical problems, questions, hypotheses or points of view. The paper argues that while Popper's experiment is instructive, it hardly supports the strong conclusions he draws about the theory-dominance of observation in science. In particular, it …Read more
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29Meera Nanda, Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism in IndiaScience & Education 13 (3): 243-249. 2004.
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26Review of Herbert Keuth, The Philosophy of Karl Popper (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2005 (10). 2005.