Karl Popper

Thomas Kuhn Thomas Samuel Kuhn (/ˈkuːn/; July 18, 1922 – June 17, 1996) was an American physicist, historian, and philosopher of science whose controversial 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions was deeply influential in both academic and popular circles, introducing the term "paradigm shift", which has since become an English-language staple. Life[edit] Kuhn was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Samuel L. Kuhn, an industrial engineer, and Minette Stroock Kuhn. Thomas Kuhn was married twice, first to Kathryn Muhs with whom he had three children, then to Jehane Barton Burns (Jehane R. Kuhn was an agnostic.[4] His family was Jewish on both sides. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions[edit] The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (SSR) was originally printed as an article in the International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, published by the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle. Polanyi–Kuhn debate[edit] Thomas Kuhn Paradigm Shift Award[edit] Honors[edit] Bibliography[edit] References[edit]

Philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions concern what counts as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the purpose of science. This discipline overlaps with metaphysics, ontology and epistemology, for example, when it explores the relationship between science and truth. While the relevant history of philosophy dates back at least to Aristotle, philosophy of science emerged as a distinct discipline only in the middle of the 20th century in the wake of logical positivism, a movement that aimed to formulate criteria to ensure all philosophical statements' meaningfulness and objectively assess them. Today, some thinkers seek to ground science in axiomatic assumptions such as the uniformity of nature. Introduction[edit] Defining science[edit] Karl Popper c. 1980s Distinguishing between science and non-science is referred to as the demarcation problem. Scientific explanation[edit]

Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) (known to intimates as "Van")[1] was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition. From 1930 until his death 70 years later, Quine was continually affiliated with Harvard University in one way or another, first as a student, then as a professor of philosophy and a teacher of logic and set theory, and finally as a professor emeritus who published or revised several books in retirement. He filled the Edgar Pierce Chair of Philosophy at Harvard from 1956 to 1978. Biography[edit] According to his autobiography, The Time of My Life (1986), Quine grew up in Akron, Ohio, where he lived with his parents and older brother Robert C. It was through Quine's good offices that Alfred Tarski was invited to attend the September 1939 Unity of Science Congress in Cambridge. Quine had four children by two marriages.[1] Guitarist Robert Quine was his nephew. Political beliefs[edit] Work[edit] Existence and Its contrary[edit] .

Paul Feyerabend Paul Karl Feyerabend (German: [ˈfaɪɐˌaːbɛnt]; January 13, 1924 – February 11, 1994) was an Austrian-born philosopher of science best known for his work as a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked for three decades (1958–1989). He lived at various times in England, the United States, New Zealand, Italy, Germany, and finally Switzerland. His major works include Against Method (published in 1975), Science in a Free Society (published in 1978) and Farewell to Reason (a collection of papers published in 1987). Feyerabend became famous for his purportedly anarchistic view of science and his rejection of the existence of universal methodological rules.[1] He is an influential figure in the philosophy of science, and also in the sociology of scientific knowledge. Biography[edit] Early life[edit] Post–WWII and university[edit] When the war was over, Feyerabend first got a temporary job in Apolda where he wrote pieces for the theatre. Academia[edit]

Jürgen Habermas Biography[edit] Habermas was born in Düsseldorf, Rhine Province, in 1929. He was born with a cleft palate and had corrective surgery twice during childhood.[4] Habermas argues that his speech disability made him think differently about the importance of communication and prefer writing over the spoken word as a medium.[5] From 1956 on, he studied philosophy and sociology under the critical theorists Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno at the Goethe University Frankfurt's Institute for Social Research, but because of a rift between the two over his dissertation—Horkheimer had made unacceptable demands for revision—as well as his own belief that the Frankfurt School had become paralyzed with political skepticism and disdain for modern culture[6]—he finished his habilitation in political science at the University of Marburg under the Marxist Wolfgang Abendroth. Habermas then returned to his chair at Frankfurt and the directorship of the Institute for Social Research. Teacher and mentor[edit]

Philosophy of mind A phrenological mapping[1] of the brain – phrenology was among the first attempts to correlate mental functions with specific parts of the brain Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness, and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain. The mind–body problem, i.e. the relationship of the mind to the body, is commonly seen as one key issue in philosophy of mind, although there are other issues concerning the nature of the mind that do not involve its relation to the physical body, such as how consciousness is possible and the nature of particular mental states.[2][3][4] Mind–body problem[edit] Our perceptual experiences depend on stimuli that arrive at our various sensory organs from the external world, and these stimuli cause changes in our mental states, ultimately causing us to feel a sensation, which may be pleasant or unpleasant. Arguments for dualism[edit]

John Rawls John Bordley Rawls (/rɔːlz/;[1] February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy. He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University and the Fulbright Fellowship at Christ Church, Oxford. Rawls received both the Schock Prize for Logic and Philosophy and the National Humanities Medal in 1999, the latter presented by President Bill Clinton, in recognition of how Rawls' work "helped a whole generation of learned Americans revive their faith in democracy itself."[2] Biography[edit] Early life[edit] John Rawls was born in Baltimore, Maryland to William Lee Rawls, "one of the most prominent attorneys in Baltimore,"[3] and Anna Abell Stump Rawls.[6] The second of five sons, tragedy struck Rawls at a young age. Rawls attended school in Baltimore for a short time before transferring to Kent School, an Episcopalian preparatory school in Connecticut. Career[edit] Later life[edit]

Rudolf Carnap Rudolf Carnap (May 18, 1891 – September 14, 1970) was a German-born philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism. Life and work[edit] Carnap's Birthplace in Wuppertal Carnap's father had risen from the status of a poor ribbon-weaver to become the owner of a ribbon-making factory. In 1928, Carnap published two important books: The Logical Structure of the World (German: "Der logische Aufbau der Welt"), in which he developed a rigorous formal version of empiricism, defining all scientific terms in phenomenalistic terms. In February 1930 Tarski lectured in Vienna, and during November 1930 Carnap visited Warsaw. Carnap, whose socialist and pacifist beliefs put him at risk in Nazi Germany, emigrated to the United States in 1935 and became a naturalized citizen in 1941. Carnap taught himself Esperanto when he was 14 years of age, and remained sympathetic to it (Carnap 1963).

Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (/ʒɑːk ˈdɛrɨdə/; French: [ʒak dɛʁida]; born Jackie Élie Derrida;[1] July 15, 1930 – October 9, 2004) was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. Derrida is best known for developing a form of semiotic analysis known as deconstruction. He is one of the major figures associated with post-structuralism and postmodern philosophy.[3][4][5] During his career Derrida published more than 40 books, together with hundreds of essays and public presentations. He had a significant influence upon the humanities and social sciences, including—in addition to philosophy and literature—law[6][7][8] anthropology,[9] historiography,[10] linguistics,[11] sociolinguistics,[12] psychoanalysis, political theory, feminism, and queer studies. Particularly in his later writings, he frequently addressed ethical and political themes present in his work. Life[edit] Derrida was the third of five children. Derrida traveled widely and held a series of visiting and permanent positions.

Intentionality Intentionality is a philosophical concept defined by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as "the power of minds to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs".[1] The term refers to the ability of the mind to form representations and has nothing to do with intention. The term dates from medieval Scholastic philosophy, but was resurrected by Franz Brentano and adopted by Edmund Husserl. The earliest theory of intentionality is associated with St. Intentionality should not be confused with intensionality, a related concept from logic and semantics. Modern overview[edit] The concept of intentionality was reintroduced in 19th-century contemporary philosophy by the philosopher and psychologist Franz Brentano in his work Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874). Brentano coined the expression "intentional inexistence" to indicate the peculiar ontological status of the contents of mental phenomena. Eliminative Materialism, supported by W.V.

Alvin Ward Gouldner Alvin Ward Gouldner (July 29, 1920 – December 15th, 1980) taught sociology at Antioch College (1952-1954) [1] and was professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis (1959–1967[citation needed]), at the University at Buffalo (1967–1972), President of the Society for the Study of Social Problems (1962), professor of sociology at the University of Amsterdam (1972–1976) and Max Weber Professor of Sociology at Washington University (from 1967). He was born in New York City. His early works such as Patterns in Industrial Bureaucracy can be seen as important as they worked within the existing fields of sociology but adopted the principles of a critical intellectual. This can be seen more clearly in his 1964 work, Anti-Minotaur: The Myth of Value Free Sociology, where he claimed the sociology could not be objective and that Max Weber had never intended to make such a claim. He is probably most remembered for his 1970 work The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. Major works[edit]

Supervenience The upper levels on this chart can be considered to supervene on the lower levels. In philosophy, supervenience is an ontological relation that is used to describe cases where (roughly speaking) the lower-level properties of a system determine its higher level properties. Some philosophers hold that the world is structured in to a kind of hierarchy of properties, where the higher level properties supervene on the lower level properties. It is useful to know both when supervenience does and does not obtain. Though it is intuitively clear what supervenience is, formally specifying what it means involves a complex technical apparatus and a family of related but subtly different definitions. History[edit] Supervenience, which means literally "coming or occurring as something novel, additional, or unexpected",[2] from "super," meaning on, above or, additional, and "venire," meaning to come, shows occurrences in the Oxford English Dictionary dating back to 1644. Definitions[edit]

Alasdair MacIntyre Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (born 1929) is a Scottish[1] philosopher primarily known for his contribution to moral and political philosophy but known also for his work in history of philosophy and theology. He is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Aristotelian Studies in Ethics and Politics (CASEP) at London Metropolitan University, and an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. During his lengthy academic career, he also taught at Brandeis University, Duke University, Vanderbilt University, and Boston University. Biography[edit] Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre was born on 12 January 1929 in Glasgow, to John and Emily (Chalmers) MacIntyre. Professor of History and Ideas, Brandeis University (1969 or 1970),Dean of the College of Arts and Professor of Philosophy, Boston University (1972),Henry Luce Professor, Wellesley College (1980),W. From 2000 he was the Rev. He has been married 3 times. Philosophical approach[edit] Major writings[edit]

Emergence In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is a process whereby larger entities, patterns, and regularities arise through interactions among smaller or simpler entities that themselves do not exhibit such properties. Emergence is central in theories of integrative levels and of complex systems. For instance, the phenomenon life as studied in biology is commonly perceived as an emergent property of interacting molecules as studied in chemistry, whose phenomena reflect interactions among elementary particles, modeled in particle physics, that at such higher mass—via substantial conglomeration—exhibit motion as modeled in gravitational physics. In philosophy, emergence typically refers to emergentism. In philosophy[edit] Main article: Emergentism In philosophy, emergence is often understood to be a claim about the etiology of a system's properties. Definitions[edit] This idea of emergence has been around since at least the time of Aristotle. Strong and weak emergence[edit]