- Paperback: 304 pages
- Publisher: Yale University Press; New edition edition (23 April 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0300103069
- ISBN-13: 978-0300103069
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 13.9 x 1.7 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 681,958 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Empirical Stance (The Terry Lectures Series)
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"Van Fraassen, the most influential empiricist of recent decades, combines a penetrating discussion of empiricism in science and philosophy with a sympathetic discussion of religion... An eloquent examination of empiricism and religion." Paul Thagard, Science; "An ambitious, absorbing, iconoclastic, metaphilosophical treatise." Richard Rotry, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews; "This work argues powerfully for a radical redirection of much contemporary thinking in epistemology and other important topics. It should force all of us to rethink the nature of analytic philosophy." Paul Teller, author of An Interpretive Introduction to Quantum Field Theory"
Product Description
What is empiricism and what could it be? Bas C. van Fraassen, one of the world's foremost contributors to philosophical logic and the philosophy of science, here undertakes a fresh consideration of these questions and offers a program for renewal of the empiricist tradition. The empiricist tradition is not and could not be defined by common doctrines, but embodies a certain stance in philosophy, van Fraassen says. This stance is displayed first of all in a searing, recurrent critique of metaphysics, and second in a focus on experience that requires a voluntarist view of belief and opinion. Van Fraassen focuses on the philosophical problems of scientific and conceptual revolutions and on the not unrelated ruptures between religious and secular ways of seeing or conceiving of ourselves. He explores what it is to be or not be secular and points the way toward a new relationship between secularism and science within philosophy.
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First Sentence
You realize that this point is not exactly new: it was precisely Kant's message about the metaphysics of his time. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
You realize that this point is not exactly new: it was precisely Kant's message about the metaphysics of his time. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
a robust, honest, interesting philosopher
14 Sep 2009
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Van Fraasen rejects both the old empiricism (sense data, Hume's impressions and ideas, etc.) and all forms of metaphysics (he singles out materialism particularly). For him, empirical objects are things like tables and people and stars. Science, not metaphysics, gives the best explanation of them, but it is a science that is not closed (ala materialism) with regard to what kinds of experience count. Although he does not elaborate, he seemed to include religious experience and is known to be a theist.
But it is not his particular set of philosophical views that makes this book excellent. It is the author's honest, robust, smart, open-minded thinking that makes it so good a read. He is simply good philosophical company and, for this, I recommend it highly.
But it is not his particular set of philosophical views that makes this book excellent. It is the author's honest, robust, smart, open-minded thinking that makes it so good a read. He is simply good philosophical company and, for this, I recommend it highly.
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