Experiment and the Making of Meaning

Download Experiment and the Making of Meaning PDF Online Free

Author :
Release : 2012-12-06
Genre : Science
Kind :
Book Rating : 079/5 ( reviews)

Experiment and the Making of Meaning - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Experiment and the Making of Meaning write by D.C. Gooding. This book was released on 2012-12-06. Experiment and the Making of Meaning available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. . . . the topic of 'meaning' is the one topic discussed in philosophy in which there is literally nothing but 'theory' - literally nothing that can be labelled or even ridiculed as the 'common sense view'. Putnam, 'The Meaning of Meaning' This book explores some truths behind the truism that experimentation is a hallmark of scientific activity. Scientists' descriptions of nature result from two sorts of encounter: they interact with each other and with nature. Philosophy of science has, by and large, failed to give an account of either sort of interaction. Philosophers typically imagine that scientists observe, theorize and experiment in order to produce general knowledge of natural laws, knowledge which can be applied to generate new theories and technologies. This view bifurcates the scientist's world into an empirical world of pre-articulate experience and know how and another world of talk, thought and argument. Most received philosophies of science focus so exclusively on the literary world of representations that they cannot begin to address the philosophical problems arising from the interaction of these worlds: empirical access as a source of knowledge, meaning and reference, and of course, realism. This has placed the epistemological burden entirely on the predictive role of experiment because, it is argued, testing predictions is all that could show that scientists' theorizing is constrained by nature. Here a purely literary approach contributes to its own demise. The epistemological significance of experiment turns out to be a theoretical matter: cruciality depends on argument, not experiment.

Thrifty Science

Download Thrifty Science PDF Online Free

Author :
Release : 2019-01-09
Genre : Science
Kind :
Book Rating : 25X/5 ( reviews)

Thrifty Science - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Thrifty Science write by Simon Werrett. This book was released on 2019-01-09. Thrifty Science available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. If the twentieth century saw the rise of “Big Science,” then the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were surely an age of thrift. As Simon Werrett’s new history shows, frugal early modern experimenters transformed their homes into laboratories as they recycled, repurposed, repaired, and reused their material possessions to learn about the natural world. Thrifty Science explores this distinctive culture of experiment and demonstrates how the values of the household helped to shape an array of experimental inquiries, ranging from esoteric investigations of glowworms and sour beer to famous experiments such as Benjamin Franklin’s use of a kite to show lightning was electrical and Isaac Newton’s investigations of color using prisms. Tracing the diverse ways that men and women put their material possessions into the service of experiment, Werrett offers a history of practices of recycling and repurposing that are often assumed to be more recent in origin. This thriving domestic culture of inquiry was eclipsed by new forms of experimental culture in the nineteenth century, however, culminating in the resource-hungry science of the twentieth. Could thrifty science be making a comeback today, as scientists grapple with the need to make their research more environmentally sustainable?

About Method

Download About Method PDF Online Free

Author :
Release : 2020-10-28
Genre : History
Kind :
Book Rating : 89X/5 ( reviews)

About Method - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook About Method write by Jutta Schickore. This book was released on 2020-10-28. About Method available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Scientists’ views on what makes an experiment successful have developed dramatically throughout history. Different criteria for proper experimentation were privileged at different times, entirely new criteria for securing experimental results emerged, and the meaning of commitment to experimentation altered. In About Method, Schickore captures this complex trajectory of change from 1660 to the twentieth century through the history of snake venom research. As experiments with poisonous snakes and venom were both challenging and controversial, the experimenters produced very detailed accounts of their investigations, which go back three hundred years—making venom research uniquely suited for such a long-term study. By analyzing key episodes in the transformation of venom research, Schickore is able to draw out the factors that have shaped methods discourse in science. About Method shows that methodological advancement throughout history has not been simply a steady progression toward better, more sophisticated and improved methodologies of experimentation. Rather, it was a progression in awareness of the obstacles and limitations that scientists face in developing strategies to probe the myriad unknown complexities of nature. The first long-term history of this development and of snake venom research, About Method offers a major contribution to integrated history and philosophy of science.

Experiments in Joy

Download Experiments in Joy PDF Online Free

Author :
Release : 2019-02-15
Genre : Art
Kind :
Book Rating : 153/5 ( reviews)

Experiments in Joy - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Experiments in Joy write by Gabrielle Civil. This book was released on 2019-02-15. Experiments in Joy available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. What can people do together that we can't do alone? What can we discover in ourselves only by way of other people? Gabrielle Civil's Experiments in Joy celebrates black feminist collaborations and solos in essays, letters, performance texts, scores, images, and more. Following her explosive debut Swallow the Fish, Civil now documents her work with From the Hive, No. 1 Gold, and Call & Response--whose collaborative Call inspired the title. The book also features her solo encounters with artists and writers, ancestors and audiences. Here you will find black girlhood, grief, ghosts, girls in their bedrooms, lots of books, dancing, reading, falling in love, fighting back, and flying. With lots of heart and the help of her friends, Civil keeps reckoning with performance, art and life.

The Golem

Download The Golem PDF Online Free

Author :
Release : 1998-09-17
Genre : Science
Kind :
Book Rating : 508/5 ( reviews)

The Golem - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Golem write by Harry M. Collins. This book was released on 1998-09-17. The Golem available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. What is the golem? In Jewish mythology the Golem is an effigy or image brought to life. While not evil, it is a strong, clumsy and incomplete servant. Through a series of case studies, ranging from relativity and cold fusion to memory in worms and the sex lives of lizards, Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch debunk the traditional view that science is the straightforward result of competent theorization, observation and experimentation. Scientific certainty is the interpretation of ambiguous results. The very well received first edition generated much debate, reflected in a substantial new Afterword in this new edition, which seeks to place the book in what have become known as 'the science wars'.