Preface ix
Acknowledgments x
Introduction 1
I Nicolaus Copernicus: The Loss of Centrality 3
1 Ptolemy and Copernicus 3
2 A Clash of Two Worldviews 4
2.1 The geocentric worldview 5
2.2 Aristotle’s cosmology 5
2.3 Ptolemy’s geocentrism 9
2.4 A philosophical aside: Outlook 14
2.5 Shaking the presuppositions: Some medieval developments 17
3 The Heliocentric Worldview 20
3.1 Nicolaus Copernicus 21
3.2 The explanation of the seasons 25
3.3 Copernicus and the Copernican turn 28
3.3.1 A philosophical aside: From empirical adequacy to theoretical validity 32
3.4 Copernicus consolidated: Kepler and Galileo 32
4 Copernicus was not a Scientific Revolutionary 37
4.1 The Copernican method 39
4.2 The relativity of motion 42
5 The Transition to Newton 43
5.1 On hypotheses 45
6 Some Philosophical Lessons 47
6.1 The loss of centrality 48
6.2 Was Copernicus a realist? 51
6.2.1 Lessons for instrumentalism and realism 52
6.3 Modern realism 55
6.4 The underdetermination of theories by evidence 58
6.4.1 The Duhem–Quine thesis 59
6.4.2 The power of constraints 61
6.5 Theories, models, and laws 64
6.5.1 Theories and models 64
6.5.2 Laws of nature, laws of science 68
6.5.3 Philosophical views of laws 69
6.5.3.1 The inference view 69
6.5.3.2 The regularity view 70
6.5.3.3 The necessitarian view 73
6.5.3.4 The structural view 75
7 Copernicus and Scientific Revolutions 77
8 The Anthropic Principle: A Reversal of the Copernican Turn? 83
Reading List 87
Essay Questions 91
II Charles Darwin: The Loss of Rational Design 93
1 Darwin and Copernicus 93
2 Views of Organic Life 94
2.1 Teleology 94
2.1.1 The Great Chain of Being 97
2.1.2 Design arguments 99
2.1.3 Jean Baptiste Lamarck 104
3 Fossil Discoveries 106
3.1 Of bones and skeletons 108
3.2 The antiquity of man 110
4 Darwin’s Revolution 112
4.1 The Darwinian view of life 114
4.1.1 Principles of evolution 116
4.2 The descent of man 119
5 Philosophical Matters 124
5.1 Philosophical presuppositions: Mechanical worldview, determinism, materialism 125
5.2 From biology to the philosophy of mind 129
5.2.1 Empiricism 129
5.2.2 Philosophy of mind 132
5.2.3 Emergent minds 134
5.3 The loss of rational design 136
5.4 Intelligent design (ID) 139
6 A Question of Method 143
6.1 Darwinian inferences 143
6.2 Philosophical empiricism 147
6.3 Some principles of elimination 149
6.4 Essential features of eliminative induction 150
6.5 Falsifiability or testability? 155
6.6 Explanation and prediction 157
6.7 Some models of scientific explanation 159
6.7.1 Hempel’s models 160
6.7.2 Functional models 161
6.7.3 Causal models 163
6.7.3.1 A counterfactual-interventionist account 163
6.7.3.2 A conditional model of causation 165
6.7.4 Structural explanations 169
6.8 A brief return to realism 172
6.9 Darwin and scientific revolutions 174
6.9.1 Philosophical consequences 176
Reading List 177
Essay Questions 183
III Sigmund Freud: The Loss of Transparency 185
1 Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud 185
2 Some Views of Humankind 187
2.1 Enlightenment views of human nature 188
2.2 Nietzsche’s view of human nature 190
3 Scientism and the Freudian Model of Personality 191
3.1 Freud’s model of the mind 192
3.1.1 A summary of psychoanalytic theory 192
3.1.2 Analogy with physics 195
3.1.3 Freud as an Enlightenment thinker 200
3.1.4 The scientific status of the Freudian model 202
3.1.4.1 Freud’s methods 202
3.1.4.2 The method of eliminative induction, again 205
3.1.5 Freud stands between the empirical and the hermeneutic models 208
3.1.6 The role of mind in the social world 209
4 The Social Sciences beyond Freud 210
4.1 Two standard models of the social sciences – some history 210
4.1.1 The naturalistic model 211
4.1.2 The hermeneutic model 213
4.2 Essential features of social science models 218
4.2.1 Essential features of the naturalistic model 218
4.2.2 Essential features of the hermeneutic model 221
4.3 Questions of methodology 224
4.3.1 What is Verstehen? 225
4.3.2 Weber’s methodology of ideal types 229
4.3.3 Verstehen and objectivity 234
4.4 Causation in the social sciences 236
4.4.1 Weber on causation 236
4.4.2 On the existence of social laws 239
4.4.3 Explanation and prediction in the social sciences 242
4.4.4 Underdetermination 243
4.4.5 Realism and relativism 244
4.4.6 Reductionism and functionalism 248
5 Evolution and the Social Sciences 253
5.1 Sociobiology – the fourth revolution? 254
5.2 Evolutionary psychology 257
6 Freud and Revolutions in Thought 261
6.1 Revolutions in thought vs. revolutions in science 263
Reading List 263
Essay Questions 269
Name Index 271
Subject Index 274
Friedel Weinert is Professor of Philosophy at Bradford University and a former Visiting Research Fellow at Harvard University and Visiting Fellow at the Centre for the Philosophy of Natural and Social Science at the LSE in London. He holds a PhD in Philosophy, a BA in Sociology, and a BSc in Physics. Dr. Weinert is the editor of Laws of Nature (1995), the author of The Scientist as Philosopher (2004) and chief editor of the forthcoming Compendium of Quantum Physics: Concepts, Experiments, History and Philosophy.
"Whether used as a textbook or as a review of issues concerning scientific revolutions and theory change in their historical context, Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud may be strongly recommended." (The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science, 2011) "Those seeking a more conventional approach to the history and philosophy of science may well find Weinert's book informative...there is much to be learned from Weinert's comparison of Copernicus, Darwin, and Freud." (Science & Education, January 2011)
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