Rani Lill Anjum, Stephen Mumford

Gebundenes Buch

Causation in Science and the Methods of Scientific Discovery

Beschreibung

Some of the chief goals of science - understanding, explanation, prediction, and application in new technologies - can only be conducted with any purpose if the world has some significant degree of constancy in what follows from what. While causal questions are relevant to all sciences and social sciences, how we discover causal connections is no easy matter. What is the source of such predictability and how does it operate? This is a question that goes beyond science itself and requires a philosophical approach. Causation is the main foundation upon which the possibility of science rests, but what methods should we adopt in order to identify causes in science? Causation often lies hidden and, as we must work to uncover it, it is vital we adopt the right methods in science for doing so and that we have a good philosophical understanding of what causation is. The choice of methods will inevitably reflect what one takes causation to be, making an accurate account of causation an even more pressing matter, as the enquiry concerns the correct norms for the empirical study of the world. In Causation in Science and the Methods of Scientific Discovery, Rani Lill Anjum and Stephen Mumford propose nine new norms of scientific discovery, recognising that some of the greatest challenges that we face can only be solved if we understand what has caused the problem and what, if anything, could then cause its alleviation.

Autor

Rani Lill Anjum is Researcher in Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Applied Philosophy of Science (CAPS) at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). She was postdoctoral fellow at the universities of Tromsø and Nottingham, the result of which was Getting Causes from Powers (Oxford 2011) with Stephen Mumford. At NMBU, she then led the Causation in Science research project and co-wrote Causation: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford 2013) and What Tends to Be: the Philosophy of Dispositional Modality (Routledge, 2018), both with Stephen Mumford. She currently leads the research project Causation, Complexity and Evidence in Health Sciences (CauseHealth), funded by the Research Council of Norway (NFR). Stephen Mumford is Professor of Metaphysics in the Department of Philosophy at Durham University as well as Professor II at Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). He is the author of Dispositions (Oxford 1998), Russell on Metaphysics (Routledge 2003), Laws in Nature (Routledge 2004), David Armstrong (Acumen 2007), Watching Sport: Aesthetics, Ethics and Emotion (Routledge 2011), Getting Causes from Powers (Oxford 2011, with Rani Lill Anjum), Metaphysics: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford 2012), Causation: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford 2013, with Rani Lill Anjum), Glimpse of Light (Bloomsbury, 2017) and What Tends to Be (Routledge 2018, with Rani Lill Anjum).

Produktdetails

• Verlag: OXFORD UNIV PR
• Seitenzahl: 296
• Erscheinungstermin: 18. Dezember 2018
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 240mm x 161mm x 21mm
• Gewicht: 611g
• ISBN-13: 9780198733669
• ISBN-10: 0198733666
• Artikelnr.: 52820012