Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World
Harvard University Press: 2001. 432 pp. $35, £23.95, 40.30 euros
Philosophers generally have one of three distinct attitudes towards natural science. Some, like Blaise Pascal and Martin Heidegger, hold science in contempt, on the grounds that philosophy, religion and the arts provide superior insights into the nature of the world and the human condition. Others, such as Bertrand Russell, Willard Van Orman Quine and most contemporary analytic philosophers, take their lead from the results and methods of science, and tend to regard philosophy as a part of, or at least continuous with, science. Philosophers of a third type also treat science with great respect but insist that philosophy is qualitatively distinct from science, because it is a second-order discipline that, rather than describing reality, reflects on the concepts used, for example, in scientific descriptions of reality. Following Immanuel Kant, this stance can be labelled 'critical', because it allows philosophy to question scientists about anything that is conceptually unclear and about inconsistencies that might mar the expression of their factual discoveries.
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