Bachelard: Science and Objectivity

Mary Tiles

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511609091

This is the first critically evaluative study of Gaston Bachelard's philosophy of science to be written in English. Bachelard's professional reputation was based on his philosophy of science, though that aspect of his thought has tended to be neglected by his English-speaking readers. Dr Tiles concentrates here on Bachelard's critique of scientific knowledge. Bachelard emphasised discontinuities in the history of science; in particular he stressed the ways of thinking about and investigating the world to be found in modern science. This, as the author shows, is paralleled by those debates among English-speaking philosophers about the rationality of science and the 'incommensurability' of different theories. To these problems Bachelard might be taken as offering an original solution: rather than see discontinuities as a threat to the objectivity of science, see them as products of the rational advancement of scientific knowledge. Dr Tiles sets out Bachelard's views and critically assesses them, reflecting also on the wider question of how one might assess potentially incommensurable positions in the philosophy of science as well as in science itself.

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-vi

Contents
pp vii-viii

Editor's Introduction
pp ix-xiv

Preface (and Postscript)
pp xv-xx

Acknowledgments
pp xxi-xxi

Abbreviations
pp xxii-xxii

1 - Philosophy of science: the project
pp 1-27

2 - Non-Cartesian epistemology and scientific objectivity
pp 28-65

3 - Non-Euclidean mathematics and the rationality of science
pp 66-119

4 - Non-Baconian science and conceptual change
pp 120-179

5 - The epistemology of revolutions – between realism and instrumentalism
pp 180-230

References
pp 231-236

Appendix: Biographical note
pp 237-238

Index
pp 239-242

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