Philosophy Now Forum

‘Paradigm’ is a word that was given great meaning and clarity by Thomas Kuhn in his book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”.

There is a famous essay by Margaret Masterman where she convincingly argues that there at least twenty different ways in which Kuhn uses the word paradigm!

It's all fairly simple: religion: yes/no/don't know political: left/middle/right existential: object/subject metaphysical: subject/object ethical: nihilist/religious epistemological: relativist/absolutist mind: body/spirit feminist: why would you, you're a man! ...and the rest is just showing off! ...

M. The pointless or lazy comment was directed at people who cut and paste large parts of others work without comment. You must have seen this sort of thing before on the forum. It wasn't aimed at the sort of thing you were doing with Marcus Aurelius - this sounds more like an informal reading group ...

I started Conjectures & Refutations earlier in the year but only read half of it as it seemed like the same idea re-hashed over and over again and it got less convincing the more I read. Couldn't agree with you more bullwinkle. Popper does this a lot. He had one really clever idea and flogged i...

Maybe, if people splashed out a paragraph they enjoyed, wetting the appetite of others? I think this is kind of pointless and lazy. I've seen this done quite a lot on this forum and I just don't see the point. Quotes of one or two sentences are fine but anything longer I just don't see the point. T...

You proposed this review of books so why haven't you been the first to post one? Come on!

I have! See the thread on Rousseau's Dog.

There's been a disappointing response to this. Anyone feel like posting a review?

Rortabend, I think that your statement is correct. Polanyi seems to have been rather overlooked; I find his epistemology to be the most convincing that I have read. Do you have a view on why his philosophy has not been that important to science? My own view is that what he says is too uncomfortable...

http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/science/index.html Check out these podcasts. Lots of great philosophers, sociologists and historians of science here. I agree with Bullwinkle about starting with Kuhn. It's why I got into philosophy of science. Polanyi also good but much longer book than Kuhn's, also...

Hi RachelAnn, These look more like popular science rather than philosophy of science. I'm sure they are interesting books but I don't think they are a good place to start learning about the philosophy of science. Popular science books tend to be rather suspicious of philosophy of science as discipli...

Agreed. CNN are pretty bad.

Hippies with guns? Is this really a good idea?

John Napier already showed us how to do this. All you need is a chicken and some soot...

http://www.electricscotland.com/history ... napier.htm

Thanks for the links Tom.

Just finished Rousseau's Dog by David Edmonds and John Eidinow. I enjoyed it but not as much as their first pop history of philosophy book, Wittgenstein's Poker . This book is an account of the relationship between David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Hume saved Rousseau from his persecutors on the...