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Some Surprising Phenomena and Some Unsatisfactory Explanations of Them

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Part of the book series: Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science ((AUST,volume 17))

Abstract

A feature of science that makes it of philosophical interest is its ability to do certain things. One thing that science seems to be able to do is predict the natural world, more specifically, to successfully predict novel phenomena. Another ability that science perhaps has is that of being able to give us true descriptions of relatively inaccessible parts of the natural world, such as the interior of the atom and distant parts of space and time; although it is of course controversial whether it really has that ability. Yet another ability that — it will here be argued — science has is to lead us, more or less a priori, to theories that subsequently turn out to be empirically successful.

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© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Wright, J. (2002). Some Surprising Phenomena and Some Unsatisfactory Explanations of Them. In: Clarke, S., Lyons, T.D. (eds) Recent Themes in the Philosophy of Science. Australasian Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 17. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2862-1_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2862-1_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-6107-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-2862-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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