119 found
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  1.  62
    (1 other version)The Laboratory of the Mind: Thought Experiments in the Natural Sciences.James Robert Brown - 1991 - New York: Routledge.
    Newton's bucket, Einstein's elevator, Schrödinger's cat – these are some of the best-known examples of thought experiments in the natural sciences. But what function do these experiments perform? Are they really experiments at all? Can they help us gain a greater understanding of the natural world? How is it possible that we can learn new things just by thinking? In this revised and updated new edition of his classic text _The Laboratory of the Mind_, James Robert Brown continues to defend (...)
  2. Thought Experiments: State of the Art.Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige & James Robert Brown - 2017 - In Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige & James Robert Brown (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments. London: Routledge. pp. 1-28.
  3.  26
    Who Rules in Science?: An Opinionated Guide to the Wars.James Robert Brown - 2001 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
    This eye-opening book reveals how little we've understood about the ongoing pitched battles between the sciences and the humanities--and how much may be at ...
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  4. Philosophy of mathematics: a contemporary introduction to the world of proofs and pictures.James Robert Brown - 2008 - New York: Routledge.
    In his long-awaited new edition of Philosophy of Mathematics, James Robert Brown tackles important new as well as enduring questions in the mathematical sciences. Can pictures go beyond being merely suggestive and actually prove anything? Are mathematical results certain? Are experiments of any real value?" "This clear and engaging book takes a unique approach, encompassing nonstandard topics such as the role of visual reasoning, the importance of notation, and the place of computers in mathematics, as well as traditional topics such (...)
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  5.  56
    The rational and the social.James Robert Brown - 1989 - New York: Routledge.
    THE SOCIOLOGICAL TURN The problem we are concerned with is just this: How should we understand science? Are we to account for scientific knowledge (or ...
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  6. The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments.Michael T. Stuart, Yiftach Fehige & James Robert Brown (eds.) - 2017 - London: Routledge.
    Thought experiments are a means of imaginative reasoning that lie at the heart of philosophy, from the pre-Socratics to the modern era, and they also play central roles in a range of fields, from physics to politics. The Routledge Companion to Thought Experiments is an invaluable guide and reference source to this multifaceted subject. Comprising over 30 chapters by a team of international contributors, the Companion covers the following important areas: -/- · the history of thought experiments, from antiquity to (...)
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  7.  30
    Philosophy of Mathematics: An Introduction to a World of Proofs and Pictures.James Robert Brown - 1999 - New York: Routledge.
    _Philosophy of Mathematics_ is an excellent introductory text. This student friendly book discusses the great philosophers and the importance of mathematics to their thought. It includes the following topics: * the mathematical image * platonism * picture-proofs * applied mathematics * Hilbert and Godel * knots and nations * definitions * picture-proofs and Wittgenstein * computation, proof and conjecture. The book is ideal for courses on philosophy of mathematics and logic.
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  8.  20
    Platonism, Naturalism, and Mathematical Knowledge.James Robert Brown - 2011 - New York: Routledge.
    This study addresses a central theme in current philosophy: Platonism vs Naturalism and provides accounts of both approaches to mathematics, crucially discussing Quine, Maddy, Kitcher, Lakoff, Colyvan, and many others. Beginning with accounts of both approaches, Brown defends Platonism by arguing that only a Platonistic approach can account for concept acquisition in a number of special cases in the sciences. He also argues for a particular view of applied mathematics, a view that supports Platonism against Naturalist alternatives. Not only does (...)
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  9. Who Rules in Science? An Opinionated Guide to the Wars.James Robert Brown - 2001 - Science and Society 67 (1):111-113.
     
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  10. Thought experiments since the scientific revolution.James Robert Brown - 1986 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 1 (1):1 – 15.
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  11.  22
    Smoke and Mirrors: How Science Reflects Reality.James Robert Brown - 1994 - New York: Routledge.
    In response to recent critics, this is a vigorous defence of realism. The roles of abstraction, abstract objects and a priori methods are explored, demonstrating the ways in which science mirrors the world.
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  12.  67
    Scientific Rationality: The Sociological Turn.James Robert Brown - 1984 - D. Reidel Publishing Company. Edited by James Robert Brown.
  13. Why Thought Experiments Transcend Experience.James Robert Brown - 2004 - In Why Empiricism Won't Work. Malden, MA: Blackwell. pp. 23-43.
     
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  14. Proofs and pictures.James Robert Brown - 1997 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (2):161-180.
    Everyone appreciates a clever mathematical picture, but the prevailing attitude is one of scepticism: diagrams, illustrations, and pictures prove nothing; they are psychologically important and heuristically useful, but only a traditional verbal/symbolic proof provides genuine evidence for a purported theorem. Like some other recent writers (Barwise and Etchemendy [1991]; Shin [1994]; and Giaquinto [1994]) I take a different view and argue, from historical considerations and some striking examples, for a positive evidential role for pictures in mathematics.
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  15.  35
    Rigour and Thought Experiments: Burgess and Norton.James Robert Brown - 2022 - Axiomathes 32 (1):7-28.
    This article discusses the important and influential views of John Burgess on the nature of mathematical rigour and John Norton on the nature of thought experiments. Their accounts turn out to be surprisingly similar in spite of different subject matters. Among other things both require a reconstruction of the initial proof or thought experiment in order to officially evaluate them, even though we almost never do this in practice. The views of each are plausible and seem to solve interesting problems. (...)
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  16. Peeking into Plato’s Heaven.James Robert Brown - 2004 - Philosophy of Science 71 (5):1126-1138.
    Examples of classic thought experiments are presented and some morals drawn. The views of my fellow symposiasts, Tamar Gendler, John Norton, and James McAllister, are evaluated. An account of thought experiments along a priori and Platonistic lines is given. I also cite the related example of proving theorems in mathematics with pictures and diagrams. To illustrate the power of these methods, a possible refutation of the continuum hypothesis using a thought experiment is sketched.
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  17.  10
    Smoke and Mirrors: How Science Reflects Reality.James Robert Brown - 1994 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 45 (4):1059-1062.
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  18.  72
    How Do Feynman Diagrams Work?James Robert Brown - 2018 - Perspectives on Science 26 (4):423-442.
    Feynman diagrams are now iconic. Like pictures of the Bohr atom, everyone knows they have something important to do with physics. Those who work in quantum field theory, string theory, and other esoteric fields of physics use them extensively. In spite of this, it is far from clear what they are or how they work. Are they mere calculating tools? Are they somehow pictures of physical reality? Are they models in any interesting sense? Or do they play some other kind (...)
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  19. Politics, method, and medical research.James Robert Brown - 2008 - Philosophy of Science 75 (5):756-766.
    There is sufficient evidence that intellectual property rights are corrupting medical research. One could respond to this from a moral or from an epistemic point of view. I take the latter route. Often in the sciences factual discoveries lead to new methodological norms. Medical research is an example. Surprisingly, the methodological change required will involve political change. Instead of new regulations aimed at controlling the problem, the outright socialization of research seems called for, for the sake of better science. I (...)
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  20.  85
    (1 other version)Why Empiricism Won't Work.James Robert Brown - 1992 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992:271-279.
    Thought experiments provide us with scientific understanding and theoretical advances which are sometimes quite significant, yet they do this without new empirical input, and possibly without any empirical input at all. How is this possible? The challenge to empiricism is to give an account which is compatible with the traditional empiricist principle that all knowledge is based on sensory experience. Thought experiments present an enormous challenge to empiricist views of knowledge; so much so that some of us have thrown in (...)
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  21. Can the dimples on a golf ball be evenly spaced?James Robert Brown - forthcoming - Analysis.
    Surprisingly, the dimples on a golf ball (typically around 300-400) cannot be spaced evenly on the surface. I will explain how this is connected to the Platonic solids. The example is interesting, because it illustrates a difference between efficient and formal causation and explanation. I will discuss a few interesting consequences.
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  22. Counter Thought Experiments.James Robert Brown - 2007 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 61:155-177.
    Let's begin with an old example. In De Rerum Naturua , Lucretius presented a thought experiment to show that space is infinite. We imagine ourselves near the alleged edge of space; we throw a spear; we see it either sail through the ‘edge’ or we see it bounce back. In the former case the ‘edge’ isn't the edge, after all. In the latter case, there must be something beyond the ‘edge’ that repelled the spear. Either way, the ‘edge’ isn't really (...)
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  23. The miracle of science.James Robert Brown - 1982 - Philosophical Quarterly 32 (128):232-244.
  24. James Robert Brown: Thought experiments and platonism. Part two.Nancy J. Nersessian, Dunja Jutronic, Ksenija Puskaric, Nenad Miscevic, Andreas K. A. Georgiou & James Robert Brown - 2007 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 7 (20):125-268.
     
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  25.  30
    Constructivism and science: essays in recent German philosophy.Robert E. Butts & James Robert Brown (eds.) - 1989 - Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
    The idea to produce the current volume was conceived by Jiirgen Mittelstrass and Robert E. Butts in 1978. Idealist philosophers are wrong about one thing: the temporal gap separating idea and reality can be very long indeed - even ten or so years! Problems of timing were joined by personal problems and by the pressure of other professional commitments. Fortunately, James Brown agreed to cooperate in the editing of the volume; the infusion of his usual energy, good judgement and good-natured (...)
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  26. Thought Experiments in Science, Philosophy, and Mathematics.James Robert Brown - 2007 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 7 (1):3-27.
    Most disciplines make use of thought experiments, but physics and philosophy lead the pack with heavy dependence upon them. Often this is for conceptual clarification, but occasionally they provide real theoretical advances. In spite of their importance, however, thought experirnents have received rather little attention as a topic in their own right until recently. The situation has improved in the past few years, but a mere generation ago the entire published literature on thought experiments could have been mastered in a (...)
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  27. Funding, objectivity and the socialization of medical research.James Robert Brown - 2002 - Science and Engineering Ethics 8 (3):295--308.
    There has been a sharp rise in private funding of medical research, especially in relation to patentable products. Several serious problems with this are described. A solution involving the elimination of patents and public funding administered through extended national health care systems is proposed.
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  28.  38
    History and the Norms of Science.James Robert Brown - 1980 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1980:236 - 248.
    Starting from the assumption that the history of science is, in some significant sense, rational and thus that historical episodes may serve as evidence in choosing between competing normative methodologies of science, the question arises: "Just what is this history-methodology evidential relation?" After examining the proposals of Laudan, a more plausible account is proposed.
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  29.  34
    Introduction.James Robert Brown - 2018 - Perspectives on Science 26 (4):419-422.
    Feynman diagrams have fascinated physicists and philosophers since they were introduced to the world about 70 years ago. Clearly, they help in calculation; they have allowed nearly impossible problems to be solved with relative ease. This is agreed by all, but that is probably where the consensus ends. Are they pictures of physical processes? Are they just devices for keeping track of mathematical formulae, that do the real work? Are they some sort of mix of both?They are almost as famous (...)
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  30.  78
    Explaining, Seeing, and Understanding in Thought Experiments.James Robert Brown - 2014 - Perspectives on Science 22 (3):357-376.
    Theories often run into paradoxes. Some of these are outright contradictions, sending the would-be champions of the theory back to the drawing board. Others are paradoxical in the sense of being bizarre and unexpected. The latter are sometimes mistakenly thought to be instances of the former. That is, they are thought to be more than merely weird; they are mistakenly thought to be self-refuting. Showing that they are not self-contradictory but merely a surprise is often a challenge. Notions of explanation (...)
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  31.  55
    Postmodernism and Science Education: An Appraisal.Jim Mackenzie, Ron Good & James Robert Brown - 2014 - In Michael R. Matthews (ed.), International Handbook of Research in History, Philosophy and Science Teaching. Springer. pp. 1057-1086.
    Over the past 50 years, postmodernism has been a progressively growing and influential intellectual movement inside and outside the academy. Postmodernism is characterised by rejection of parts or the whole of the Enlightenment project that had its roots in the birth and embrace of early modern science. While Enlightenment and ‘modernist’ ideas of universalism, of intellectual and cultural progress, of the possibility of finding truths about the natural and social world and of rejection of absolutism and authoritarianism in politics, philosophy (...)
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  32.  95
    Money, Method and Medical Research.James Robert Brown - 2004 - Episteme 1 (1):49-59.
    It's sometimes useful to start with a quiz, even if it seems irrelevant to the issues at hand. Suppose you have to organize a tennis tournament with, say, 1025 players. Match winners will go on to the next round while losers bow out until all have been eliminated except, of course, the final champion. Your problem is this: How many matches must you book for this tournament?
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  33.  18
    Legitimate Mathematical Methods.James Robert Brown - 2020 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 20 (1):1-6.
    A thought experiment involving an omniscient being and quantum mechanics is used to justify non-deductive methods in mathematics. The twin prime conjecture is used to illustrate what can be achieved.
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  34. Seeing the laws of nature [author's response to Norton, 1993].James Robert Brown - 1993 - Metascience 3:38-40.
     
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  35.  21
    Ethics and the Continuum Hypothesis.James Robert Brown - 2019 - In Nicolas Fillion, Robert M. Corless & Ilias S. Kotsireas (eds.), Algorithms and Complexity in Mathematics, Epistemology, and Science: Proceedings of 2015 and 2016 Acmes Conferences. Springer New York. pp. 1-16.
    Mathematics and ethics are surprisingly similar. To some extent this is obvious, since neither looks to laboratory experiments nor sensory experience of any kind as a source of evidence. Both are based on reason and something commonly call “intuition.” This is not all. Interestingly, mathematics and ethics both possess similar distinctions between pure and applied. I explore some of the similarities and draw methodological lessons from them. We can use these lessons to explore how and why Freiling’s refutation of the (...)
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  36.  91
    Rescher's evolutionary epistemology.James Robert Brown - 1985 - Philosophia 15 (3):287-300.
  37. Thought Experiments in Science, Philosophy, and the Arts.Melanie Frappier, Letitia Meynell & James Robert Brown (eds.) - 2012 - Routledge.
    From Lucretius throwing a spear beyond the boundary of the universe to Einstein racing against a beam of light, thought experiments stand as a fascinating challenge to the necessity of data in the empirical sciences. Are these experiments, conducted uniquely in our imagination, simply rhetorical devices or communication tools or are they an essential part of scientific practice? This volume surveys the current state of the debate and explores new avenues of research into the epistemology of thought experiments.
     
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  38.  7
    Miščević.James Robert Brown - 2024 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 24 (71):147-153.
    This is a review discussion of Nenad Miščević’s stimulating new book, Thought Experiments (2022). His mental models account is of great importance in the various current debates about the nature of thought experiments. I discuss some of the pros and cons of his account.
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  39.  39
    William H. Newton-Smith (1943–2023).James Robert Brown & Cheryl Misak - 2023 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 35 (2):205-208.
    William (Bill) Newton-Smith was a renowned Canadian philosopher of science who spent his career largely in Oxford and then at the Central European University in Hungary.Newton-Smith was born in Ori...
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  40.  46
    Underdetermination and the Social Side of Science.James Robert Brown - 1995 - Dialogue 34 (1):147-.
  41. What is a definition?James Robert Brown - 1998 - Foundations of Science 3 (1):111-132.
    According to the standard view of definition, all defined terms are mere stipulations, based on a small set of primitive terms. After a brief review of the Hilbert-Frege debate, this paper goes on to challenge the standard view in a number of ways. Examples from graph theory, for example, suggest that some key definitions stem from the way graphs are presented diagramatically and do not fit the standard view. Lakatos's account is also discussed, since he provides further examples that suggest (...)
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  42.  55
    Kitcher’s Mathematical Naturalism.James Robert Brown - 2003 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 3 (1):1-20.
    Recent years have seen a number of naturalist accounts of mathematics. Philip Kitcher’s version is one of the most important and influential. This paper includes a critical exposition of Kitcher’s views and a discussion of several issues including: mathematical epistemology, practice, history, the nature of applied mathematics. It argues that naturalism is an inadequate account and compares it with mathematical Platonism, to the advantage of the latter.
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  43.  45
    Einstein's brand of verificationism.James Robert Brown - 1987 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 2 (1):33 – 54.
    (1987). Einstein's brand of verificationism. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science: Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 33-54. doi: 10.1080/02698598708573301.
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  44.  16
    Intellectual tithing.James Robert Brown - 1998 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 12 (1):5 – 6.
  45.  42
    Latour’s Prosaic Science.James Robert Brown - 1991 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 21 (2):245 - 261.
    The most embarrassing thing about ‘facts’ is the etymology of the word. The Latin facere means to make or construct. Bruno Latour, like so many other anti-realists who revel in the word’s history, thinks facts are made by us: they are a social construction. The view acquires some plausibility in Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts which Latour co-authored with Steve Woolgar.1 This work, first published a decade ago, has become a classic in the sociology of science literature. (...)
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  46. Scientific Knowledge: A Sociological Approach and Steven Shapin, The Scientific Revolution.James Robert Brown, Barry Barnes, David Bloor & John Henry - 1998 - International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 12 (1):100.
  47.  20
    Philosophy of Science: The Key Thinkers.James Robert Brown (ed.) - 2012 - New York: Continuum Books.
    From the 19th century the philosophy of science has been shaped by a group of influential figures. Who were they? Why do they matter? This introduction brings to life the most influential thinkers in the philosophy of science, uncovering how the field has developed over the last 200 years. Taking up the subject from the time when some philosophers began to think of themselves not just as philosophers but as philosophers of science, a team of leading contemporary philosophers explain, criticize (...)
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  48. Grounding Concepts: an Empirical Basis for Arithmetical Knowledge – C.S. Jenkins.James Robert Brown & James Davies - 2011 - Philosophical Quarterly 61 (242):208-211.
  49.  45
    Smooth move Einstein: M. Janssen and C. Lehner : The Cambridge companion to Einstein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014, xvi+562 pp, $39.99PB.James Robert Brown & Noah Stemeroff - 2016 - Metascience 25 (1):57-60.
  50.  44
    Appearance in this list neither guarantees nor precludes a future review of the book.Henry E. Allison, John Anderson, Creagh McLean Cole, John Beversluis & James Robert Brown - 2008 - Mind 117 (468):468.
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