This book presents a collection of studies by Romanian philosophers, addressing foundational issues currently debated in contemporary philosophy of science. It offers a historical survey of the tradition of scientific philosophy in Romania. It examines some problems in the foundations of logic, mathematics, linguistics, the natural and social sciences. Among the more specific topics, it discusses scientific explanation, models, and mechanisms, as well as memory, artifacts, and rules of research. The book is useful to those interested in the philosophy of real science, but also to those interested in Romanian philosophy.

Inhalt

PART A: SCIENTIFIC PRACTICES AND PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS.- Chapter 1: The Tradition of Scientific Philosophy in Romania; Ilie Pârvu.- Chapter 2: What Ought to be Done and What is Forbidden: Rules of Scientific Research as Categorical or Hypothetical Imperatives; Mircea Flonta.- PART B: MIND, LANGUAGE, AND TECHNOLOGY.- Chapter 3: Memory as Window on the Mind; Radu Bogdan.- Chapter 4: A Momentous Triangle: Ontology, Methodology and Phenomenology in the Philosophy of Language; Manuela Ungureanu.- Chapter 5: On Rule Embedding Artifacts; Gheorghe tefanov.- Chapter 6: Issues in Modeling Open-Ended Evolution; Andreea Eanu.- PART C: LOGIC, SEMANTICS, AND SOCIAL CHOICE.- Chapter 7: On a Combination of Truth and Probability: Probabilistic Independence-Friendly Logic; Gabriel Sandu.- Chapter 8: A Remark on a Relational Version of Robinson's Arithmetic Q; Mihai Ganea.- Chapter 9: The Simple Majority Rule in a Three-Valued Logic Framework; Adrian Miroiu.- Chapter 10: A Free Logic for Fictionalism; Mircea Dumitru.- PART D: QUANTUM PHENOMENA, SCIENTIFIC REALISM, AND EMERGENCE.- Chapter 11:Quantum Mechanics: Knocking at the Gates of Mathematical Foundations; Radu Ionicioiu.- Chapter 12: The Quantum Vacuum; Sorin Paraoanu.- Chapter 13: Structural Pluralism and S-dualities: A Project in String Realism; Ioan Muntean.- Chapter 14: The Prospects for Fusion Emergence; Alexandru Manafu.- PART E: EXPLANATION, MODELS, AND MECHANISMS.- Chapter 15: Scientific Progress, Understanding, and Unification; Sorin Bangu.- Chapter 16: When is a Mechanistic Explanation Satisfactory? Reductionism and Antireductionism in the Context of Mechanistic Explanations; Tudor Baetu.- Chapter 17: Causal and Mechanistic Explanations, and a Lesson from Ecology; Viorel Pâslaru.- Chapter 18: Against Harmony: Infinite Idealization and Causal Explanation; Iulian D. Toader.