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Heraclitus Redux: Technological Infrastructures and Scientific Change

Joseph C. Pitt

Scientific change is often a function of technological innovation – new instruments show us new things we could not see before and we then need new theories to explain them. One of the results of this process is that what counts as scientific evidence changes, and how we do our science changes. Hitherto the technologies which make contemporary science possible have been ignored. This book aims to correct that omission and to spell out the consequences of taking the technologies behind the doing of science seriously.
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Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International
Pages: 128 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
978-1-78661-235-9 • Hardback • October 2019 • $147.00 • (£113.00)
978-1-78661-236-6 • eBook • October 2019 • $34.50 • (£30.00)
Series: Collective Studies in Knowledge and Society
Subjects: Philosophy / Epistemology, Philosophy / Philosophy of Technology, Technology & Engineering / History
Joseph C. Pitt is Professor of Philosophy and of Science and Technology Studies at Virginia Tech, where he has taught since 1971. He is the author of four books, edited or co-edited twelve additional volumes and published over 100 articles and book reviews. He and his wife, Donna, live on their Virginia farm, Calyddon, where they raise horses and Irish Wolfhounds.
1. Introduction / 2. Galileo and the Telescope / 3. The Technological Infrastructure of Science / 4. Scientific Observation / 5. “Seeing” at the nano-level / 6. When Technological Infrastructures fail / 7. Scientific Progress? / 8. Technological Progress? / 9. Scientific Change / 10. Technological Development and the Process of Science / 11. A Heraclitian Philosophy of Technology
Pitt’s book is a powerful wake-up call for philosophers of science and for philosophers in general: neither new ideas or new evidence are the driving forces that keep science (and society) in constant flux, but changing technological infrastructures; he argues persuasively that this notion deserves a central place in any philosophical analysis of the ever changing modern human condition.
— Peter Kroes, Professor emertitus, Delft University of Technology


Heraclitus Redux: Technological Infrastructures and Scientific Change

Cover Image
Hardback
eBook
Summary
Summary
  • Scientific change is often a function of technological innovation – new instruments show us new things we could not see before and we then need new theories to explain them. One of the results of this process is that what counts as scientific evidence changes, and how we do our science changes. Hitherto the technologies which make contemporary science possible have been ignored. This book aims to correct that omission and to spell out the consequences of taking the technologies behind the doing of science seriously.
Details
Details
  • Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International
    Pages: 128 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼
    978-1-78661-235-9 • Hardback • October 2019 • $147.00 • (£113.00)
    978-1-78661-236-6 • eBook • October 2019 • $34.50 • (£30.00)
    Series: Collective Studies in Knowledge and Society
    Subjects: Philosophy / Epistemology, Philosophy / Philosophy of Technology, Technology & Engineering / History
Author
Author
  • Joseph C. Pitt is Professor of Philosophy and of Science and Technology Studies at Virginia Tech, where he has taught since 1971. He is the author of four books, edited or co-edited twelve additional volumes and published over 100 articles and book reviews. He and his wife, Donna, live on their Virginia farm, Calyddon, where they raise horses and Irish Wolfhounds.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
  • 1. Introduction / 2. Galileo and the Telescope / 3. The Technological Infrastructure of Science / 4. Scientific Observation / 5. “Seeing” at the nano-level / 6. When Technological Infrastructures fail / 7. Scientific Progress? / 8. Technological Progress? / 9. Scientific Change / 10. Technological Development and the Process of Science / 11. A Heraclitian Philosophy of Technology
Reviews
Reviews
  • Pitt’s book is a powerful wake-up call for philosophers of science and for philosophers in general: neither new ideas or new evidence are the driving forces that keep science (and society) in constant flux, but changing technological infrastructures; he argues persuasively that this notion deserves a central place in any philosophical analysis of the ever changing modern human condition.
    — Peter Kroes, Professor emertitus, Delft University of Technology


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