An Idiot's Fugitive Essays on Science: Methods, Criticism, Training, Circumstances - Hardcover

Truesdell, C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0387907033 ISBN 13: 9780387907031

Publisher: Springer-Verlag New York Inc., 1984

Synopsis

When, after the agreeable fatigues of solicitation, Mrs Millamant set out a long bill of conditions subject to which she might by degrees dwindle into a wife, Mirabell offered in return the condition that he might not thereby be beyond measure enlarged into a husband. With age and experience in research come the twin dangers of dwindling into a philosopher of science while being enlarged into a dotard. The philosophy of science, I believe, should not be the preserve of senile scientists and of teachers of philosophy who have themselves never so much as understood the contents of a textbook of theoretical physics, let alone done a bit of mathematical research or even enjoyed the confidence of a creating scientist. On the latter count I run no risk: Any reader will see that I am untrained (though not altogether unread) in classroom philosophy. Of no ignorance of mine do I boast, indeed I regret it, but neither do I find this one ignorance fatal here, for few indeed of the great philosophers to explicate whose works hodiernal professors of phil- osophy destroy forests of pulp were themselves so broadly and specially trained as are their scholiasts. In attempt to palliate the former count I have chosen to collect works written over the past thirty years, some of them not published before, and I include only a few very recent essays.

Edition details

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag New York Inc.
• Publication date: 1984
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0387907033
• ISBN 13: 9780387907031
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 654