Joseph C. Pitt's Books

Doing Philosophy of Technology

Essays in a Pragmatist Spirit

By: Joseph C. Pitt

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Doing Philosophy of Technology

Essays in a Pragmatist Spirit

By: Joseph C. Pitt

As science becomes more deeply embedded in a complex technological infrastructure, has this changed the relationship between the sciences and the various technologies that support them? As our technologies help shrink our world, can we restrict our ethical concerns or must we find a way to face the fact that we are now one world? What do new forms of architecture say about whom we are? Is the design process the new epistemological paradigm? The answers to all of these is "yes" according to Joseph C. Pitt (VirginaTech). Doing Philosophy of Technology presents an updated and integrated overview of the most important thinking from this prominent philosopher of technology. Throughout his career Joseph C. Pitt has defended the view that to say anything meaningful about the value of a technology one must know something about that technology and how it functions in the world. This starting point leads naturally to a pragmatist philosophical stance, since it is the real world consequences of introducing a technology that must be the basis for any further normative judgements. In the book we find an extended set of arguments that challenge the idea that there are eternal philosophical issues that transcend the impacts that technologies make on human beings and their world. Rather, it is claimed that as our technologies transform our world they transform us and the kinds of questions we find important to answer.

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Page Count

227

Publisher

Springer Science & Business Media

Published Date

ISBN 10

9400708203

ISBN 13

9789400708204

Heraclitus Redux: Technological Infrastructures and Scientific Change

By: Joseph C. Pitt

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Heraclitus Redux: Technological Infrastructures and Scientific Change

By: 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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Page Count

128

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1786612364

ISBN 13

9781786612366

Pictures, Images, and Conceptual Change

An Analysis of Wilfrid Sellars’ Philosophy of Science

By: Joseph C. Pitt

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Pictures, Images, and Conceptual Change

An Analysis of Wilfrid Sellars’ Philosophy of Science

By: Joseph C. Pitt

In this essay I am concerned with the problem of conceptual change. There are, needless to say, many ways to approach the issue. But, as I see it, the problem reduces to showing how present and future systems of thought are the rational extensions of prior ones. This goal may not be attainable. Kuhn, for example, suggests that change is mainly a function of socio-economic pressures (taken broadly). But there are some who believe that a case can be made for the rationality of change, especially in science. Wilfrid Sellars is one of those. While Sellars has developed a full account of the issues involved in solving the problem of conceptual change, he is also a very difficult philosopher to discuss. The difficulty stems from the fact that he is a philosopher in the very best sense of the word. First, he performs the tasks of analyzing alternative views with both finesse and insight, dialectically laying bare the essentials of problems and the inadequacies of previous proposals. Secondly, he is a systematic philosopher. That is, he is concerned to elaborate a system of philosophical thought in the grand tradition stretching from Plato to White head. Now with all of this to his credit, it would appear that there is no difficulty at all, one should simply treat him like all the others, if he indeed follows in the footsteps of past builders of philosophic systems.

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Page Count

218

Publisher

Springer Science & Business Media

Published Date

ISBN 10

9400984820

ISBN 13

9789400984820

Galileo, Human Knowledge, and the Book of Nature

Method Replaces Metaphysics

By: Joseph C. Pitt

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Galileo, Human Knowledge, and the Book of Nature

Method Replaces Metaphysics

By: Joseph C. Pitt

Galileo is revered as one of the founders of modern science primarily because of such discoveries as the law of falling bodies and the moons of Jupiter. In addition to his scientific achievements, Professor Pitt argues that Galileo deserves increased attention for his contributions to the methodology of the new science and that his method retains its value even today. In a detailed analysis of Galileo's mature works, Pitt reconstructs crucial features of Galileo's epistemology. He shows how Galileo's methodological insights grow out of an appreciation of the limits of human knowledge and he brings fresh insight to our concept of Galileo's methodology and its implications for contemporary debates. Working from Galileo's insistence on the contrast between the number of things that can be known and the limited abilities of human knowers, Pitt shows how Galileo's common sense approach to rationality permits the development of a robust scientific method. At the same time, Pitt argues that we should correct our picture of Galileo, the culture hero. Instead of seeing him as a martyr to the cause of truth, Galileo is best understood as a man of his times who was responding to a variety of social pressures during a period of intellectual and political turmoil. This book will be of interest to philosophers and to historians and sociologists of science as well as to a general readership interested in the scientific revolution.

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Page Count

217

Publisher

Springer Science & Business Media

Published Date

ISBN 10

9401126208

ISBN 13

9789401126205

Book's by Joseph C. Pitt

Doing Philosophy of Technology

Doing Philosophy of Technology

Heraclitus Redux: Technological Infrastructures and Scientific Change

Heraclitus Redux: Technological Infrastructures and Scientific Change

Pictures, Images, and Conceptual Change

Pictures, Images, and Conceptual Change

Galileo, Human Knowledge, and the Book of Nature

Galileo, Human Knowledge, and the Book of Nature

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