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Philosophy of science books every computer scientist should read

183 points by nkurz 11y ago

aalhour 11y ago
I also recommend the course PHIL202 - Philosophy of Science on Saylor.com. It is for free. https://legacy.saylor.org/phil202/Intro/ https://legacy.saylor.org/phil202/Intro/
noahlt 11y ago
I would add: Conjectures and Refutations, by Karl Popper.
- anaphor 11y ago
  also Our Knowledge of The External World by Bertrand Russell
- amadvance 11y ago
  And also "The Logic of Scientific Discovery", Karl Popper. I read it at young age, and it was an open-mind read.
  - gjm11 11y ago
    It might be worth mentioning that the titles of those two Popper books are the reason why Imre Lakatos's book recommended in the OP is called "Proofs and refutations: the logic of mathematical discovery". (I don't think knowing this makes any particular difference to how one reads any of the books involved; it's just amusing.)
jtth 11y ago
I would add: The Retreat to Commitment, by W.W. Bartley, III.
cryoshon 11y ago
I would also highly suggest Giere's book, Understanding Scientific Reasoning: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/015506326X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=015506326X&linkCode=as2&tag=fasdf0c-20&linkId=3GLKKT5SZHAPUXQR http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/015506326X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=... It's a textbook so it's a bit denser than a standard nonfiction offering, but it explains the perspectives of a few famous philosophers of science, the scientific method, clears up some common misunderstandings, and is packed with case studies which make the concepts easy to understand. It's a great piece for either reference or learning about science in general.
kriro 11y ago
I think you can start with "For and Against Method" which gives you Feyerabend and Lakatos. I'd also substitute Ludwik Fleck for Kuhn. But that's personal preference. The list is solid (imo)
- kijin 11y ago
  Michael Polanyi is also a solid substitute for Kuhn, and a contemporary of Fleck. Kuhn is way more popular, though, and the Structure is short and straightforward, so it's probably a safer recommendation for beginners.
n0us 11y ago
For those who have a curiosity but lack the patience or inclination to read these books, "Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction" is a highly approachable introduction to this particular branch of philosophy. http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Science-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192802836 http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Science-Very-Short-Introduc...
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  That's exactly what I did, and it left me feeling even more confused. As an example, the book, as I understood, proposes that "What is life?" is a serious philosophical question for biologists to deal with. That sounds an awful lot like arguing over definitions, which seems to be rarely useful.[1] Then there's the famous Feynman quote which seems to make it clear that he thought little of PhilSci. It'd be great to see a real example applied to software languages. A concrete "here's why it does X" kinda thing. I see there's several essays and a paper linked from Tomas's site so perhaps I'll find something useful there. I do understand that as a mere software writer, there may not be much for me. Meanwhile, the biggest use for PhilSci is defending physics models we can't test, isn't it? Perhaps, for example, using Bayesian probability to rate things, and using, I dunno, elegance, as positive evidence. But I'm way out of my depth here so perhaps someone can tell me if this is even remotely coherent. Consciousness seems to also involve a lot of philosophy, mainly because the understanding at this point is fairly limited and a lot of is just reasoning about things. (Versus being able to point out how a brain really works, how a consciousness works, etc. Some apparently think this is simply unknowable and magical.) 1: It's more common that fighting for definitions is useful for rhetorical purposes. E.g. copyright infringement being called stealing versus infringement or "piracy".
  - n0us 11y ago
    One of my majors was Philosophy and I'm often disappointed by the attitudes of Feynman, Hawking, and other scientists towards philosophy. Their domain is science and I don't think that it is their place or right to judge the value of other disciplines as they apparently do not have a deep understanding of the subject. Questions like "what is life" have serious implications for biology and arguing over definitions is important because it ensures that when we say something like "a virus is not alive" we have a well grounded and justified basis on which to make that claim. If we didn't take the time to argue over definitions we would have scientists arguing past one another because of trivial misunderstandings about the meaning of words rather than arguing over some other actual significant point such as the conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence. The role of Philosophy is often described as providing us a framework for reasoning. Philosophy typically intersects with science at the "edges" where we are making novel discoveries in both disciplines and don't really know what to make of them yet so we have to reason about the evidence and concepts to make sense of it all so we can proceed. You mention Physics, and the big debate in philosophy is whether the Standard Model describes reality as it is, or whether it simply a convenient tool where equation manages to encompass most of the empirical results we have so far. I'm not sure exactly where you are going with Bayesian methods but probability is definitely a focus of some philosophers and our department head wrote a somewhat influential paper about different concepts of probability. (a "taxonomy" of probability if you will but that might be a controversial way to put it in an academic setting just like the rest of this post) Edit: I might also add that this professor had a Phd in philosophy as well as theoretical physics, so really smart guy, and the TA had one in physics and was pursuing one in philosophy, so also a really smart guy. It's also important to note that philosophy of science by and large does not aim to judge the merits or validity of science/scientists/scientific theories. The point is more to understand "what is science" and provide a passive definition instead of a passive one if you will. Philosophy of Mind is a "hot" branch right now as well and it remains to be seen if any significant progress will be made in the next several decades. We still don't have a consistent way to discuss "consciousness" and if you read literature coming from people with a computer science background, then from a psychological background, then a neurological one, you will find that they describe it in very different (and likely incompatible) ways. I've forgotten the context specifically but there is a degree of controversy over the diagnosis of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia since the diagnosis rates vary wildly depending on geography even when patients display the same symptoms. The implication is that neither disease is "real" and is instead a result of the training of psychiatrists. Yet we still don't want to abandon the idea that these people are mentally ill so how do we provide a coherent definition of a mental illness. It seems to pertain to consciousness in some way and if so how? We can't answer this way with out a coherent and consistent way to discuss consciousness which we still don't have. I hope that gives you a bit of insight even if this comment comes across as disjointed and I have been willingly vague and partially inaccurate at points because you could spend a lifetime reading on some of these subjects but still not consume all of the relevant literature. This again probably reflects the difficulty that you had with that book. Philosophy of Science is already a somewhat specific branch that is difficult to approach without some background in philosophy already. In a way that book is an introduction to a specific branch of philosophy that assumes a large amount of background knowledge.
jdp23 11y ago
While all the books he suggests are worth reading, the list as a whole has a major gap: nothing from feminist or post-colonialist perspectives. So I'd add Sandra Harding's "Sciences From Below", and perhaps the collection "Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science".
- throwawayHN234 11y ago
  Of course, it lacked feminist diversity.
- trentmb 11y ago
  Are there any Marxist or African-American perspectives you might be able to recommend?
  - jdp23 11y ago
    Not sure that it's classified as "Philosophy of Science" but Mackenzie Wark's "A Hacker Manifesto" is pretty darn Marxist ... it even has a red cover :) Here's a 10th-anniversary interview of him by Melissa Gregg: https://lareviewofbooks.org/interview/courting-vectoralists-interview-mckenzie-wark-10-year-anniversary-hacker-manifesto https://lareviewofbooks.org/interview/courting-vectoralists-... On the African-American perspective, nothing leaps to mind, sorry. Anybody else have suggestions?
    - trentmb 11y ago
      Thanks- I've recently started a 'It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it' sort of pursuit- I'm currently stumbling through Lois Tysons' "Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide" EDIT: I mean that I'm doing my best to suspend/address whatever judgments I currently have, not immediately discard what I read.
      - jdp23 11y ago
        Haven't read it but it looks great. And yes, seems like a great exercise to entertain thoughts while suspending judgement.
pmoriarty 11y ago
Also: Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology" Ellul's "The Technological Society"
kijin 11y ago
Everyone who is interested in popular science should study at least the basics of philosophy of science. It helps us understand the meaning and implications of a lot of concepts that we often use in our arguments, such as falsifiability, reproducibility, and "evidence-based". These concepts sound neat in theory but need to be interpreted a lot more carefully, with a healthy dose of subtlety, in the messy world of bleeding-edge scientific research. Especially if you're using them to try to discredit somebody else's work as "unscientific". If you're the type that gets impatient with philosophy, the broader field of science and technology studies (STS) is a lot more exciting and interdisciplinary. It's a loose collaboration among sociologists, anthropologists, historians, philosophers, and political scientists who share a common interest in the interaction between science and human society as a whole. If you're interested in STS, Sergio Sismondo's Introduction to Science and Technology Studies offers a high-level overview of the field, both philosophical and political, in a compact and accessible package. The bibliography section is also a gold mine of interesting books and case studies from every subfield of STS. (Disclaimer: Sergio was my Ph.D. supervisor.) Programmers in the age of social networking and IoT might also find actor-network theory particularly interesting. Callon and Latour were way ahead of their time, trying to view everyday objects as first-class citizens in the vast, distributed network of knowledge that makes up modern science. French sociologists are crazy, but sometimes they're prophetic as well.
lugus35 11y ago
The Value of Science http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0375758488/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0375758488/ Meditations on First Philosophy http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0192806963/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0192806963/
duaneb 11y ago
Gonna go ahead and recommend Hume's Treatise of Human Nature on top of this, which underlines the complete impossibility of inductive proofs—not deductive, recursive proofs, but inductive proofs based on incomplete knowledge of state available. This is not because it's immediately relevant to coding, but because it helps illustrate the difference between knowing the complete state of a problem and only knowing part of it—the latter of which is the central problem of science, arguably. Most of the philosophy of science builds on this work either directly or indirectly. Hustle and read it! EDIT: reasoning -> proof, my bad.
- jimrandomh 11y ago
  Given that inductive reasoning is possible and that that it is (in the case of Solomonoff induction) on very solid philosophical and mathematical footing, I'm skeptical of any book which claims it's impossible.
  - pron 11y ago
    > Given that inductive reasoning is possible The question is not whether or not it is possible (in the sense that it is useful) but whether it leads to knowledge. This, of course, depends on your definition of knowledge, which is the question of epistemology. In some circles these days there is a move back to a utilitarian definition of knowledge, namely, if you can interact with a system and predict its behavior then you can say you know how it works, because your model is useful. This is not, however, the commonly accepted view of what constitutes knowledge. Funny thing: the consequence of the Gettier problem (sort of like the "incompleteness conjecture" of epistemology) is that either we must accept a very unsatisfying definition to what constitutes knowledge, or use a good, rigorous and satisfying definition and then find out that nothing we think we know actually qualifies.
  - marklgr 11y ago
    Even if it's true, Hume was a great thinker and keeps historical value. Besides, I'm sure he would agree with your being skeptical of any book, whatever its theses :)
  - 11y ago
aalhour 11y ago
Speaking about books, there are a lot more accessible books than those on the list, and here are a few: [1] Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0415891779 http://www.amazon.com/dp/0415891779 [2] Philosophy of Science Vol 1 & 2 by Mario Bunge http://www.amazon.com/dp/0765804131/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0765804131/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/076580414X/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/076580414X/
eci 11y ago
Would add The Sciences of the Artificial by Herbert A. Simon [1] to the list. The current list is lacking a design science view, which is much more applicable to computer science than natural science books. [1] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/sciences-artificial https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/sciences-artificial
ubasu 11y ago
Please keep in mind that the book by Bruno Latour referenced here (Science in Action) and another of his articles was lampooned in the Sokal Affair because Latour was confused about relativity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/trans... http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/le_monde_english.html http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/le_monde_english.html http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/noretta.html http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/noretta.html
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DanielBMarkham 11y ago
Speaking as a complete layman, Philosophy of Science rocks. Feynman was smoking crack. Philosophy of Science is an extremely important discipline. It will just make your head explode. (Along with epistemology and couple others) I started on my learning journey using The Great Courses series -- it's kind of like famous professors giving an abbreviated overview (20-40 hours) of their 101 courses. Deep enough that it's not some Discovery Channel show, light enough that you're not up until 2 a.m. every night for a month reading Hegel. I think that the reason most scientists like Feynman don't get it is that they treat philosophy as a scientific discipline. It is not. Philosophy is the asking of questions. Every now and then you get into a fertile area where those questions can become their own science. This is why philosophy is called the "Mother of all sciences" Oddly enough, I think philosophers themselves have lost their way, but that's a story for another day. My advice to those who are interested is to get an easy introduction, and don't take it too seriously. I love philosophy because it's like meeting the smartest people that ever lived in a bar and having them talk about really deep questions. But you'll have more fun talking to a lot of people than spending a deep dive with one guy. They tend to have a few good ideas and then spend the rest of their lives over-applying them. Philosophy is also a great way to begin to talk about the important questions involving technology and people. Don't let anybody tell you any different. I've been very interested in the Philosophy of Language and how it relates to technology teams talking to users about solutions. Just got through writing an essay comparing the conditions that led to Sir Francis Bacon's New Orgonon with conditions in the Agile practitioner community today. Anybody writing apps controlling the speech of millions should have a grounding in political theory -- or risk turning the planet into a cesspool of conformity just so they can make a buck. Cool stuff.
- mirimir 11y ago
  > Feynman was smoking crack. He just had a warped sense of humor ;)
  - kwhitefoot 11y ago
    At least he had one; a lot of people writing about science and philosophy don't seem to even understand the concept.
unix-junkie 11y ago
I would add "The Formation of the Scientific Mind" by Gaston Bachelard. This text analyses the nature of the mental patterns that prevent from making actual discoveries (what he calls "epistemoligical obstacles").
sklogic 11y ago
Why Popper is not on the list?
- tpetricek 11y ago
  Popper is definitely important! He's not on the list because I didn't read his works (I know I should). His key points are widely known that I was simply more interested in reading books that go in other directions. (There is also nice introduction to Popper in the textbook mentioned.) But I would like to get back to him!
sawwit 11y ago
For more practical persons I recommend skipping the historical parts of philosophy and go straight to Bayesianism. I recommend "Rationality" by E. Yudkowsky as an entry point, "Probabilistic Inference" by J. Pearl, "Artificial Intelligence" by Russel & Norvig for the theory and "Formal Theory of Creativity & Fun & Intrinsic Motivation" by J. Schmidhuber for inspiration. [1]: http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/creativity.html http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/creativity.html
- pron 11y ago
  I wouldn't recommend anything by Yudkowsky as an introduction to anything (other than maybe an introduction to contemporary techno-cults, aimed at the graduate level). As a "philosopher" he is exceptionally inept at questioning his own assumptions and reasoning. His writing lack any philosophical rigor (they try to obscure their axiomatic assumptions rather than articulate them, let alone explore them). As a result, his "philosophy" -- and in particular his views of rationality -- feels very antiquated (some read as if they'd been written in the 1700s) or something Sheldon Cooper would write. It has all the philosophical rigor of a child; or Ayn Rand. In any event, it is very uninformed and limited (not to speak of his nomenclature, which deviates from that of philosophy, and so makes orienting his views in the grand scheme of things difficult). His writings are more of an interest to people who are interested in researching particular modes of thought in various sub-cultures. In this case, how antiquated views of "rationality" are gaining popularity in Silicon Valley pop-philosophy: http://harpers.org/archive/2015/01/come-with-us-if-you-want-to-live/?single=1 http://harpers.org/archive/2015/01/come-with-us-if-you-want-... He is a cult-leader, not a researcher, and like all cult leaders, his talents lie in charmingly convincing gullible victims that his thoughts are profound, when, in fact, they don't exceed those of a very intelligent 14-year-old know-it-all. If you approach his writings as actual philosophy (rather than intriguing historical documents of a techno-libertarian cult, which is what they are), after reading them you are certain to know less of philosophy than when you've started, even if your original knowledge was absolute zero. His writings are to philosophy what Fox News is to news: inspire and agitate unquestioning followers, while making sure they don't learn about the world by constructing an elaborate -- and enticing -- virtual world to isolate them from reality.
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omphalos 11y ago
I recently encountered the Duhem-Quine thesis on wikipedia which I think presents a really interesting perspective on testability, something I never really questioned before in the philosophy of science. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duhem%E2%80%93Quine_thesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duhem%E2%80%93Quine_thesis
zb 11y ago
In a similar vein, I highly recommend Discussion of the Method by Billy Vaughn Koen. It's a philosophy of engineering that resolves many of the unanswered questions you'll have after reading Feyerabend, and also gives an overview of the field of philosophy of science along the way.
whatever_dude 11y ago
"A Science Of Operations" sounds great. But can someone explain to me why the hard cover costs $120 (Amazon), and the paperback $180 (Amazon, B&N)? It's 342 pages, so it's not like it's one of those encyclopedic tomes. Not that I try justifying a price-per-page, but what is it, a collection of expensive papers in print form?
- tpetricek 11y ago
  It is an academic publication by Springer. That's why - academic publishing is just crazy. (Anybody around here doing a start-up that would make it obsolete?) I would, of course, never suggest downloading the PDF from unofficial sources, but I could completely see why people are doing that.
- e40 11y ago
  Kindle: $143!! This is so, so annoying. The Kindle version should never be higher than any dead tree version!
arstin 11y ago
I would add Ruth Millikan's work. "Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories" is her masterpiece, but way out of depth for a beginner ("out of depth" in philosophy meaning most people are likely to be bored, confused, or dismissive yet with the right background the book is amazingly exciting, insightful, and valuable). "On Clear and Confused Ideas" is more approachable and has been made available for free online now. http://web2.uconn.edu/philosophy/department/millikan/clearct.htm http://web2.uconn.edu/philosophy/department/millikan/clearct...
jgd 11y ago
My #1 recommendation is http://beginningofinfinity.com/ http://beginningofinfinity.com/ by David Deutsch. I also recommend his two TED talks, especially https://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_a_new_way_to_explain_explanation https://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_a_new_way_to_explain... which makes clear why induction is simply wrong and explains how science actually works.

183 points by nkurz 11y ago

I also recommend the course PHIL202 - Philosophy of Science on Saylor.com. It is for free. https://legacy.saylor.org/phil202/Intro/ https://legacy.saylor.org/phil202/Intro/

noahlt 11y ago

I would add: Conjectures and Refutations, by Karl Popper.

anaphor 11y ago
also Our Knowledge of The External World by Bertrand Russell
amadvance 11y ago
And also "The Logic of Scientific Discovery", Karl Popper. I read it at young age, and it was an open-mind read.
- gjm11 11y ago
  It might be worth mentioning that the titles of those two Popper books are the reason why Imre Lakatos's book recommended in the OP is called "Proofs and refutations: the logic of mathematical discovery". (I don't think knowing this makes any particular difference to how one reads any of the books involved; it's just amusing.)

jtth 11y ago

I would add: The Retreat to Commitment, by W.W. Bartley, III.

cryoshon 11y ago

I would also highly suggest Giere's book, Understanding Scientific Reasoning: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/015506326X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=015506326X&linkCode=as2&tag=fasdf0c-20&linkId=3GLKKT5SZHAPUXQR http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/015506326X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=... It's a textbook so it's a bit denser than a standard nonfiction offering, but it explains the perspectives of a few famous philosophers of science, the scientific method, clears up some common misunderstandings, and is packed with case studies which make the concepts easy to understand. It's a great piece for either reference or learning about science in general.

kriro 11y ago

I think you can start with "For and Against Method" which gives you Feyerabend and Lakatos. I'd also substitute Ludwik Fleck for Kuhn. But that's personal preference. The list is solid (imo)

kijin 11y ago
Michael Polanyi is also a solid substitute for Kuhn, and a contemporary of Fleck. Kuhn is way more popular, though, and the Structure is short and straightforward, so it's probably a safer recommendation for beginners.

n0us 11y ago

For those who have a curiosity but lack the patience or inclination to read these books, "Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction" is a highly approachable introduction to this particular branch of philosophy. http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Science-Very-Short-Introduction/dp/0192802836 http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Science-Very-Short-Introduc...

MichaelGG 11y ago
That's exactly what I did, and it left me feeling even more confused. As an example, the book, as I understood, proposes that "What is life?" is a serious philosophical question for biologists to deal with. That sounds an awful lot like arguing over definitions, which seems to be rarely useful.[1] Then there's the famous Feynman quote which seems to make it clear that he thought little of PhilSci. It'd be great to see a real example applied to software languages. A concrete "here's why it does X" kinda thing. I see there's several essays and a paper linked from Tomas's site so perhaps I'll find something useful there. I do understand that as a mere software writer, there may not be much for me. Meanwhile, the biggest use for PhilSci is defending physics models we can't test, isn't it? Perhaps, for example, using Bayesian probability to rate things, and using, I dunno, elegance, as positive evidence. But I'm way out of my depth here so perhaps someone can tell me if this is even remotely coherent. Consciousness seems to also involve a lot of philosophy, mainly because the understanding at this point is fairly limited and a lot of is just reasoning about things. (Versus being able to point out how a brain really works, how a consciousness works, etc. Some apparently think this is simply unknowable and magical.) 1: It's more common that fighting for definitions is useful for rhetorical purposes. E.g. copyright infringement being called stealing versus infringement or "piracy".
- n0us 11y ago
  One of my majors was Philosophy and I'm often disappointed by the attitudes of Feynman, Hawking, and other scientists towards philosophy. Their domain is science and I don't think that it is their place or right to judge the value of other disciplines as they apparently do not have a deep understanding of the subject. Questions like "what is life" have serious implications for biology and arguing over definitions is important because it ensures that when we say something like "a virus is not alive" we have a well grounded and justified basis on which to make that claim. If we didn't take the time to argue over definitions we would have scientists arguing past one another because of trivial misunderstandings about the meaning of words rather than arguing over some other actual significant point such as the conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence. The role of Philosophy is often described as providing us a framework for reasoning. Philosophy typically intersects with science at the "edges" where we are making novel discoveries in both disciplines and don't really know what to make of them yet so we have to reason about the evidence and concepts to make sense of it all so we can proceed. You mention Physics, and the big debate in philosophy is whether the Standard Model describes reality as it is, or whether it simply a convenient tool where equation manages to encompass most of the empirical results we have so far. I'm not sure exactly where you are going with Bayesian methods but probability is definitely a focus of some philosophers and our department head wrote a somewhat influential paper about different concepts of probability. (a "taxonomy" of probability if you will but that might be a controversial way to put it in an academic setting just like the rest of this post) Edit: I might also add that this professor had a Phd in philosophy as well as theoretical physics, so really smart guy, and the TA had one in physics and was pursuing one in philosophy, so also a really smart guy. It's also important to note that philosophy of science by and large does not aim to judge the merits or validity of science/scientists/scientific theories. The point is more to understand "what is science" and provide a passive definition instead of a passive one if you will. Philosophy of Mind is a "hot" branch right now as well and it remains to be seen if any significant progress will be made in the next several decades. We still don't have a consistent way to discuss "consciousness" and if you read literature coming from people with a computer science background, then from a psychological background, then a neurological one, you will find that they describe it in very different (and likely incompatible) ways. I've forgotten the context specifically but there is a degree of controversy over the diagnosis of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia since the diagnosis rates vary wildly depending on geography even when patients display the same symptoms. The implication is that neither disease is "real" and is instead a result of the training of psychiatrists. Yet we still don't want to abandon the idea that these people are mentally ill so how do we provide a coherent definition of a mental illness. It seems to pertain to consciousness in some way and if so how? We can't answer this way with out a coherent and consistent way to discuss consciousness which we still don't have. I hope that gives you a bit of insight even if this comment comes across as disjointed and I have been willingly vague and partially inaccurate at points because you could spend a lifetime reading on some of these subjects but still not consume all of the relevant literature. This again probably reflects the difficulty that you had with that book. Philosophy of Science is already a somewhat specific branch that is difficult to approach without some background in philosophy already. In a way that book is an introduction to a specific branch of philosophy that assumes a large amount of background knowledge.

jdp23 11y ago

While all the books he suggests are worth reading, the list as a whole has a major gap: nothing from feminist or post-colonialist perspectives. So I'd add Sandra Harding's "Sciences From Below", and perhaps the collection "Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science".

throwawayHN234 11y ago
Of course, it lacked feminist diversity.
trentmb 11y ago
Are there any Marxist or African-American perspectives you might be able to recommend?
- jdp23 11y ago
  Not sure that it's classified as "Philosophy of Science" but Mackenzie Wark's "A Hacker Manifesto" is pretty darn Marxist ... it even has a red cover :) Here's a 10th-anniversary interview of him by Melissa Gregg: https://lareviewofbooks.org/interview/courting-vectoralists-interview-mckenzie-wark-10-year-anniversary-hacker-manifesto https://lareviewofbooks.org/interview/courting-vectoralists-... On the African-American perspective, nothing leaps to mind, sorry. Anybody else have suggestions?
  - trentmb 11y ago
    Thanks- I've recently started a 'It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it' sort of pursuit- I'm currently stumbling through Lois Tysons' "Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide" EDIT: I mean that I'm doing my best to suspend/address whatever judgments I currently have, not immediately discard what I read.
    - jdp23 11y ago
      Haven't read it but it looks great. And yes, seems like a great exercise to entertain thoughts while suspending judgement.

pmoriarty 11y ago

Also: Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology" Ellul's "The Technological Society"

kijin 11y ago

Everyone who is interested in popular science should study at least the basics of philosophy of science. It helps us understand the meaning and implications of a lot of concepts that we often use in our arguments, such as falsifiability, reproducibility, and "evidence-based". These concepts sound neat in theory but need to be interpreted a lot more carefully, with a healthy dose of subtlety, in the messy world of bleeding-edge scientific research. Especially if you're using them to try to discredit somebody else's work as "unscientific". If you're the type that gets impatient with philosophy, the broader field of science and technology studies (STS) is a lot more exciting and interdisciplinary. It's a loose collaboration among sociologists, anthropologists, historians, philosophers, and political scientists who share a common interest in the interaction between science and human society as a whole. If you're interested in STS, Sergio Sismondo's Introduction to Science and Technology Studies offers a high-level overview of the field, both philosophical and political, in a compact and accessible package. The bibliography section is also a gold mine of interesting books and case studies from every subfield of STS. (Disclaimer: Sergio was my Ph.D. supervisor.) Programmers in the age of social networking and IoT might also find actor-network theory particularly interesting. Callon and Latour were way ahead of their time, trying to view everyday objects as first-class citizens in the vast, distributed network of knowledge that makes up modern science. French sociologists are crazy, but sometimes they're prophetic as well.

lugus35 11y ago

The Value of Science http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0375758488/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0375758488/ Meditations on First Philosophy http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0192806963/ http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0192806963/

duaneb 11y ago

Gonna go ahead and recommend Hume's Treatise of Human Nature on top of this, which underlines the complete impossibility of inductive proofs—not deductive, recursive proofs, but inductive proofs based on incomplete knowledge of state available. This is not because it's immediately relevant to coding, but because it helps illustrate the difference between knowing the complete state of a problem and only knowing part of it—the latter of which is the central problem of science, arguably. Most of the philosophy of science builds on this work either directly or indirectly. Hustle and read it! EDIT: reasoning -> proof, my bad.

jimrandomh 11y ago
Given that inductive reasoning is possible and that that it is (in the case of Solomonoff induction) on very solid philosophical and mathematical footing, I'm skeptical of any book which claims it's impossible.
- pron 11y ago
  > Given that inductive reasoning is possible The question is not whether or not it is possible (in the sense that it is useful) but whether it leads to knowledge. This, of course, depends on your definition of knowledge, which is the question of epistemology. In some circles these days there is a move back to a utilitarian definition of knowledge, namely, if you can interact with a system and predict its behavior then you can say you know how it works, because your model is useful. This is not, however, the commonly accepted view of what constitutes knowledge. Funny thing: the consequence of the Gettier problem (sort of like the "incompleteness conjecture" of epistemology) is that either we must accept a very unsatisfying definition to what constitutes knowledge, or use a good, rigorous and satisfying definition and then find out that nothing we think we know actually qualifies.
- marklgr 11y ago
  Even if it's true, Hume was a great thinker and keeps historical value. Besides, I'm sure he would agree with your being skeptical of any book, whatever its theses :)
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aalhour 11y ago

Speaking about books, there are a lot more accessible books than those on the list, and here are a few: [1] Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction. http://www.amazon.com/dp/0415891779 http://www.amazon.com/dp/0415891779 [2] Philosophy of Science Vol 1 & 2 by Mario Bunge http://www.amazon.com/dp/0765804131/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/0765804131/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/076580414X/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/076580414X/

eci 11y ago

Would add The Sciences of the Artificial by Herbert A. Simon [1] to the list. The current list is lacking a design science view, which is much more applicable to computer science than natural science books. [1] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/sciences-artificial https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/sciences-artificial

ubasu 11y ago

Please keep in mind that the book by Bruno Latour referenced here (Science in Action) and another of his articles was lampooned in the Sokal Affair because Latour was confused about relativity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/trans... http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/le_monde_english.html http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/le_monde_english.html http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/noretta.html http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/noretta.html

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DanielBMarkham 11y ago

Speaking as a complete layman, Philosophy of Science rocks. Feynman was smoking crack. Philosophy of Science is an extremely important discipline. It will just make your head explode. (Along with epistemology and couple others) I started on my learning journey using The Great Courses series -- it's kind of like famous professors giving an abbreviated overview (20-40 hours) of their 101 courses. Deep enough that it's not some Discovery Channel show, light enough that you're not up until 2 a.m. every night for a month reading Hegel. I think that the reason most scientists like Feynman don't get it is that they treat philosophy as a scientific discipline. It is not. Philosophy is the asking of questions. Every now and then you get into a fertile area where those questions can become their own science. This is why philosophy is called the "Mother of all sciences" Oddly enough, I think philosophers themselves have lost their way, but that's a story for another day. My advice to those who are interested is to get an easy introduction, and don't take it too seriously. I love philosophy because it's like meeting the smartest people that ever lived in a bar and having them talk about really deep questions. But you'll have more fun talking to a lot of people than spending a deep dive with one guy. They tend to have a few good ideas and then spend the rest of their lives over-applying them. Philosophy is also a great way to begin to talk about the important questions involving technology and people. Don't let anybody tell you any different. I've been very interested in the Philosophy of Language and how it relates to technology teams talking to users about solutions. Just got through writing an essay comparing the conditions that led to Sir Francis Bacon's New Orgonon with conditions in the Agile practitioner community today. Anybody writing apps controlling the speech of millions should have a grounding in political theory -- or risk turning the planet into a cesspool of conformity just so they can make a buck. Cool stuff.

mirimir 11y ago
> Feynman was smoking crack. He just had a warped sense of humor ;)
- kwhitefoot 11y ago
  At least he had one; a lot of people writing about science and philosophy don't seem to even understand the concept.

unix-junkie 11y ago

I would add "The Formation of the Scientific Mind" by Gaston Bachelard. This text analyses the nature of the mental patterns that prevent from making actual discoveries (what he calls "epistemoligical obstacles").

sklogic 11y ago

Why Popper is not on the list?

tpetricek 11y ago
Popper is definitely important! He's not on the list because I didn't read his works (I know I should). His key points are widely known that I was simply more interested in reading books that go in other directions. (There is also nice introduction to Popper in the textbook mentioned.) But I would like to get back to him!

sawwit 11y ago

For more practical persons I recommend skipping the historical parts of philosophy and go straight to Bayesianism. I recommend "Rationality" by E. Yudkowsky as an entry point, "Probabilistic Inference" by J. Pearl, "Artificial Intelligence" by Russel & Norvig for the theory and "Formal Theory of Creativity & Fun & Intrinsic Motivation" by J. Schmidhuber for inspiration. [1]: http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/creativity.html http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/creativity.html

pron 11y ago
I wouldn't recommend anything by Yudkowsky as an introduction to anything (other than maybe an introduction to contemporary techno-cults, aimed at the graduate level). As a "philosopher" he is exceptionally inept at questioning his own assumptions and reasoning. His writing lack any philosophical rigor (they try to obscure their axiomatic assumptions rather than articulate them, let alone explore them). As a result, his "philosophy" -- and in particular his views of rationality -- feels very antiquated (some read as if they'd been written in the 1700s) or something Sheldon Cooper would write. It has all the philosophical rigor of a child; or Ayn Rand. In any event, it is very uninformed and limited (not to speak of his nomenclature, which deviates from that of philosophy, and so makes orienting his views in the grand scheme of things difficult). His writings are more of an interest to people who are interested in researching particular modes of thought in various sub-cultures. In this case, how antiquated views of "rationality" are gaining popularity in Silicon Valley pop-philosophy: http://harpers.org/archive/2015/01/come-with-us-if-you-want-to-live/?single=1 http://harpers.org/archive/2015/01/come-with-us-if-you-want-... He is a cult-leader, not a researcher, and like all cult leaders, his talents lie in charmingly convincing gullible victims that his thoughts are profound, when, in fact, they don't exceed those of a very intelligent 14-year-old know-it-all. If you approach his writings as actual philosophy (rather than intriguing historical documents of a techno-libertarian cult, which is what they are), after reading them you are certain to know less of philosophy than when you've started, even if your original knowledge was absolute zero. His writings are to philosophy what Fox News is to news: inspire and agitate unquestioning followers, while making sure they don't learn about the world by constructing an elaborate -- and enticing -- virtual world to isolate them from reality.

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omphalos 11y ago

I recently encountered the Duhem-Quine thesis on wikipedia which I think presents a really interesting perspective on testability, something I never really questioned before in the philosophy of science. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duhem%E2%80%93Quine_thesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duhem%E2%80%93Quine_thesis

zb 11y ago

In a similar vein, I highly recommend Discussion of the Method by Billy Vaughn Koen. It's a philosophy of engineering that resolves many of the unanswered questions you'll have after reading Feyerabend, and also gives an overview of the field of philosophy of science along the way.

whatever_dude 11y ago

"A Science Of Operations" sounds great. But can someone explain to me why the hard cover costs $120 (Amazon), and the paperback $180 (Amazon, B&N)? It's 342 pages, so it's not like it's one of those encyclopedic tomes. Not that I try justifying a price-per-page, but what is it, a collection of expensive papers in print form?

tpetricek 11y ago
It is an academic publication by Springer. That's why - academic publishing is just crazy. (Anybody around here doing a start-up that would make it obsolete?) I would, of course, never suggest downloading the PDF from unofficial sources, but I could completely see why people are doing that.
e40 11y ago
Kindle: $143!! This is so, so annoying. The Kindle version should never be higher than any dead tree version!

arstin 11y ago

I would add Ruth Millikan's work. "Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories" is her masterpiece, but way out of depth for a beginner ("out of depth" in philosophy meaning most people are likely to be bored, confused, or dismissive yet with the right background the book is amazingly exciting, insightful, and valuable). "On Clear and Confused Ideas" is more approachable and has been made available for free online now. http://web2.uconn.edu/philosophy/department/millikan/clearct.htm http://web2.uconn.edu/philosophy/department/millikan/clearct...

jgd 11y ago

My #1 recommendation is http://beginningofinfinity.com/ http://beginningofinfinity.com/ by David Deutsch. I also recommend his two TED talks, especially https://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_a_new_way_to_explain_explanation https://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_a_new_way_to_explain... which makes clear why induction is simply wrong and explains how science actually works.