دانلود کتاب Methodology of Science: An Introduction

The book is divided into six chapters. The first, “Science and its methodological characteristics”, tackles the question of how we can distinguish science from other fields, such as “common sense”, pseudoscientific systems and religion. In the second chapter, “A toolbox of scientific methods”, we zoom in on some of the methods of science used at the linguistic (conceptual) and empirical levels of scientific research. Chapter 3, “Types of scientific research: the h-d model” introduces the hypothetico-deductive model, a model of scientific research which is illustrated using (certain parts of) Durkheim's study of Suicide. It offers a basic characterization of the main stages of (empirical) research and looks at the roles played by the various methods. The fourth chapter, “Hypotheses and empirical evidence”, concentrates on the relationship between empirical data (or evidence) on the one hand and (testable) hypotheses on the other. We introduce some of the main approaches and basic concepts used to test hypotheses. In some disciplines, “causal language” is used to describe or explain certain phenomena. Therefore, the fifth chapter, “Causation and its role in science” provides an overview of some of the philosophical approaches to questions such as “What are causes?” and “Under what conditions can an event, phenomenon, or fact, be identified as the cause of another event, phenomenon or fact?”. Finally, the last chapter, “Scientific explanation”, offers a bird's-eye view and critical analysis of the main models of scientific explanation that dominated the methodological debates in the latter half of the 20th century.