DeWitt - Worldviews: an introduction to the history and philosophy of science

This edition first published 2018

2018 Richard DeWitt

Edition History: 1e: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, (1e, 2003); John Wiley & Sons Ltd, (2e, 2010)

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this title

Names: DeWitt, Richard, author.

Title: Worldviews : an introduction to the history and philosophy of science / Richard DeWitt.

Other titles: World views

Description: Third edition. | Hoboken : Wiley, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2017049915 (print) | LCCN 2017059375 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119118985 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119118992 (epub) | ISBN 9781119118893 (pbk.)

Subjects: LCSH: ScienceHistory. | SciencePhilosophy.

Classification: LCC Q125 (ebook) | LCC Q125 .D38 2018 (print) | DDC 509dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017049915

Cover images: (Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci) Vaara / iStockphoto; (Night Sky) Misha Kaminsky / iStockphoto

Cover design by Wiley

For Susie

1. A grocery list of Aristotle's beliefs
2. Aristotle's jigsaw puzzle of beliefs
3. A peek into Sara's consciousness
4. Sara's conscious experience
5. The Total Recall scenario
6. Illustration of Euclidean axiom
7. Mars' motion on the Ptolemaic system
8. Does the ball follow this path?
9. Or does the ball follow this path?
10. Treatment of Mars on the Ptolemaic system
11. The flexibility of epicycledeferent systems
12. Position of Mars against the backdrop of the fixed stars
13. Explanation of retrograde motion on the Ptolemaic system
14. Minor and major epicycles
15. The treatment of Mars on the Copernican system
16. Explanation of retrograde motion on the Copernican system
17. The Tychonic system
18. An ellipse
19. Orbit of Mars on Kepler's system
20. Illustration of Kepler's second law
21. Nested sphere, cube, and sphere
22. Kepler's construction
23. Kepler's construction with the solids removed
24. Photograph of sun and planets
25. Sun-centered interpretation of photograph
26. Earth-centered interpretation of photograph
27. Phases of Venus
28. Phases of the moon
29. Sun, Venus, and Earth on the Ptolemaic system
30. Sun, Venus, and Earth on a sun-centered system
31. Boat and swimmer analogy
32. The swimmers return at different times
33. Illustration for special relativity
34. Snapshot A
35. Snapshot B
36. A typical Cartesian coordinate system
37. Magnetic field lines
38. Typical field lines in general relativity
39. Electrons as particles
40. Electrons as waves
41. The particle effect and the wave effect
42. Two slit experiment with electron detectors
43. Beam splitter experiment
44. Families of wave mathematics
45. Representation of a wave equation
46. Adding family members to produce a particular wave
47. Members of another family can produce the same wave
48. Representation of the wave function for an electron in a particular setting
49. Families associated with measurements
50. Wave function for electron
51. Family P associated with measurements of position
52. Wave function decomposed into members of family P
53. Beam splitter arrangement
54. Schrdinger's cat
55. A typical EPR setup
56. Coke machine analogy
57. Modified EPR scenario
58. Results of genetic drift simulation
59. Prisoner's dilemma payoff matrix
60. Ultimatum game payoff matrix
61. Trust game payoff matrix

Countless people made contributions to the various editions of this work. Some contributions were large, some small, but all of them were important. For the various editions I have received invaluable feedback from numerous anonymous reviewers, sometimes catching outright mistakes and sometimes providing good suggestions for clarifying discussions. Although I do not know who these reviewers are, I would like to thank them for their important contributions. From the time this book project began, when the manuscript existed only as a rough draft, and continuing through drafts of the current edition, my philosophy of science students have provided excellent feedback on which ideas worked and which did not, which explanations were clear and which not so clear, and more. There are too many of them to name, but I would like to thank them as a whole for their help. I likewise cannot begin to name, but I do appreciate, all of the colleagues who over the years have discussed these issues with me, read portions of manuscripts, and helped me clarify and oftentimes correct my thinking on various issues. I would like to note that in spring 2016 I had the honor of leading a small group of exceptional students in a seminar in cognitive science and the philosophy of mind. Together we thought through a variety of issues in current science, history of science, and philosophy of science, and this group forced me to expand upon, clarify, and sometimes rethink a variety of views related to the history and philosophy of science. For this I'd like to acknowledge the contributions of Dan Boley, Chris Cardillo, Alex Clinton, Chris Fazekas, Aidan Grealish, Tom Greenwood, Tess McMahon, Elliot Neski, Justin Paton, Kali Schlegel, Andrew Schmidt, and John Simon. I would like again to note the contributions of Charles Ess of the University of Oslo, and Marc Lange of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, both of whom read drafts of the entire first edition, most of which is included in both the second edition and this edition. Each provided lengthy, detailed, and helpful comments and suggestions (not to mention saving me from several embarrassing mistakes). In addition, I'd like to thank Todd Disotell and Shara Bailey of the Center for the Study of Human Origins, New York University, for an invigorating 2009 seminar on evolution, and the Faculty Resource Network for their financial support for that seminar. Regarding the material on evolution, I would like to acknowledge Richard Gawne, whose observations were largely responsible for me rethinking the way that material was presented in the previous edition. I wish also to recognize Helen Lang, who unfortunately passed away not long ago. Conversations with her were exceptionally valuable in helping me clarify certain aspects of Aristotle's physics and general philosophy of nature. Thanks also to Giles Flitney for his excellent work as copy-editor for this latest edition. Finally, I would again like to thank my original editor on this project, Jeff Dean, whose feedback was invaluable in the original organization and presentation of this manuscript.