Boston studies in the philosophy of science

J. L. Lagrange is a name well known to students in all branches of mathematics and applied mathematics. But by far his most famous work deals with mechanics - the Mecanique Analytique. In this work, he used the Principle of Virtual Work as the foundation for all of mechanics and thereby brought together statics, hydrostatics, dynamics and hydrodynamics. His approach differed significantly from the mechanics of Newton and the physical approach to mechanics of Laplace and Poisson. The difference is due primarily to the introduction by Lagrange of a fictitious constraint force. The purpose of the constraint force is to enforce an algebraic relation between the coordinates of the parts of a continuous body or between various bodies. Moreover, the physical origin of this force does not have to be known. From this point, Lagrange utilizes the methodology of the Calculus of Variations - a methodology which he himself developed - to vary the configuration of a system in statics or the path of a system in dynamics in order to obtain the governing differential equations. Audience: Historians of science, mathematicians, physicists and engineers, and scholars specializing in classical mechanics, celestial mechanics, mathematics of mechanics and mechanics in general.

In this volume specialists from several disciplines present the first comprehensive, readily-accessible analysis of Grassmann's thought, its historical context and emergence, its reception, and its continuing influence on many branches of learning. The book addresses a general public in mathematics, physics, and linguistics, including graduate students in these fields, as well as historians of these disciples.

"This volume is dedicated to Heinz Post, who proposed a rational model of scientific discovery. His account draws attention to the formal flaws in theories that motivate theory modification, the correspondence relations that hold between old and new theories and the cross-theoretic retention of symmetry and conservation principles."--BOOK JACKET. "Exploring Post's model from a variety of perspectives, the contributors draw on a wide range of case studies from physics, chemistry and biology. This is the first work to examine one such model of heuristics in the context of detailed examples from science itself. It will be of interest to teachers, researchers and graduate students in both the history and philosophy of science and can be used as a textbook in advanced courses on scientific method."--BOOK JACKET.

Raised by a mad mother and a half-mad sister, abandoned by her father, Praxis Duveen is a master of the art of survival. Her life, indeed, has been full: two marriages, unsuccessful; a brief but profitable career as a prostitute; a little dabbling in incest; a mercy killing; and an inadvertent reign as both apostle and victim of the women's movement. Buffeted and battered by life, Praxis has survived with energy and humor intact. Her struggles with men and women, with mother and marriages, and most particularly, with herself, become, in Weldon's deft hands, a witty and trenchant commentary on what women want—and what they can actually get.

"The problem of Galileo's logical methodology has long interested scholars. In this volume William A. Wallace offers a solution that is completely unexpected, yet backed by convincing documentary evidence. His analysis starts with an early notebook Galileo wrote at Pisa, appropriating a Jesuit professor's exposition of the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle, and ends with one of the last letters Galileo wrote, stating that in logic he has been a Peripatetic all his life. Wallace's detective work unearths the complete logic course from which the notebook was excerpted, then proceeds to show how its terminology and methodology continue to surface in Galileo's later writings in which he founds his new sciences of the heavens and of local motion. The result is a tour de force that commends itself not only to Galileo scholars and to logicians, philosophers, and historians, but to anyone interested in the epistemic roots of modern science."--BOOK JACKET.

"This book is a reassessment of the work of Fisher, Haldane, Muller and Wright on the occasion of the centenaries of their birth. Given the seminal role played by these figures in twentieth century evolutionary biology, it is also an important contribution to the history of biology. It brings together the scholarship of biologists, historians and philosophers to analyze the relative contributions and influence of these figures. In considering Muller along with Fisher, Haldane and Wright as a founder of 'evolutionary genetics', this book breaks new ground in the historiography of biology."--BOOK JACKET.

In relation to the problems faced today, in contemplation and in practical affairs, philosophers must confront the question 'What is knowledge?', and consider whether knowledge has lost its object. Such was the problem placed before the seminar convened by the Philosophical Society of Turkey at Ankara in 1989. The 17 papers derived from the lectures and discussions deal with problems of knowing and believing, of the kinds and criteria of knowledge, of truth and fallibility, and of the cultural as well as individual factors in cognition.

In this book, 12 contemporary Japanese philosophers of science are presented using a generous sampling of their works as scientists and philosophers who have investigated the foundations of natural science, the philosophy of mind and especially of perception, the logic of inference and of time, causality, and evolution.

"In this book, 11 leading scholars contribute to the understanding of the scientific and philosophical works of Moses Maimonides (1135-1204)."--BOOK JACKET.