ELEMENTS OF HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

This book introduces students to the history and philosophy of the natural sciences. The book examines major topics in the history and philosophy of science, including, among others, the meaning, nature, goal and method of science; the meaning, nature and goal of philosophy of science; the problems of induction and causation and the inductive reasoning as the primary logic of science. The book also examines positivism, logical positivism and the analytic philosophical tradition,falsificationism of Karl Popper within the context of his grand philosophy of critical rationalism, methodology of scientific research programme of Imre Lakatos, scientific revolution of Thomas Kuhn, methodological anarchism of Paul Feyerabend, the history of the Western sciences and the philosophical issues associated with them. The origin theories of the universe and, by implication, of man, are also analysed here in perspective. Issues on the environment, its sustainability and renewability are sufficiently adumbrated in this book.