Are science and mathematics socially constructed? [[electronic resource] ] : a mathematician encounters postmodern interpretations of science / / Richard C. Brown

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910780819203321
• Autore: Brown Richard C
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Singapore ; ; Hackensack, N.J., : World Scientific Publishing, c2009
• ISBN: 1-282-44255-4; 9786612442551; 981-283-525-3
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (336 p.)
• Disciplina: 501
• Soggetti: Mathematics - Philosophy; Science - Philosophy
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. 293-305) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Contents; Preface; Acknowledgments; 1. Rip van Winkle Awakes; 2. A Golden Age and its End; 3. Ingredients in the PIS Bouillabaisse; 4. A Canary in the Mine; 5. The Unmasking of Reason; 6. Thought Styles and Thought Collectives; 7. The Reluctant Revolutionary; 8. Anything Goes; 9. The Sociological Attack; 10. The Deconstruction of Mathematics; 11. Epistemic Issues; 12. The Fallibility of Conventionalism and Fallibilism; 13. Madison 1973; 14. Kto Kogo?; Bibliography; Index
• Sommario/riassunto: This book is a history, analysis, and criticism of what the author calls "postmodern interpretations of science" (PIS) and the closely related "sociology of scientific knowledge" (SSK). This movement traces its origin to Thomas Kuhn's revolutionary work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), but is more extreme. It believes that science is a "social construction", having little to do with nature, and is determined by contextual forces such as the race, class, gender of the scientist, laboratory politics, or the needs of the military industrial complex.