The Demons of Science What They Can and Cannot Tell Us About Our World
Weinert, Friedel
Weinert, Friedel
Publication Date
2016
End of Embargo
Supervisor
Rights
Peer-Reviewed
n/a
Open Access status
Accepted for publication
Institution
Department
Awarded
Embargo end date
Collections
Additional title
Abstract
The title The Demons of Science may at first appear like a contradiction in terms.
Demons are associated with the forces of darkness; science represents the power of
light. One could assume, therefore, that science has no time for demons. This book
aims to destroy this assumption. Science opens its gates to demons as long as they
play a rational rather than an evil part. They are put to work. Demons are figures of
thought: they belong to the category of thought experiments, which are routinely
employed in science and philosophy. As they are cast as agents with superhuman
abilities, we may expect that demons provide us with valuable—albeit
non-empirical—clues about the constitution of the physical world. But I am
interested in exploring not only what the demons tell us but also what they do not
tell us about our world. They are cast as superhuman actors but even demons have
their limitations. The following chapters contain, I believe, the first systematic study
of the role of demons in scientific and philosophical reasoning about the external
world.
Version
No full-text in the repository
Citation
Weinart F (2016) The Demons of Science: What They Can and Cannot Tell Us About Our World. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. ISBN 978-3-319-31707-6.
Link to publisher’s version
Link to published version
Link to Version of Record
Type
Book