Theory Change, Ancient Axiomatics, and Galileo’s Methodology: Proceedings of the 1978 Pisa Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science Volume I(145 Synthese Library)

The two volumes to which this is a preface consist of the Proceedings of the Second International Conference on History and Philosophy of Science. The Conference was organized by the Joint Commission of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science (IUHPS) of the IUHPS, the Italian Society for Logic and under the auspices Philosophy of Science, and the Domus Galilaeana of Pisa, headed by Professor Vincenzo Cappelletti. Domus GaIilaeana also served as the host institution, with some help from the University of Pisa. The Conference took place in Pisa, Italy, on September 4-8, 1978. The editors of these two volumes of the Proceedings of the Pisa Conference acknowledge with gratitude the help by the different sponsoring organizations, and in the first place that by both, Divisions of the IUHPS, which made the Conference possible.' A special recognition is due to Professor Evandro Agazzi, President of the Italian Society for Logic and Philosophy of Science, who was co- opted as an additional member of the Organizing Committee. This committee was otherwise identical with the Joint Commission, whose members were initially John Murdoch, John North, Arpad Szab6, Robert Butts, Jaakko Hintikka, and Vadim Sadovsky. Later, Erwin Hiebert and Lubos Novy were appointed as additional members.

Table of Contents:
Section I: The Structure of Theory Change.- The Growth of Theories: Comments on the Structuralist Approach.- Logic and the Theory of Scientific Change.- What Have They Done to Kuhn? An Ideological Introduction in Chiaroscuro.- Comment on Zev Bechler’s Paper ‘What Have They Done to Kuhn?’.- Comments on Bechler, Niiniluoto and Sadovsky.- The Sociological and the Methodological in the Study of Changes in Science.- Section II: The Early History of the Axiomatic Method.- Concerning the Ancient Greek Ideal of Theoretical Thought.- Was There an Eleatic Background to Pre-Euclidean Mathematics?.- Aristotelian Axiomatics and Geometrical Axiomatics.- On the Early History of Axiomatics: The Interaction of Mathematics and Philosophy in Greek Antiquity.- Some Remarks on the Controversy between Prof. Knorr and Prof. Szabó.- On the Early History of Axiomatics: A Reply to Some Criticisms.- Limitations of the Axiomatic Method in Ancient Greek Mathematical Sciences.- On Axiomatic and Genetic Construction of Mathematical Theories.- On the Role of Axiomatic Method in the Development of Ancient Mathematics.- Section III: The Philosophical Presuppositions and Shifting Interpretations of Galileo.- Galilée et la Mécanisation du Système du Monde.- Galileo and the Post-Renaissance.- Galileo and the Methods of Science.- Philosophical Presuppositions and Shifting Interpretations of Galileo.- Creative Work as an Object of Theoretical Understanding.- Galileo and the Emergence of a New Scientific Style.- Philosophy of Science and the Art of Historical Interpretation.- Index of Names.- Index of Subjects.

About the Author :
Jaakko Hintikka is the author or co-author of thirty volumes and of some 300 scholarly articles in mathematical and philosophical logic, epistemology, language theory, philosophy of science, history of ideas and history of philosophy, including Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Peirce, The Bloomsbury Group, Husserl and Wittgenstein. He has also been active in international scholarly organizations, most recently as the First Vice-President of FISP, Vice-President of IIP and Co-Chair of the American Organizing Committee of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy. He has been Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal Synthese and the Managing Editor of Synthese Library since 1965.