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Journal ArticleDOI

The Ravens Revisited

Peter Lipton
- 01 Oct 2007 - 
- Vol. 61, Iss: 61, pp 75-95
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TLDR
There is more to the philosophy of science than principled descriptions of scientific activity, since there are also all the normative questions of justification and warrant, but the descriptive task is an important part of the discipline.
Abstract
Astronomers study the behaviour of the stars; philosophers of science study the behaviour of the astronomers. Philosophers of science, alongside historians and sociologists of science, are in the business of accounting for how science works and what it achieves. There is more to the philosophy of science than principled descriptions of scientific activity, since there are also all the normative questions of justification and warrant, but the descriptive task is an important part of the discipline and the primary focus of the present essay.

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Journal ArticleDOI

A conciliatory answer to the paradox of the ravens.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors distinguish between the familiar relation of confirmation simpliciter and what they call "predictive confirmation" and conclude that there is no sense in which the initial claims are both plausible and inconsistent.
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In Memoriam: Peter Lipton*

TL;DR: One of the world's best-loved philosophers of science, Peter Lipton, died from a heart attack on the evening of November 25, 2007, at the age of 53 as discussed by the authors.
References
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Book

Naming and Necessity

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors make a connection between the mind-body problem and the so-called "identity thesis" in analytic philosophy, which has wide-ranging implications for other problems in philosophy that traditionally might be thought far-removed.
Book

Fact, Fiction, and Forecast

TL;DR: Goodman's second book as mentioned in this paper is a reprint of the well-known paper, "The Prob lem of Counterfactual Conditionals", which he delivered at the University of London in 1953, is small in volume but rich in content.
Book

A System of Logic

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors describe the structure of a sentence or a thought in a sentence and present a list of the passages that are not part of the original text, but can be read as though they were part of it.
Book

Inference to the best explanation

TL;DR: Lipton argues that an illuminating version of "Inference to the Best Explanation" must rely on the latter notion, and provides a new account of what makes one explanation lovelier than another.