Proofs and Refutations is for those interested in the methodology, philosophy and history of mathematics.

Hardbound. In this book, which is both a philosophical and historiographical study, the author investigates the fallibility and the rationality of mathematics by means of rational reconstructions of developments in mathematics. The initial chapters are devoted to a critical discussion of Lakatos' philosophy of mathematics. In the remaining chapters several episodes in the history of mathematics are discussed, such as the appearance of deduction in Greek mathematics and the transition from Eighteenth-Century to Nineteenth-Century analysis. The author aims at developing a notion of mathematical rationality that agrees with the historical facts. A modified version of Lakatos' methodology is proposed. The resulting constructions show that mathematical knowledge is fallible, but that its fallibility is remarkably weak.

Volume I brings together his very influential but scattered papers on the philosophy of the physical sciences, and includes one important unpublished essay on the effect of Newton's scientific achievement. Volume 2 presents his work on the philosophy of mathematics together with some critical essays on contemporary philosophers of science.

DIVAn exploration of the philosophy of science and mathematics of Hungarian emigre, Imre Lakatos, demonstrating its contemporary relevance./div

This collection exhibits and confirms the originality, range and the essential unity of his work.

Extends the ideas of social constructivism to the philosophy of mathematics, developing a powerful critique of traditional absolutist conceptions of mathematics, and proposing a reconceptualization of the philosophy of mathematics.

In Explaining Cancer, Anya Plutynski addresses a variety of philosophical questions that arise in the context of cancer science and medicine. She begins with the following concerns: · How do scientists classify cancer? Do these classifications reflect nature's "joints"? · How do cancer scientists identify and classify early stage cancers? · What does it mean to say that cancer is a "genetic" disease? What role do genes play in "mechanisms for" cancer? · What are the most important environmental causes of cancer, and how do epidemiologists investigate these causes? · How exactly has our evolutionary history made us vulnerable to cancer? Explaining Cancer uses these questions as an entrée into a family of philosophical debates. It uses case studies of scientific practice to reframe philosophical debates about natural classification in science and medicine, the problem of drawing the line between disease and health, mechanistic reasoning in science, pragmatics and evidence, the roles of models and modeling in science, and the nature of scientific explanation.