Reality And Rationality

This volume of articles (most published, some new) is a follow-up to the late Wesley C. Salmon’s widely read collection Causality And Explanation (OUP 1998). It contains both published and unpublished articles, and focuses on two related areas of inquiry: First, is science a rational enterprise? Secondly, does science yield objective information about our world, even the aspects that we cannot observe directly? Salmon’s own take is that objective knowledge of the world is possible, and his work in these articles centers around proving that this can be so. Salmon’s influential standing in the field ensures that this volume will be of interest to both undergraduates and professional philosophers, primarily in the philosophy of science.

Wesley C. Salmon was University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. He devoted his main research efforts to causality and explanation and to probability, induction, and confirmation. Among his major works are Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World (1984) and Causality and Explanation (1998).