Philosophy of science Books

Book SynopsisIn this beautifully written book, David E. Cooper uses a gentle walk through a tropical garden â the view of the fields and hills beyond it, the sound of birds, voices and flutes, the reflection of light in water, the play of shadows among the trees and the presence of strange animals â as an opportunity to reflect on experiences of nature and the mystery of existence.Covering an extensive range of topics, from Daoism to dogs, from gardening to walking, from Zen to Debussy, Cooper succeeds in conveying some deep and difficult philosophical ideas about the meaning of life in an engaging manner, showing how those ideas bear upon the practical question of how we should relate to our world and live our lives.A thought-provoking and compelling book, Senses of Mystery is a triumph of both storytelling and philosophy.Trade Review"Cultivation of a sense of mystery has venerable precedent in ancient spiritual traditions, and runs through modern writings on animals, gardens, nature, art, and music. In this personal, humane book, David E. Cooper describes the rhythms and tones of a life shaped by mystery. Gathering the wisdom of sages, composers, gardeners, nature lovers, and others, this book reveals the ways that reflective appreciation of creatures, places, and practices can reveal the depth and mystery that underlies human life."Ian James Kidd, University of Nottingham, UK"This world is, indeed, one vast mystery, containing only, here and there, a few scattered islands of human knowledge. Past philosophers have not attended enough to this paradoxical situation, but Cooper now does so. We had better read him." Mary Midgley, Emeritus Professor, Newcastle University, UK."Senses of Mystery is a superb book – inspiring, beautifully written and packed with insights about a remarkably wide range of topics, from meditative walking to the mystery of existence. I recommend it to anyone who wishes to understand what it means to live in harmony with the natural world."Simon P. James, Durham University, UK"This book is a gentle and beautiful evocation of the well lived human life, and the role of familiar practices such as listening to music, walking and gardening in leading us into a transformed appreciation of the everyday world. In Cooper’s hands, philosophical reflection has become a spiritual practice."Mark Wynn, University of Leeds, UK"This is an elegant and clear little volume that while rooted in western philosophy and literature draws strongly on Daoist and Buddhist thought," in Resurgence and Ecologist, 2018."David E. Cooper, is one of the most outstanding philosophers of recent times. It’s hard to think of another figure who better combines erudition with rigor of thought and argument...Every philosopher should read this book, indeed every thoughtful person should, for it addresses and attempts to answer the question of what it is fundamentally like for us to be in the world and what we are to make of the strangeness of existence." - John Shand, ‘The Strange Business of Being in the World’, Los Angeles Review of Books, April 6 2018.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements1. In a Garden2. The Truth of MysteryIneffabilityThe Scientific ImageThe World as Fiction?The World as Gift3. Religion, Nature and MysteryReligion, Faith and Mystery‘Nothing Special’Senses of MysteryNature and Culture4. AnimalsAnimal WorldsThe Opacity of AnimalsAnimals, Mystery and WorldAnimals and ‘The Open’5. MusicMusic and ExperienceMusic and NatureMusic, Culture, EnvironmentMusic and the Mystery of Emergence6. WalkingMeditation on the MoveBody, Mind and InvolvementCommunion and HolismWalking and Senses of Mystery7. GardeningThe Way of the GardenGardens and Meaning‘In the Head’ and ‘In the Hands’Garden, ‘Gift’, Mystery8. Living with MysteryEthicsRemoving ObstaclesHumility and CompassionEmulation9. In a Garden AgainIndex

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Book SynopsisAny serious student attempting to better understand the nature, methods, and justification of science will value Alex Rosenberg and Lee McIntyre's updated and substantially revised fourth edition of Philosophy of Science: A Contemporary Introduction. Weaving lucid explanations with clear analyses, the volume is a much- used, thematically oriented introduction to the field.The fourth edition has been thoroughly rewritten based on instructor and student feedback, to improve readability and accessibility, without sacrificing depth. It retains, however, all of the logically structured, extensive coverage of earlier editions, which a review in the journal Teaching Philosophy called the industry standard and essential reading.Key Features of the Fourth Edition: Revised and rewritten for readability based on feedback from student and instructor surveys. Updated text on the problem of underdetermination, social science, and the realism/aTrade Review"Sets the industry standard. This book is essential reading for any serious student of the philosophy of science. [...]Rosenberg provides a comprehensive, sophisticated presentation of the current state of the field, and yet it is clear enough to be accessible to students. Rosenberg’s text gets my highest recommendation for courses with students who are academically well prepared and motivated." W. Russ Payne, in Teaching Philosophy Table of Contents1. The Relationship Between Philosophy and Science 2. Why is Philosophy of Science Important? 3. Scientific Explanation 4. Why Do Laws Explain? 5. Causation, Inexact Laws and Statistical Probabilities 6. Laws and Explanations in Biology and the "Special Sciences" 7. The Structure of Scientific Theories 8. Epistemic and Metaphysical Issues about Scientific Theories 9. Theory Construction vs. Model Building 10. Induction and Probability 11. Confirmation, Falsification, Underdetermination 12. Challenges from the History of Science 13. Naturalism in the Philosophy of Science 14. The Contested Character of Science 15. Science, Relativism and Objectivity

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Book SynopsisExploring the Philosophy of Death and Dying: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives is the first book to offer students the full breadth of philosophical issues that are raised by the end of life. Included are many of the essential voices that have contributed to the philosophy of death and dying throughout history and in contemporary research. The 38 chapters in its nine sections contain classic texts (by authors such as Epicurus, Hume, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer) and new short argumentative essays, specially commissioned for this volume, by world-leading contemporary experts. Exploring the Philosophy of Death and Dying introduces students to both theoretical issues (whether we can survive death, whether death is truly bad for us, whether immortality would be desirable, etc.) and urgent practical issues (the ethics of suicide, the value of grief, the appropriate medical criteria for declaring death, etc.) raised by human mortality, enablingTrade Review"The scholarship, originality, variety, and pedagogical intelligence of Exploring the Philosophy of Death and Dying are outstanding to the point that a disclaimer seems in order: do not underestimate this book….. Cholbi and Timmerman have achieved the book’s compact package of breadth and depth without compromising on the completeness or clarity of the analyses and arguments. Put bluntly, it would be entirely inaccurate and unfortunate to mistake this anthology as an ad hoc "hot-topic" quick hook for undergraduates. Much to their credit, Cholbi and Timmerman have used their expertise as scholars and teachers to create an anthology that respects its subject and reader alike such that the real hook of Exploring the Philosophy of Death and Dying is not the topic but philosophy itself."Review in Teaching Philosophy by Susan Mills (MacEwan University)"The areas of death, immortality, meaning in life, and related issues are hot topics in contemporary philosophy. Once the domain only of European philosophers, especially the existentialists, in the last few decades Anglo-American analytic philosophers have jumped in. This book is an excellent introduction to the best work on these interrelated issues. The editors have done an outstanding job of selecting authors who know their stuff and write very accessibly. This book would be perfect for an undergraduate class, and it would also be invaluable to anyone interested in learning the lay of the philosophical land in this lively area of historical and contemporary interest. The book shows how philosophy engages with issues of deep human interest."John Martin Fischer, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Riverside"This splendid collection is distinctive in many ways. The essays address issues that really matter to us, such as whether it is bad to die, and if so, why, whether we might survive death, and whether the inevitability of death undermines meaning in our lives. Although most of the essays were written by contemporary philosophers for this collection, there are also judicious selections from classic writings in the history of philosophy, including works by ancient Greek and Roman philosophers and works from Eastern traditions as well. Those who are haunted in one way or another by the specter of death, as most of us are, will find much careful argument, as well as some genuine wisdom in these pages."Jeff McMahan, White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Oxford Table of ContentsPART I When Do We Die? 1 Defining Death: A Report on the Medical, Legal and Ethical Issues in the Determination of Death (Excerpt) 2 Defining Death in a Technological World: Why Brain Death Is Death 3 We Die When Entropy Overwhelms Homeostasis 4 What It Is to Die PART II Can We Survive Our Death? 5 The Tragic Sense of Life (Excerpts) 6 Can We Survive Our Deaths? 7 The Possibility of an Afterlife PART III Can Death Be Good or Bad for Us? If So, When Is It Good or Bad for Us? 8 Letter to Menoeceus 9 Two Arguments for Epicureanism 10 Why Death Is Not Bad for the One Who Dies 11 Death Is Bad for Us When We’re Dead 12 Making Death Not Quite as Bad for the One Who Dies PART IV Can Lucretius’ Asymmetry Problem Be Solved? 13 On the Nature of Things (Excerpts) 14 If You Want to Die Later, Then Why Don’t You Want to Have Been Born Earlier? 15 Coming Into and Going Out of Existence PART V Would Immortality Be Good for Us? 16 The Epic of Gilgamesh (Excerpts) 17 The Story of the Man Who Did Not Wish to Die 18 How to Live a Never-Ending Novela (Or, Why Immortality Needn’t Undermine Identity 19 Taking Stock of the Risks of Life without Death 20 Immortality, Boredom, and Standing for Something PART VI What Is the Best Attitude to Take Toward Our Mortality? 21 Death, Mortality, and Meaning 22 Fitting Attitudes Towards Deprivations 23 The Enchiridion (Excerpts) 24 Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion (Excerpts) 25 Voluntary Death PART VII How Should We React to the Deaths of Others? 26 Letter to Lucilius 27 Why Grieve? 28 The Significance of Future Generations 29 Death and Survival Online PART VIII Is Suicide Rationally or Morally Defensible? 30 Whether One Is Allowed to Kill Oneself 31 Of Suicide (Excerpts) 32 Suicide is Sometimes Rational and Morally Defensible 33 Suicide and Its Discontents 34 An Irrational Suicide? PART IX How Does Death Affect the Meaningfulness of Our Lives? 35 World as Will and Representation (Excerpts) 36 Death in Mind: Life, Meaning, and Mortality 37 Meaning in Life in Spite of Death 38 Out of the Blue into the Black: Reflections on Death and Meaning

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Book SynopsisReligion and science are arguably the two most powerful social forces in the world today. But where religion and science were once held to be compatible, many people now perceive them to be in conflict. This unique book provides the best available introduction to the burning debates in this controversial field. Examining the defining questions and controversies, renowned expert Philip Clayton presents the arguments from both sides, asking readers to decide for themselves where they stand: science or religion, or science and religion? history and philosophy of science the role of scientific and religious ethics modifying genes, extending life, and experimenting with human subjects religion and the environmental crisis the future of science vs. the future of religion.Thoroughly updated throughout, this second edition explores religious traditions from around the world and provides insights from across the sciences, making this Trade Review'Religion and Science: The Basics is a fantastic primer that engagingly conveys clear historical, scientific, and religious-ethical approaches to key topics at the intersection of western science and religions. Clayton's approach is accessible to those who are new to the topic, and it is useful and engaging for experts and teachers. Spanning topics from physics to biology and research ethics to warfare technologies, readers will find important information and questions to consider from several world religious traditions, with an emphasis on monotheisms.' Christiana Zenner, Fordham University, USA'This well-written introduction to the relationships between religion and science by a leading scholar of the field is an excellent choice for undergraduates. Compact yet comprehensive, and engaging with both Western and Eastern faiths, this guide ranges through a series of contemporary topics, including the interaction between religion and physics, biology, the mind sciences and medical ethics. A new chapter on historical and philosophical dimensions of science and religion relations complements an updated discussion of contemporary debates about belief and unbelief that resonate in popular culture. Deftly handling the warfare thesis and other models for the interaction of science and religion, the book also looks to the future of this interaction and offers incisive questions for classroom discussion.' Stephen D. Snobelen, King’s College, Halifax, Canada"Religion and Science: The Basics is a fantastic primer that engagingly conveys clear historical, scientific, and religious-ethical approaches to key topics at the intersection of western science and religions. Clayton's approach is accessible to those who are new to the topic, and it is useful and engaging for experts and teachers. Spanning topics from physics to biology and research ethics to warfare technologies, readers will find important information and questions to consider from several world religious traditions, with an emphasis on monotheisms."- Christiana Zenner, Fordham University, USA"This well-written introduction to the relationships between religion and science by a leading scholar of the field is an excellent choice for undergraduates. Compact yet comprehensive, and engaging with both western and eastern faiths, this guide ranges through a series of contemporary topics, including the interaction between religion and physics, biology, the mind sciences and medical ethics. A new chapter on historical and philosophical dimensions of science and religion relations complements an updated discussion of contemporary debates about belief and unbelief that resonate in popular culture. Deftly handling the warfare thesis and other models for the interaction of science and religion, the book also looks to the future of this interaction and offers incisive questions for classroom discussion."- Stephen D. Snobelen, King’s College, Halifax, Canada"What could be more difficult than untangling the contemporary controversy over “science and religion”—and for a popular audience? Well, Philip Clayton seems to have achieved just that in a second-edition to Religion and Science: The Basics. [...] truly is a home-run [...] Highly recommended."- Jamin A. Hübner, Reading ReligionTable of ContentsPreface1. The basic question: science or religion, or science and religion? The debate that no one can avoid A naturalist and a theist in debate Taking stock 2. Expanding the options Theism and naturalism at odds God, design, and delusion A broader (and more interesting) exchangeConstructive skepticism: Michael ShermerTheistic evolution: Francis CollinsAgnostic naturalism: Neil DeGrasse TysonNew vistas 3. Science and the world’s religionsChristianity Judaism Islam Hinduism Buddhism Conclusions and further questions to explore 4. PhysicsWhy the religious interest in cosmology? Fundamental physics Fine-tuning and the multiverse What physics does and doesn’t show 5. The biological sciencesThe origins of life Evolution and creation Are genes the fundamental units of evolution? Are humans unique? 6. The neurosciencesBrains, minds, and consciousness Can thoughts and intentions do anything? Whatever happened to the soul? Challenging the boundaries between mind and brainReligious experience7. Religion and science in historical and philosophical perspectiveThe history of religion and science Are science and religion intrinsically at war?The philosophy of science Is science really objective?Separationists and IntegrationistsChange the names, solve the problem?8. Science, technology, and ethics Stem cell research Modifying our genesEthical issues at the end of life The rights of subjects in scientific experiments and medical care Warfare technologies 9. The future of science and religionSummarizing the options Making the case for partnerships They’re your questions now... GlossaryIndex

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Book SynopsisIn comparison to medicine, the professional field of public health is far less familiar. What is public health, and perhaps as importantly, what should public health be or become? How do causal concepts shape the public health agenda? How do study designs either promote or demote the environmental causal factors or health inequalities? How is risk understood, expressed, and communicated? Who is public health research centered on? How can we develop technologies so the benefits are more fairly distributed? Do people have a right to public health? How should we integrate ethics into public health practice?The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Public Health addresses these questions and more, and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising 26 chapters by an international and interdisciplinary team of contributors, the handbook is divided into four clear parts: Concepts and distinctions Reasons and actions Distribution and inequalitiesTable of ContentsIntroduction: Philosophy and Public Health Alex Broadbent and Sridhar Venkatapuram Part 1: Concepts and Distinctions 1. The Public in Public Health John Coggon 2. Medicine and Public Health Daniel Steel 3. Groups and Individuals Stephen John 4. Concepts of Health and Disease in Public Health Benjamin Smart 5. Public Health and Ethics Sridhar Venkatapuram 6. The Philosophical Implications of Fundamental Cause Theory Daniel Goldberg 7. Causal Pluralism and Public Health Federica Russo Part 2: Reasons and Actions 8. External Validity and Public Health Chad Harris 9. Explanation in Public Health Olaf Dammann 10. Evidence-Based Medicine and Public Health Mathew Mercuri and Ross E. G. Upshur 11. Profiling in Public Health Winnie Ma 12. Big Data and Public Health Derek W. Braverman 13. Machine Learning and Public Health: Philosophical Issues Thomas Grote and Alex Broadbent Part 3: Distribution and Inequalities 14. Capabilities, Human Flourishing, and the Health Gap Michael Marmot 15. Measuring Social Position in Health Inequality Research Mel Bartley 16. Race and Racism in Public Health M.A. Diamond-Hunter 17. Sex and Gender Blind Spots and Biases in Health Research Avni Amin, Lavanya Vijayasingham, and Jacqui Stevenson 18. Global Health Indicators and Data: Communicative Signs and Sites of Contest Sara L. M. Davis 19. Securitization and Health Jeremy Youde 20. Health, Place and Justice: A Philosophical Appraisal of Promoting Equity in Covid-19 through Disadvantage Indices Samantha Fritz, Tuhina Srivastava, Emily Sadecki, and Harald Schmidt Part 4: Rights and Duties 21. Social Justice and Public Health Maxwell J. Smith 22. Health, Healthcare, and Public Health as Objects of (Human) Rights Michael Da Silva 23. Disability Justice and Public Health Agnès Berthelot-Raffard 24. Ageing and Justice in Health: A Conceptual Map toward a Unified View Kebadu Mekonnen Gebremariam and Ritu Sadana 25. Philosophical Issues in Cancer and Public Health Anya Plutynski 26. Public Health, Human Rights, and Philosophy Kristen Hessler. Index

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Book SynopsisMetaphysics, almost entirely neglected by experimental philosophers, is the central focus of Experimental Metaphysics. The volume brings together a range of views aimed at addressing the question of how cognitive science might be relevant to metaphysics. With contributions from cognitive scientists and philosophers, chapters focus on theoretical and empirical issues involving the potential role of cognitive science in metaphysics. Alongside topics such as free will, objects and causation, in which relevant empirical evidence is discussed and connected to relevant metaphysical issues, more programmatic papers explore theoretical issues centered on the connection between cognitive science and metaphysics. This balanced approach exposes metaphysicians to philosophically relevant work in cognitive science, while showing cognitive scientists the ways in which their work might be important for philosophers.Presenting cutting-edge empirical and theoretical research, Experimental MeTrade ReviewMost of the important work that brings cognitive science and experimental methods to bear on metaphysics is yet to be undertaken, but this volume is a good start. * Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *Many philosophers think it is wildly implausible that experimental philosophy can make important contributions to metaphysics. This outstanding collection of groundbreaking essays proves that they are wrong. -- Stephen Stich, Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, Rutgers University, USAThis is an important and timely contribution to one of the newest and most exciting developments in contemporary philosophy: the project of bringing experimental philosophy and cognitive science to bear on contemporary metaphysics. -- L. A. Paul is Eugene Falk Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USATable of ContentsIntroduction, David Rose (Rutgers University, USA) 1. Metaphysics and Conceptual Analysis: Experimental Philosophy’s Place under the Sun, Uriah Kriegel (Institute Jean Nicod, France) 2. Experimental Philosophy, Conceptual Analysis, and Metasemantics, Jason Turner (University of Arizona, USA) 3. Intuitions and the Metaphysics of Causation, Sara Bernstein (Duke University, USA) 4. The Folk Psychological Roots of Free Will, Joshua Shepherd (University of Oxford, UK) 5. The Rationality of Psychological Essentialism, Shaun Nichols (University of Arizona, USA) 6. Folk Mereology is Teleological, David Rose and Jonathan Schaffer (Rutgers University, USA) 7. What Do the Folk Think about Composition, and Does It Matter?, Daniel Z. Korman (University of California, Santa Barbara, USA) and Chad Carmichael (Indiana University-Purdue, USA) 8. Folk Teleology and its Implications, Jacob W. Dink and Lance J. Rips (Northwestern University, USA) Index

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Book SynopsisThis book introduces the reader to Serres' unique manner of doing philosophy' that can be traced throughout his entire oeuvre: namely as a novel manner of bearing witness. It explores how Serres takes note of a range of epistemologically unsettling situations, which he understands as arising from the short-circuit of a proprietary notion of capital with a praxis of science that commits itself to a form of reasoning which privileges the most direct path (simple method) in order to expend minimal efforts while pursuing maximal efficiency. In Serres' universal economy, value is considered as a function of rarity, not as a stock of resources. This book demonstrates how Michel Serres has developed an architectonics that is coefficient with nature. Mathematic and Information in the Philosophy of Michel Serres acquaints the reader with Serres' monist manner of addressing the universality and the power of knowledge that is at once also the anonymous and empty faculty of incandescent, inveTrade ReviewWhat happens when we take mathematics not as the elementary basis upon which science must bloom, but as an ‘architectonics’ that unfolds the world as it informs mass, space and time? With great rigor, in content and style, Bühlmann reads the concepts that Michel Serres produced in his oeuvre through his mathematics and information theory, revealing his highly original, inclusive and affirmative philosophy of the 21st century. -- Rick Dolphijn, Associate Professor of Theories of Arts and Culture, Utrecht University, the NetherlandsThe importance of Serres’ philosophy has mostly gone unrecognized in continental philosophy, even though this philosopher had a critical influence on many of its key figures, such as Deleuze and Foucault. The dearth of informed commentary is now reduced by this scholar whose knowledge of mathematics is able to bridge both the analytical and continental traditions. -- Gregg Lambert, Dean’s Professor of Humanities, Syracuse University, USATable of ContentsForeword Chapter one: Introduction The plan of this book Chapter two: Quantum literacy Elementary indecision Communication versus production: Bearing witness, and literacy Cultivating indecision: The quantum domain’s domesticity Ciphers, zeroness, equations: Architectonics of nothing Chance-bound objects Taking ignorance into account: Quantifying strangeness Entropy and negentropy The price of information as a measure for an object’s strangeness Quantum literacy: Towards a novel theory of the subject ‘La Langue est une Puissance’ Chapter three: Chronopedia I: Counting time Meteora: The wisdom of the weather Code: A rosetta stone, a double staircase Time modelled as contemporaneity Counting time: Equinox and solstice The turning points for modelled beginnings and ends Of tables and models Sense means significance and direction Meteora A logos genuine to the world – ‘Le Logiciél Intra-Matériel’ Software, hardware Economy of maxima and minima: An anarchic logos Chapter four: Chronopedia II: Treasuring time Homothesis as the locus in quo of the universal’s presence 1st iteration (acquiring a space of possibility) 2nd iteration (learning to speak a language in which no one is native) 3rd iteration (setting the stage for thought to comprehend itself) 4th iteration (intelligence that is immanent and coextensive with the universe) 5th iteration (inventing a scale of reproduction) 6th iteration (the formula, a double-articulating application) The amorous nature of intellectual conception 1st iteration (marking all that is assumed to be constant with a cipher) 2nd iteration (confluence of multiple geneses) 3rd iteration (the residence of that which is genuinely migrational) 4th iteration (universal genitality) 5th iteration (mathematics is the circuit of cunning reason’s ruses) 6th iteration (the real as a black spectrum) Chapter five: Banking universality: The magnitudes of ageing Metaphysics The quickness of a magnanimous universe Invariance: Genericness in terms of entropy and negentropy Genuine and immanent to the all of time: Le ‘logiciel intra-matériel’ White metaphysics: How old does the world think it is? Freedom The neutral element: Materialism of identity (Pan’s) glossematics: The economy that deals with ‘purport’ Quanta of contemporaneity: Heat to incandescence, storage to bank account Quantum writing: Substitutes step in to address things themselves Chapter six: The incandescent Paraclete: Tables of plenty Equatoriality generalized Coming of age, liking sunset and sunrise How to combine precision with finesse or: euphoria contained by instruments that behave like cornucopia The (mathematical) inverse of Pantopia is not a utopia: Law in the panonymy of the whole world The objective mentality and character of instruments The vicarious order of knowledge that is authentic to the world Pan: The excitable subject of universal knowledge Generational con-sequentiality Blessed curiosity Exodic discourse Chapter seven: Sophistication and anamnesis: Retrograde movement of truth, remembering an abundant past The currency of knowledge The price of truth, and the price of information The convertibility of truth Classicism: Remembering contemporaneity Classical analysis, symbolical analysis Interlude: The Tower of Eiffel, archetypical symbol of existentialism? Building a cipher A corpus of intelligent forms The technical order of an object that is comfortable How to reason the sum total of all archetypes? Towards critique with regard to the symbolic alchemy of myth-making A realist classicism Familiarizing ourselves as strangers, native to the universe The domain of the quasi: Instructive analysis, character dispositions How can reason in general learn from singularities? Of genealogical and of tabular orders: Eating ‘next to’ (parasite) Heterogeneous scales, logistical uniformality (forms of operation) Indexical address: The referential of the centre Respecting order by challenging it Cunning ruses: The anarchic architectonic way of paying respect How to address the third-person singular? Augmentation, not authorship Anarchic civility, and the meanings of cultures Chapter eight Coda: Quantum literacy and architectonic dispositioning Architecture and philosophy Chapter zero: Instead of a conclusion: The static tripod Notes Bibliography

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Book SynopsisIn recent decades the humanities have been in thrall to postmodern skepticism, while Darwinists, brimming with confidence in the genuine progress they have made in the sciences of biology and psychology, have set their sights on rescuing the humanities from the ravages of postmodernism. In this volume, Eugene Goodheart attacks the neo-Darwinist approach to the arts and articulates a powerful defense of humanist criticism.E. O. Wilson, the distinguished Harvard biologist, has spoken of converting philosophy into science, substituting science for religion, and formulating a biological theory of literature and the arts in Consilence: The Unity of Knowledge. Goodheart demonstrates that Wilson''s efforts, and those of his colleagues Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, and Daniel Dennett among others, have resulted in scientism rather than science. If, for example, Dawkins had contented himself in The Selfish Gene with the claim that Darwinism had made worthless otherTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsPrologue1. Reducing Literature and the Arts2. Demystifying Religion3. Reinventing Ethics4. Is History a Science?5. Condescending to Science6. In Defense of DualismEpilogueWorks CitedIndex

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Book SynopsisFive innovative essays demonstrating how Aristotle's biology is an integral part of Aristotle's understanding of the universe.

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Book SynopsisRanges widely and deeply across William Blake's oeuvre to show how his post-Newtonian vision of space-time anticipates Einsteinian relativity.

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Book SynopsisEvery animal on earth has its own unique character—the slow sloth, the burrowing mole, the towering giraffe, the huge but flexible elephant. In nine vivid portrayals of different animals, Craig Holdrege shows how an animal's features are interconnected and reveal the animal as a whole. This insightful book presents readers with a fresh view of animals and nature by addressing each animal individually and succinctly asking, ‘who are you?’. This leads to a ground-breaking understanding of animal development and evolution as creative processes in which the animals are active participants. These revelations can help us find a way to learn from nature, rather than work against it, in order to improve the health of the planet in the future. An insightful and inspiring guide which encourages readers to change the way they think about animals, in order to understand how we can learn and grow from them.

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Book SynopsisSocial visionary Joseph Chilton Pearce’s indictment of cultural imprinting as the cause of humankind’s cruel and violent behavior • Refutes the Neo-Darwinist assumption that violence is inherent in humanity • Identifies religion as the sustaining force behind our negative cultural imprinting • Shows how infant-adult interactions unconsciously block the creative spirit We are all too aware of the endless variety of cruel and violent behavior reported to us in the media, reminded daily that in every corner of the world someone is suffering or dying at the hands of another. We have to ask: Is this violence and cruelty endemic to our nature? Are we, at our foundation, really so murderous? In The Death of Religion and the Rebirth of Spirit, Joseph Chilton Pearce, life-long advocate of human potential, sounds an emphatic and convincing no. Pearce explains that beneath our awareness, culture imprints a negative force-field that blocks the natural rise of the spirit toward its innate nature of love and altruism. Further, he identifies religion as the primary cultural force behind this negative imprinting. Drawing from recent neuroscience, neurocardiology, cultural anthropology, and brain development research, Pearce explains that the key to reversing this trend can be found in the interaction between infants and adults. The adult mind-set effectively compromises the infant’s neural and hormonal interactions between the heart and the higher evolutionary structures of the developing brain, thus keeping us centered primarily in our most primitive and defensive neural foundations, generation after generation. Pearce shows us that if we allow the intelligence of the heart to take hold and flourish, we can reverse this unconscious loss of our true nature.

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Book SynopsisAn increasing number of enthusiasts are attracted by the rich variety of rocks and minerals around us, and new ways of looking at them.In this book, Walther Cloos views the Earth as a living organism, with different kingdoms of nature -- mineral, plant and animal – as stages left behind as the earth developed. He argues that everything currently inert and static was once dynamic and living.The author considers many different aspects of geology, including chapters on oil, sedimentary rocks, radioactivity, volcanoes and metals.Written over fifty years ago, this book is a classic, pioneering a scientific, geological understanding of Rudolf Steiner's spiritual insights into the evolution of the earthThe previous edition of this book was published as 'The Living Earth'.

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Book SynopsisRhythm and number underpin our lives, from the days of the week and the times of the day to the number of letters in the alphabet. But do we ever stop to consider the deeper meaning behind these every day realities?In Uncovering the Secrets of Time and Number Wolfgang Held offers a fascinating exploration of this question. He looks at why there are seven days in a week and how each day resonates with different soul moods in the human being, for example why Tuesday is a good day for making mistakes and why Friday is the day of beauty and creativity. He also explores the qualities of numbers from one to thirty-one, explaining how many things have an inherent number attached to them: one sun, two parents, three meals a day, four seasons. The practical insights brought together in this book can help the reader become more conscious of their relationship to time and number, allowing them to organise their lives in a harmonious way.Previously published as Rhythms of the Week and Other Explorations of Time and The Quality of Numbers 1 to 31.

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Book SynopsisAlfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), a mathematician and logician by training, was the author of highly original works at the crossroads of science and philosophy which explore the nature of the world around us and its temporal flow.Convinced that everyday terms distort reality, Whitehead invented or borrowed terms more appropriate to his project. The word 'Process', which gives its title to his most famous work Process and Reality (1929), is central to his thinking. Process introduces his vision of nature as a succession of crystallizations, each of which proves the finite granularity of time: the instant does not exist. It also implies a confrontation with the theory of relativity and quantum physics. Whitehead's perspective allows for the occurrence of creative novelties, but necessitates that the world cooperates with a deity, the role of which is examined in this book's last chapter.In Alfred North Whitehead, Philosopher of Time, the author mixes biographical elements with intellectual advances, from logicism to philosophies of nature. A compelling introduction to Whitehead's demanding work, this book deciphers a metaphysical landscape often considered too abstract to be approachable, but points out the philosopher's imperfections with respect to the scientific advances of our time.

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Book SynopsisIn the philosophical language of Aristotle and the Greeks of Antiquity, 'Physics' roughly translates as 'the order of nature', covering what we would now differentiate as philosophy, science, politics, humanities and religion. One of Aristotle's great works, of which we here present an abridged edition, The Physics is an investigation into the nature of being, of the world and its place in the universe. Although philosophically much broader, it provides the foundation for the later work of Galileo and Isaac Newton, and prefigures Albert Einstein's breakthrough theories on time, space and the motion of stars. The FLAME TREE Foundations series features core publications which together have shaped the cultural landscape of the modern world, with cutting-edge research distilled into pocket guides designed to be both accessible and informative.

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Book SynopsisDemocratizing Technology provides a much-needed fresh perspective on the regulation of chemicals, and an important contribution to green thinking about technology.Caroline Lucas, Green Party MEP. This book is an excellent critique of the current risk-based approach to technology. By exploring the philosophical underpinnings and the practical applications of current policy on science and technology, Chapman exposes the serious flaws in allowing economic considerations to dominate the agenda in this area. Her proposals for reform are expertly constructed and deserve urgent and serious consideration by policy-makers.Dr Stuart Parkinson, Executive Director, Scientists for Global Responsibility. In this important book Anne Chapman argues that decisions about technology should answer a republican question: what kind of public world should we create through technology? Democratizing Technology deserves to be read widely. John ONeill, Professor of Political Economy, University of Manchester, UK A welcome addition to the new, more empirical and applied literature in philosophy of technology. This book will be essential reading for a variety of scholars and for the general reader intent on understanding, and criticizing, our chemically made world.Andrew Light, Interim Director, Program on the Environment, University of Washington, US What is technology? How do humans use it to build and modify the world? What are the relationships between technology, science, economics and democratic governance? What, if any, are our ethical and political responsibilities and choices in how we develop, deploy and control technology in democratic states? Democratizing Technology sets out to answer these questions. Focusing on the most widespread and pervasive technology - chemicals - this groundbreaking volume peels apart the critical technology debate to look at the relationship between humans, technology and the biological world. Attention is given to the immensely important new regulations, REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and restriction of Chemicals), the EUs largest ever legal framework, discussing the problems that are likely to occur in REACHs reliance on risk assessment methods and suggesting an alternative way forward for the regulation of chemicals. Providing much-needed clarity and insight into the heart of key debates in science and technology, risk analysis and mitigation, and domestic and international law, this volume arrives as a breath of fresh air.Trade Review'Democratizing Technology is an interesting book with contorversial opinions and proposals. [...] The book is a good candidate for the start of many interesting discussions in and out the classroom. Recommended.' R.E. Buntrock, formerly, University of Maine, USA 'Where the book excels is the thoughtful exploration of questions of profound relevance to public health, such as divergence between our understanding, our behaviours and public policies with respect to risk and responsibility. The analysis provides innovative insights for behaviouralists, policy development in both theoretical and practical spheres, ethicists, political analysts, environmental health scholars and all who encounter technology, and wonder about how we personally and collectively respond to technology in our midst.' Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 'An interesting book with controversial opinions and proposals... Recommended' ChoiceTable of ContentsPreface * Acknowledgements * Introduction * What is Technology? * Technology as World-Building * Technology, Science and the Economy * The Regulation of Chemicals * Risk * Assessing Risks from Chemicals * The Ethical and Political Framework of Regulation * Responsibility * Making Decisions about Technology * Index

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Book SynopsisA fascinating glimpse into the secret world of water drops and how they manifest on a range of materials from salt to gemstones and tears. Lavishly illustrated, this is a window into a natural world of astounding beauty.

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Book SynopsisThis book traces the history of life-concepts, with a focus on the vegetable souls of Aristotle, investigating how they were interpreted and eventually replaced by evolutionary biology. Philosophers have long struggled with the relationship between physics, physiology, and psychology, asking questions of organization, purpose, and agency. For two millennia, the vegetable soul, nutrition, and reproduction were commonly used to understand basic life and connect it to “higher” animal and vegetable life. Cartesian dualism and mechanism destroyed this bridge and left biology without an organizing principle until Darwin. Modern biology parallels Aristotelian vegetable life-concepts, but remains incompatible with the animal, rational, subjective, and spiritual life-concepts that developed through the centuries. Recent discoveries call for a second look at Aristotle’s ideas – though not their medieval descendants. Life remains an active, chemical process whose cause, identity, and purpose is self-perpetuation.Trade Review“Life Concepts, Mix (Harvard) provides a comprehensive treatise of the soul, emphasizing nutritive or vegetable souls, from the concept's beginnings with Homer and pre-Socratic philosophers to significant development of the disparate views of Plato and Aristotle. … As a philosophical and theological work, Mix provides a meaningful and engaging account of a deep, enduring subject.” (Z. B. Johnson, Choice, Vol. 56 (8), April, 2019)​Table of Contents1. Vegetable Souls? 2. Greek Life – Psyche and Early Life-Concepts 3. Strangely Moved – Appetitive Souls in Plato 4. Three Causes in One – Biological Explanation in Aristotle 5. Life in Action – Nutritive Souls in Aristotle 6. Plants versus Animals in Hellenistic Thought 7. The Breath of Life – Nephesh in Hebrew Scriptures 8. Life after Life – Spiritual Life in Christianity 9. Invisible Seeds – Life-Concepts in Augustine 10. Aristotle Returns – A Second Medieval Synthesis 11. Life Divided – Vegetable Life in Aquinas 12. Mechanism Displaces the Soul 13. Divided Hopes – Physics versus Metaphysics 14. Ghosts in the Machine – Vitalism 15. The Same and Different – Early Theories of Evolution 16. Vegetable Significance – Evolution by Natural Selection 17. “Vegetables” versus Modern Plants 18. Counting Lives- Regulators and Replicators 19. What Can Be Revived (and What Cannot)

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Book SynopsisThis innovative book proposes a unique and original perspective on the nature of the mind and how phenomenal consciousness may arise in a physical world. From simple sentient organisms to complex self-reflective systems, Faye argues for a naturalistic-evolutionary approach to philosophy of mind and consciousness. Drawing on substantial literature in evolutionary biology and cognitive science, this book offers a promising alternative to the major theories of the mind-body problem: the quality of our experiences should not, as some philosophers have claimed, be associated with subjectivity that is not open for scientific explanation, nor should it be associated with intrinsic properties of the brain. Instead, Faye argues that mental properties are extrinsic properties of the brain caused by the organism’s interaction with its environment. Taking on the explanatory gap, and rejecting the ontological pluralism of present naturalist theories of the mind, Faye thus proposes a unified view of reality in which it is possible to explain qualitative mental presentations as part of the physical world. Table of ContentsChapter 1: Flipping the Debate.- Chapter 2: Our Animal Mind.- Chapter 3: Subjectivity in a Biological Perspective.- Chapter 4: A Difference That Is No Difference.- Chapter 5: Why Identity Is Not Enough.- Chapter 6: Functionalism, Mechanisms, and Levels of Reality.- Chapter 7: The Environment Is What Matters.- Chapter 8: Understanding Consciousness.- Chapter 9: Conclusion.

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Book SynopsisThis book is an investigation of the ideological dimensions of the disciplinary discourses on science in line with the scholarly tradition of historical epistemology. It offers a programmatic treatment of the political-epistemological problematic along three entangled lines of inquiry: socio-historical, epistemological and historiographical. The book aims for a meta-level integration of the existing scholarship on the social and cultural history of science in order to consider the ways in which struggles for hegemony have constantly informed scientific discourses. This problematic is of primary relevance for scholars in Science Studies, philosophers, historians and sociologists of science, but would also be relevant for anybody interested in scientific culture and political theory.Table of ContentsChapter 1. Political Epistemology: Positioning Science Studies.- Chapter 2. The Logic of Science and Technology as a Developmental Tendency of Modernity.- Chapter 3. On Both Sides of the Iron Curtain: The Marxist Struggle for Cultural Hegemony and HPS for a ‘Free Society’.- Chapter 4. Toward a Socio-Political History of Science: From Structures to Hegemonies.- Chapter 5. Hegemony and Science: Epistemological and Historiographical Perspectives.

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Book SynopsisThis open access book offers a unique and practically oriented study of organisational and national conditions for implementing Responsible Research Innovation (RRI) policies and practices. It gives the reader a thorough understanding of the different aspects of RRI, and of barriers and drivers of implementation of RRI related policies. It shows how different organisational and national contexts provide unique challenges and opportunities for bringing RRI into practice. The book provides concrete examples and offers the reader both a theory-based understanding of the topic, as well as guidance for action. The target audience encompasses, in addition to RRI students and scholars in particular, all students and scholars in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). The book is also of interest to students and scholars in the fields of research ethics, philosophy of science, organisational governance in the research system and organisational theory more generally. Finally, the book is of use to practitioners in research conducting and funding organisations working to implement RRI. Table of Contents1. About this report.- 2. General introduction to the RRI-Practice Study. - 3. Organizational Drivers for Responsible Research and Innovation.- 4. Organizational Barriers for Responsible Research and Innovation.- 5. Discussion of key findings in the organisational study.- 6. Overview of national discourse by country.- 7. How national contexts affect the RRI keys and dimensions.- 8. The who, why and how questions and the AIRR dimensions.- 9. Discussion and conclusion on the national comparison.

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Book SynopsisThis book discusses a link between statistical theory and quantum theory based on the concept of epistemic processes. The latter are processes, such as statistical investigations or quantum mechanical measurements, that can be used to obtain knowledge about something. Various topics in quantum theory are addressed, including the construction of a Hilbert space from reasonable assumptions and an interpretation of quantum states. Separate derivations of the Born formula and the one-dimensional Schrödinger equation are given. In concrete terms, a Hilbert space can be constructed under some technical assumptions associated with situations where there are two conceptual variables that can be seen as maximally accessible. Then to every accessible conceptual variable there corresponds an operator on this Hilbert space, and if the variables take a finite number of values, the eigenspaces/eigenvectors of these operators correspond to specific questions in nature together with sharp answers to these questions. This paves a new way to the foundations of quantum theory. The resulting interpretation of quantum mechanics is related to Hervé Zwirn's recent Convivial Solipsism, but it also has some relations to Quantum Bayesianism and to Rovelli's relational quantum mechanics. Niels Bohr's concept of complementarity plays an important role. Philosophical implications of this approach to quantum theory are discussed, including consequences for macroscopic settings.The book will benefit a broad readership, including physicists and statisticians interested in the foundations of their disciplines, philosophers of science and graduate students, and anyone with a reasonably good background in mathematics and an open mind.Table of Contents1. The epistemic view upon science.- 2. Statistical inference.- 3. Inference in an epistemic process.- 4. Towards quantum theory.- 5. Aspects of quantum theory.- 6. Macroscopic consequences.

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Book SynopsisThis book offers a considered yet entertaining reflection on the progress of modern scientific research. The winding path of science can only be understood by revealing the personal, human side of scientific research, demystifying the actions of the scientist and exposing the human drama on the stage of science. The book looks at the true nature of contemporary science and scientists through the lens of the personal experiences of the author, a renowned and leading materials scientist, over the last half century. It examines the positive threads of modern scientific progress in sober juxtaposition to the manifest negative developments arising from stiff competition within the current academic landscape. A collection of stories and real-life anecdotes is presented in parallel to the career of the author, providing a first-hand account of important achievements in the field of materials science. As a result, this book provides fascinating reading for students, seasoned scientists, and anybody else interested in the workings and machinations of modern science.Trade Review“This is a fascinating book that should appeal to anyone wanting to have a view of the life of a typical academic scientist. … this book is thought provoking and should be of interest to anyone already working in science, especially those intending to work in science. There are many warnings and, at the same time, delights to be found in the numerous anecdotes and descriptions provided by the author. It is a generally good and entertaining read.” (A. Mike Glazer, Journal of Applied Crystallography, Vol. 56, 2023)“The book is a mixture of family history, the history of science, an insight into the politics of science, impressions of the publishing world … . It is recommended reading for researchers at all levels who are interested in materials-science research, funding and politics. … This book is a gem. A gem in the rough perhaps, but all the more genuine and valuable (to many) for that.” (C. Barry Carter, Journal of Materials Science, Vol. 58, 2023)Table of ContentsThe Parents.- Growing Up.- Touching Science; School Years.- The Notions Science and Physical Law.- The Becoming of a Scientist.

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Book SynopsisThis open access book provides an overview of issues of scientific responsibility. The volume comprises three types of contributions: first, analyses of the responsibility of science; second, analyses of the structural conditions for science and its responsibility; and third, normative versions of scientific responsibility. The questions and problems dealt with include science as a profession, ambivalence of research and dual-use, innovation vs. precaution, notions of responsibility, the role of science within society and its relation to human rights, as well as scientific and public discourses. The book addresses scholars in the fields of Science Studies and Research Policy.This is an open access book.Table of ContentsPreface.- Part 1. Analyses of the Responsibility of Science.- 1. Responsibility in Science: The Philosophical View (Hans Lenk).- 2. Science as a Profession and its Responsibility (Harald A. Mieg).- 3. Corporate Responsibility: A Principle of Responsive Adjustment (Peter A. French).- Part 2. The Social Sciences View: Structural Conditions for Science Responsibility.- 4. Science Policy: From the Linear Model to Responsible Research and Innovation (Philip Macnaghten).- 5. European Law: The Precautionary Principle and Science-based Innovation in Europe (Ellen Vos & Kristel de Smedt).- 6. History of Science: Ambivalence(s) in the Research and use of Nuclear Energy (Horst Kant).- Part 3. The Scientists' Voice on the Responsibility of Science.- 7. Between Parrhesia and Fake: Scientific Responsibility Today (Rainer E. Zimmermann).- 8. On the Responsibility of Science for Guaranteeing Human Rights: In the Fight Against Human Degradation, Racism, and Anti-Semitism (Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski).- 9. The Ambivalences of the Digital: Humans and Technologies Between new Options (dreams) and (un)noticeable Losses (Hartmut Graßl et al.)- Index.

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Book SynopsisThis book shows how the study of multi-hadron production phenomena in the years after the founding of CERN culminated in Hagedorn's pioneering idea of limiting temperature, leading on to the discovery of the quark-gluon plasma -- announced, in February 2000 at CERN.Following the foreword by Herwig Schopper -- the Director General (1981-1988) of CERN at the key historical juncture -- the first part is a tribute to Rolf Hagedorn (1919-2003) and includes contributions by contemporary friends and colleagues, and those who were most touched by Hagedorn: Tamás Biró, Igor Dremin, Torleif Ericson, Marek Gaździcki, Mark Gorenstein, Hans Gutbrod, Maurice Jacob, István Montvay, Berndt Müller, Grazyna Odyniec, Emanuele Quercigh, Krzysztof Redlich, Helmut Satz, Luigi Sertorio, Ludwik Turko, and Gabriele Veneziano.The second and third parts retrace 20 years of developments that after discovery of the Hagedorn temperature in 1964 led to its recognition as the melting point of hadrons into boiling quarks, and to the rise of the experimental relativistic heavy ion collision program. These parts contain previously unpublished material authored by Hagedorn and Rafelski: conference retrospectives, research notes, workshop reports, in some instances abbreviated to avoid duplication of material, and rounded off with the editor's explanatory notes.About the editor: Johann Rafelski is a theoretical physicist working at The University of Arizona in Tucson, USA. Born in 1950 in Krakow, Poland, he received his Ph.D. with Walter Greiner in Frankfurt, Germany in 1973. Rafelski arrived at CERN in 1977, where in a joint effort with Hagedorn he contributed greatly to the establishment of the relativistic heavy ion collision, and quark-gluon plasma research fields. Moving on, with stops in Frankfurt and Cape Town, to Arizona, he invented and developed the strangeness quark flavor as the signature of quark-gluon plasma.Trade Review“The book is undoubtedly an ideal companion to all those who wish to recall the birth of one of the main areas of today’s concepts in high-energy physics, and it is definitely a well-deserved credit to one of the great pioneers in their development.” (Frithjof Karsch, CERN Courier, June, 2016)Table of ContentsPart I Reminiscences: Rolf Hagedorn and Relativistic Heavy Ion Research.-- Part II The Hagedorn Temperature.- Part III Melting Hadrons, Boiling Quarks Heavy Ion Path to Quark-Gluon Plasma.- Acronyms.

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Book SynopsisIn this compendium of essays, some of the world’s leading thinkers discuss their conceptions of space and time, as viewed through the lens of their own discipline. With an epilogue on the limits of human understanding, this volume hosts contributions from six or more diverse fields. It presumes only rudimentary background knowledge on the part of the reader.Time and again, through the prism of intellect, humans have tried to diffract reality into various distinct, yet seamless, atomic, yet holistic, independent, yet interrelated disciplines and have attempted to study it contextually. Philosophers debate the paradoxes, or engage in meditations, dialogues and reflections on the content and nature of space and time. Physicists, too, have been trying to mold space and time to fit their notions concerning micro- and macro-worlds. Mathematicians focus on the abstract aspects of space, time and measurement. While cognitive scientists ponder over the perceptual and experiential facets of our consciousness of space and time, computer scientists theoretically and practically try to optimize the space-time complexities in storing and retrieving data/information. The list is never-ending. Linguists, logicians, artists, evolutionary biologists, geographers etc., all are trying to weave a web of understanding around the same duo. However, our endeavour into a world of such endless imagination is restrained by intellectual dilemmas such as: Can humans comprehend everything? Are there any limits? Can finite thought fathom infinity? We have sought far and wide among the best minds to furnish articles that provide an overview of the above topics. We hope that, through this journey, a symphony of patterns and tapestry of intuitions will emerge, providing the reader with insights into the questions: What is Space? What is Time?Chapter [15] of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. Table of ContentsPhilosophy: Śrīharṣa on the Indefinability of Time by Jonathan Duquette and Krishnamurti Ramasubramanian.- Why Spacetime Has a Life of its Own by James Robert Brown.- From Time to Time by Nathan Salmon.- Relativity Theory may not have the last Word on the Nature of Time: Quantum Theory and Probabilism by Nicholas Maxwell.- Space as a Source and as an Object of Knowledge: The Transformation of the Concept of Space in the Post-Kantian Philosophy of Geometry by Francesca Biagioli.- Space, Time and (how they) Matter by Valia Allori.- The Phenomenology of Space and Time: Husserl, Sartre, Derrida by Hans Herlof Grelland.- Time and Space in Ancient India, Pre­-Philosophical Period by Michael Witzel and Nataliya Yanchevskaya.- Time in Physics and Time in Awareness by E. C. G. Sudarshan.- Physics: The Future’s Not Ours to See, by Tony Sudbury.- Nature’s Book Keeping System by Gerard ‘t Hooft.- An anomaly in space and time and the origin of dynamics by Joan A. Vaccaro.- Spacetime and Reality: Facing the Ultimate Judge by Vesselin Petkov.- Hermann Weyl’s Space-Time Geometry and its Impact on Theories of Fundamental Interactions by Norbert Straumann.- Space, Time, and Adynamical Explanation in the Relational Blockworld by W.M. Stuckey, Michael Silberstein, and Timothy McDevitt.- Matter, Space, Time, and Motion: A Unified Gravitational Perspective by C. S. Unnikrishnan.- Spacetime is Doomed by George Musser.- Mathematics: Geometry and Physical Space by Mary Leng.- The Geometry of Manifolds and the Perception of Space by Raymond O. Wells, Jr.- Topos Theoretic Approach to Space and Time by Goro C. Kato.- Paradox? The Mathematics of Space-Time and the Limits of Human Understanding by Paul Ernest.- General Relativity, Time, and Determinism by James Isenberg.- “Now” has an infinitesimal positive duration by Reuben Hersh.- The Fundamental Problem of Dynamics by Julian Barbour.- What’s wrong with the Platonic ideal of space and time? by Lorenzo Sadun.- Biology/Cognitive Science: Syntactic Space by Rajesh Kasturirangan.- Time measurement in living systems: Human understanding and health implications by L Abhilash and Vijay Kumar Sharma.- The cellular space-the space of life by Pier Luigi Luisi.- The consciousness of space, the space of consciousness by Mauro Bergonzi and Pier Luigi Luisi.- Time and Suffering (False metaphors, (de)synchronous times, and internal dynamics) by Norman Sieroka.- Evolutionary Time and the Creation of the Space of Life by Randall E. Auxier.- Computer Science: A computational mathematics view of space, time and complexity by David H. Bailey and Jonathan M. Borwein.- The Black Hole in Mathematics by A. K. Dewdney.- Gödel’s Ontological Dreams by Gary Mar.- ‘Photographing the Footsteps of Time’: Space and Time in Charles Babbage’s Calculating Engines by Doron Swade.- Gödel incompleteness and the empirical sciences by N. C. A. da Costa and F. A. Doria.- Miscellaneous: The Novel and the Map: Spatiotemporal Form and Discourse in Literary Cartography by Robert T. Tally Jr.- Time, Space, and the Human Geographies of Opportunity by Donald G. Janelle.- Losing Time and Space: Experiencing Immersion by Diana J. Reichenbach. <

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisThis volume marks a phase of accomplishment in the work of the World Phenomenology Institute in unfolding a dialogue between Occidental phenomenology and the Oriental/Chinese classic philosophy. Going beyond the stage of reception, the Oriental scholars show in this collection of studies their perspicacity and philosophical skills in comparing the concepts, ideas, the vision of classic phenomenology and Chinese philosophy toward uncovering their common intuitions. This in-depth probing aims at reviving Occidental thinking, reaching to its intuitive sources, as well as providing Chinese thinking with a precise apparatus of expression toward its rejuvenation in a new significance. Studies by Korean and Chinese phenomenologists: Nam-In Lee, Inhui Park, Benjamin I. Schwartz, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Sitansu Ray, Zhang Xian, Zhang Qingxiong, Tsung-I Dow, Ashok K. Gangadean, Yushiro Takei, Louise Sunderarajan, Gregory Tropea, James Sellmann, Tyong Bok Rhie, Sang-Ki Kim, Daniel Zelinski, Qingjie Wang, Calvin O. Schrag, Jung-Sun Han. Table of ContentsThe Theme: The Metaphysical Harmony of Life as the Vocation of Philosophy: Oriental Philosophy in a Dialogue with Phenomenology. Inaugural Reflections. The Ethical and the Meta-Ethical in Chinese High Cultural Thought; B.I. Schwartz. Part I: Phenomenology of Life Answering the Call of our Times for the Harmony of the Spheres of Existence: Cosmos, Bios, Culture. Nature in the Ontopoiesis of Life: From the Cosmic Dissemination to the Human Cultivation of the Logos; A-T. Tymieniecka. Wissenschaftliche Lebensphilosophie als Grundcharakter der Phänomenologie; Nam-In Lee. The Natural and the Cultural; Inhui Park. The Tagore-Einstein Conversations: Reality and the Human World, Causality and Chance; S. Ray. Part II: Constituting/Reconstituting the Human World of Life: Consciousness, Subject, Intentionality, Mind. Husserl's Intentionality and the `Mind' in Chinese Philosophy; Zhang Xian. Die Grundstruktur des Bewußtseins: Husserl und Xiong Shili im Vergleich; Qingxiong Zhang. The Twofold Phenomenon in Naming: a Reflection from the Confucian-Taoist Yin-Yang Dialectical, Monistic Perspective; Tsung-I Dow. Phenomenology as a Critique of Cognition - A Dialogue on Husserl's `The Idea of Phenomenology'; Zhang Qingxiong. Meditative Reason and the Holistic Turn to Natural Phenomenology; A.K. Gangadean. Part III: The Poetic Divination as the Gist of Life. The Aesthetics of Process and Human Life; Y. Takei. Dwelling Poetically: a Heideggerian Interpretation of Ssu-K'ung T'u's Poetics; L. Sundararajan. I'Ching Divination and the Absolutely Poetic Reconstruction of Intentionality; G. Tropea. Part IV: Heaven and Earth and In-Between. On the Myth ofCosmogony in Ancient China; J. Sellmann. Eine Hermeneutik des Symbols im `Buch der Wandlungen' und die Seinserhellung; Tyong Bok Rhie. The Religious-Mythical Attitudes of the East Asians and Husserl's Phenomenology; Sang-Ki Kim. Towards a Phenomenology of Mystical Being; D. Zelinski. Part V: Metaphysical Underpinnings of the Intercultural Dialogue. Heidegger and Inter-Cultural Dialogue; Qingjie Wang. Communication in the Context of Cultural Diversity; C.O. Schrag. Kritik an der neokonfuzianischen Vernunft; Jung-Sun Han. Annex: Opening Statement of the Conference in Seoul, August 17th&endash;18th, 1992; Young-Ho Lee. Index of Names.

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Book SynopsisNew biotechnologies have propelled the question of what it means to be human – or posthuman – to the forefront of societal and scientific consideration. This volume provides an accessible, critical overview of the main approaches in the debate on posthumanism, and argues that they do not adequately address the question of what it means to be human in an age of biotechnology. Not because they belong to rival political camps, but because they are grounded in a humanist ontology that presupposes a radical separation between human subjects and technological objects.The volume offers a comprehensive mapping of posthumanist discourse divided into four broad approaches—two humanist-based approaches: dystopic and liberal posthumanism, and two non-humanist approaches: radical and methodological posthumanism. The author compares and contrasts these models via an exploration of key issues, from human enhancement, to eugenics, to new configurations of biopower, questioning what role technology plays in defining the boundaries of the human, the subject and nature for each. Building on the contributions and limitations of radical and methodological posthumanism, the author develops a novel perspective, mediated posthumanism, that brings together insights in the philosophy of technology, the sociology of biomedicine, and Michel Foucault’s work on ethical subject constitution. In this framework, technology is neither a neutral tool nor a force that alienates humanity from itself, but something that is always already part of the experience of being human, and subjectivity is viewed as an emergent property that is constantly being shaped and transformed by its engagements with biotechnologies. Mediated posthumanism becomes a tool for identifying novel ethical modes of human experience that are richer and more multifaceted than current posthumanist perspectives allow for.The book will be essential reading for students and scholars working on ethics and technology, philosophy of technology, poststructuralism, technology and the body, and medical ethics.Table of ContentsChapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. A Cartography of the Posthuman.- Chapter 3. The Human Enhancement Debate: For, Against and from Human Nature.- Chapter 4. Towards a Non-Humanist Posthumanism: The Originary Prostheticity of Radical and Methodological Posthumanism.- Chapter 5. From Molar to Molecular Bodies: Posthumanist Frameworks in Contemporary Biology.- Chapter 6. Posthuman Subjectivity: Beyond Modern Metaphysics.- Chapter 7. Technologically Produced Nature: Nature Beyond Schizophrenia and Paranoia.- Chapter 8. New Modes of Ethical Selfhood: Geneticization and Genetically Responsible Subjectivity.- Chapter 9. Conclusion.

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Book SynopsisNamed a Top Five Book of 2012 by Physics Today, USA.“Anderson has put together an entertaining and instructive collection of highly readable reviews, columns, talks, and unpublished essays on science and the scientists he has known. He is rarely inappropriately provocative, and he is a pleasure to read.”Physics TodayPhilip Anderson was educated at University High School in Urbana, Illinois, at Harvard (BS 1943, PhD 1949), and further educated at Bell Laboratories, where his career (1949-1984) coincided with the greatest period of that remarkable institution. Starting in 1967, he shared his time with Cambridge University (until 1975) and then with Princeton, where he continued full time as Joseph Henry Professor until 1997. As an emeritus he remains active in research, and at press time he was involved in several scientific controversies about high profile subjects, in which his point of view, though unpopular at the moment, is likely to prevail eventually. His colleagues have made him one of the two physicists most often cited in the scientific literature, for several decades.His work is characterized by mathematical simplicity combined with conceptual depth, and by profound respect for experimental findings. He has explored areas outside his main discipline, the quantum theory of condensed matter (for which he won the 1977 Nobel Prize), on several occasions: his paper on what is now called the “Anderson-Higgs mechanism” was a main source for Peter Higgs' elucidation of the boson; a crucial insight led to work on the dynamics of neutron stars (pulsars); and his concept of the spin glass led far afield, to developments in practical computer algorithms and neural nets, and eventually to his involvement in the early years of the Santa Fe Institute and his co-leadership with Kenneth Arrow of two influential workshops on economics at that institution. His writing career started with a much-quoted article in Science titled “More is Different” in 1971; he was an occasional columnist for Physics Today in the 1980s and 1990s. He was more recently a reviewer of science and science-related books for the Times (London) Higher Education Supplement as well as an occasional contributor to Science, Nature, and other journals.Table of ContentsPersonal Reminiscences; History; Philosophy and Sociology; Science Tactics and Strategy; Genius; Science Wars; Politics and Sciences; Futurology; Complexity; Popularization Attempts.

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Book SynopsisSince antiquity, opposed concepts such a s t he One and the Many, the Finite and the Infinite, and the Absolute and the Relative, have been a driving force in philosophical, scientific, and mathematical thought. Yet they have also given rise to perplexing problems and conceptual paradoxes which continue to haunt scientists and philosophers. In Oppositions and Paradoxes, John L. Bell explains and investigates the paradoxes and puzzles that arise out of conceptual oppositions in physics and mathematics. In the process, Bell not only motivates abstract conceptual thinking about the paradoxes at issue, he also offers a compelling introduction to central ideas in such otherwise-di¬ cult topics as non-Euclidean geometry, relativity, and quantum physics.These paradoxes are often as fun as they are flabbergasting. Consider, for example, the Tristram Shandy paradox: an immortal man composing an autobiography so slowly as to require a year of writing to describe each day of his life—he would, if he had infinite time, never complete the work, although no individual part of it would remain unwritten … Or imagine an English professor who time-travels back to 1599 to offer a printing of Hamlet to William Shakespeare, so as to help the Bard overcome writer’s block and author the play which will centuries later inspire an English professor to travel back in time … These and many other of the book’s paradoxes straddle the boundary between physics and metaphysics, and demonstrate the hidden difficulty of many of our most basic concepts.Trade Review“Who else but John Bell could write a book like this one? One of the leading logicians of our day, Bell uses the role of conceptual oppositions and the paradoxes to which they occasionally give rise to take readers on a whirlwind tour through great swaths of the history of human thought. The sophisticated discussion of deep and difficult topics is highly digestible thanks to Bell wearing his expertise lightly and presenting things with dollops of his clever—and sometimes silly—humour.” — David DeVidi, University of Waterloo“Bell is a master of simplicity and clarity, while sacrificing nothing of accuracy and erudition. His enthusiasm for his subject is palpable and infectious. Oppositions and Paradoxes is a pleasure to read.” — Graham Priest, CUNY Graduate Center“John L. Bell is the true philosophical heir of Bertrand Russell, and his new book, Oppositions and Paradoxes, exemplifies all the best traits in Russell’s legacy. His presentation of philosophical paradoxes and perplexities in logic, mathematics, and physics is a model of lucidity and economy, and his analysis of these problems is secure and sane. Oppositions and Paradoxes is readily accessible and a sure path into some of philosophy’s greatest themes.” — Bradley Bassler, University of GeorgiaTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsWhat Is This Book About?Chapter I: The Continuous and the DiscreteContinuity and DiscretenessThe Pythagorean School and Incommensurable MagnitudesAtomismThe Stoics and the Continuum Theory of MatterZeno’s ParadoxesContemporary Versions of Zeno’s Paradoxes: SupertasksInfinitesimalsChapter II: Oppositions and Paradoxes in Mathematics: Set Theory and the InfiniteSet Theory and the One/Many OppositionParadoxes of the InfiniteUncountable InfinitiesSet-Theoretic AntinomiesThe Axiom of ChoiceChapter III: The Strange Universe of Non-Euclidean GeometryHyperbolic GeometryRiemannian GeometryChapter IV: Puzzles and Paradoxes of Time TravelTime Travel into the Past: Branching TimelinesTemporal LoopsTime Travel into the FutureThe Future Time ViewerTwo-Dimensional TimeTemporal InterdictsTime Travel as a Physical PossibilityChapter V: Puzzles and Paradoxes of Relativity TheorySpecial RelativitySpacetimeFaster-than-Light Particles in Special Relativity: TachyonsGeneral Relativity: The Principle of EquivalenceBlack HolesChapter VI: Puzzles and Paradoxes in Quantum PhysicsWaves vs. ParticlesHeisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and Bohr’s Principle of ComplementarityQuantum TunnelingThe Riddle of PolarizationSchrödinger’s Cat ParadoxInterpretations of Quantum TheoryThe EPR Paradox and NonlocalityChapter VII: Cosmic EnigmasThe Beginnings of CosmologySteady-State vs. Big BangThe Problem of the Origin of the UniverseDark Matter, Dark Energy, and Cosmic AccelerationThe Argument from Design vs. the MultiverseA Philosophical CodaAppendix 1: Paradoxes in Logic and LanguageThe Liar ParadoxThe Liar, the Truth-Teller, and the Dice ManCurry’s ParadoxThe Grelling-Nelson ParadoxBerry’s ParadoxRichard’s ParadoxThe Paradox of the HeapAppendix 2: Reflections on the Constant and the ChangingAppendix 3: Oppositions in Kant’s PhilosophyAppendix 4: The Principle of Microstraightness, Nilpotent Infinitesimals, and the Differential CalculusFurther ReadingList of OppositionsList of ParadoxesIndex

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Book SynopsisThis innovative book concentrates on the important distinction between philosophy of medicine and medical philosophy, by expanding the focus from knowing that of the first term to the knowing how of the latter. Thus, the idea of patient and provider self-discovery becomes integral part, method, and strategy at the basis of therapeutic treatment. Among the most important contributions of this volume, the definition of Central Medicine, overcoming the dichotomy Western-Eastern medicine and Traditional-Integrative approaches, is presented under the lenses of hermeneutics, with particular regards to neurosciences, psychiatry, and psychology. Evidence-Based and Patient-Centred Medicine are analysed within the debate on placebo and non-specific effects. Furthermore, the clinical research presented in the appendix investigates the patient-doctor relationship, and the interactive nature of human relationships in general, including environment, personal beliefs, and perspectives on lifes meaning and purpose. Tomasis research covers neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and medicine. In this book, a wide array of questions and answers pertaining to these areas is presented in a clear, readable, and detailed way, satisfying the needs of professionals, students, and anyone who enjoys the exploration of the complexity of human mind, brain, and heart.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"The hybrid practices featured in this collection speak to collaboration and participation, between disciplines and between presenters and audiences. They speak to a fluidity of working in and across scientific, artistic, and performance disciplines." * Leonardo *"...[a] welcome addition to the field of hybrid practices." * Espace *"Specialists interested in inhabiting a range of situated environments from new points of view will find many rewards in Hybrid Practices." * Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society *"This book. . . . show[s] how interdisciplinarity allowed each community to reflect and find its place in a changing world. . . .[it] is well edited and allows a relevant understanding of all the case studies." * Technology and Culture *Table of ContentsForeword Saralyn Reece Hardy and Rebecca Blocksome Introduction: Reassessing Hybrid Practice David Cateforis, Steven Duval, and Shepherd Steiner PART I: FALLOUT: CREATIVITY AND INVENTION IN, AS, OR BETWEEN ART, SCIENCE, AND GOVERNMENT 1. Launching “Hybrid Practices” in the 1960s: On the Perils and Promise of Art and Technology / Anne Collins Goodyear 2. Identity, Rhetoric, and Method in the Collaborations of Experiments in Art and Technology, the Artist Placement Group, and the Art and Technology Program at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art / Steven Duval 3. Fallout and Spinoff : Commercializing the Art-Technology Nexus / W. Patrick McCray 4. Beyond Method and without Object: Subject as Inquiry in the Irwin-Wortz Collaboration / Dawna Schuld 5. Monuments to the Period We Live In / Craig Richardson PART II: AFFECTIVE FEEDBACK: TIME, PLAY, AND CONTAGION AS SYSTEMS OF PARTICIPATION 6. Sounding Snows: Bodily Static and the Politics of Visibility during the Vietnam War / Erica Levin 7. Contagious Creativity: Participatory Engagement in the Magic Theater Exhibition (1968) / Cristina Albu 8. Programming and Reprogramming the Institution: Systems Politics in Hans Haacke’s Photoelectric Viewer-Programmed Coordinate System / John A. Tyson PART III: THRESHOLDS OF THE VISIBLE: TECHNOLOGIES OF THE EVERYDAY 9. Technologies of Indeterminacy: John Cage Invents / Sandra Skurvida 10. Dramaturgical Devices and Stanley Milgram’s Hybrid Practice / Maya Rae Oppenheimer 11. Prostheses or Technical Extensions: Rereading the Work of Bernd and Hilla Becher / Shepherd Steiner Supplement: The Hale Experiments: Object-Oriented Ventriloquy during the Cold War An ESTAR(SER) project by the Prosopopoeia Working Group Acknowledgments List of Contributors List of Illustrations Index

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Book SynopsisAmong the great ironies of quantum mechanics is not only that its conceptual foundations seem strange even to the physicists who use it, but that philosophers have largely ignored it. Here, Bernard d'Espagnat argues that quantum physics--by casting doubts on once hallowed concepts such as space, material objects, and causality-demands serious reconTrade Review"Bernard d'Espagnat eschews the technical philosophical and mathematical jargon ... while nonetheless getting deeply into the consistency and plausibility of significant metaphysical claims. For all collections on the philosophy of science... Highly recommended."--Choice "In this valuable work, Bernard d'Espagnat brings his considerable expertise in contemporary physics to bear on the difficult philosophical issues arising from the current understanding of the subatomic domain."--Thomas Oberdan, Isis "Written in a very readable style, without an overload of mathematical equations, Of Physics and Philosophy unfolds the exotic features of quantum physics to the accompaniment of philosophical commentary. It is without doubt a work of immense scholarship, and will probably hold its own till the mysteries in the field are adequately understood. D'Espagnat's scholarship is helping understand the bizarre implications of quantum theory in investigating everything from free will and the paranormal to the enigma of consciousness."--Sudhirendar Sharma, CaravanTable of ContentsPreface to the English Edition xi Foreword 1 PART 1: PHYSICAL FACTS AND RELATED CONCEPTUAL PROBLEMS CHAPTER 1: Broad Overview 13 1-1. A General Picture 13 1-2. Some Useful Definitions 21 CHAPTER 2: Overstepping the Limits of the Framework of Familiar Concepts 32 2-1. Introduction 32 2-2. From Aristotle's Ontology to Descartes' Near Realism and Galilean Ontology 32 2-3. A Small Digression on Ontology 34 2-4. A Gradual Overstepping 37 2-5. Trajectories and Misleading "Pieces of Evidence" 38 2-6. On the Existence or Nonexistence of Hidden Things: Particles and Dirac's Sea 41 2-7. A "Fabricated" Ontology 46 2-8. Indications for What Follows 48 CHAPTER 3: Nonseparability and Bell's Theorem 51 3-1. Correlation at-a-Distance: Bell's Theorem 51 3-2. Locality and the Bell Theorem 58 3-3. Discussion and Philosophical Implications 71 CHAPTER 4: Objectivity and Empirical Reality 89 4-1. Strong Objectivity and Weak Objectivity (Alias Intersubjectivity) 89 4-2. The Measurement Problem and Empirical Reality 101 4-3. "Quantum Rules" and "von Neumann's Chain" 110 CHAPTER 5: Quantum Physics and Realism 113 5-1. Strong Objectivity and Realism 113 5-2. Intersubjective Agreement 127 5-3. Intersubjective Agreement and Empirical Reality 127 5-4. Conceptual Glimpses; Carnap, Quine, Primas; Relative Ontologies 129 CHAPTER 6: Universal Laws and the "Reality" Question 134 6-1. The "Theoretical Framework" Notion 134 6-2. Antiuniversalism and "Realism about Entities" 136 6-3. "Pythagorism" ("Einsteinism") 142 6-4. Remarks Concerning Two "Macrorealisms" 145 6-5. Quantum Mechanics as a Universal Theoretical Framework 146 6-6. Antirealism 148 CHAPTER 7: Antirealism and Physics; the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Problem; Methodological Operationalism 152 7-1. "Value of a Quantum Physical Quantity" in the Antirealist Framework 152 7-2. Operationalism (Alias "Instrumentalism") 156 7-3. On "Meaning" and "Prediction" 166 CHAPTER 8: Measurement and Decoherence, Universality Revisited 168 8-1. Introduction 168 8-2. Decoherence 177 8-3. Decoherence and State Robustness 189 8-4. The Everett-Zurek Semirealist Approach 190 8-5. Universality Revisited 192 CHAPTER 9: Various Realist Attempts 196 9-1. Introduction 196 9-2. On Our Intellectual Craving for Realism 196 9-3. The Broglie-Bohm Approach 199 9-4. The So-Called "Modal" Interpretation 206 9-5. The Heisenberg Representation: It Does Not, by Itself, Yield a Solution 209 9-6. Feynman's Reformulation and the Corresponding "Fabricated Ontology" 211 9-7. A "Realism of Signification" 216 9-8. Nonlinear Realist Quantum Theories 220 9-9. Outlook 222 CHAPTER 10: Schrodinger's Cat, Wigner's Friend, and Veiled Reality 225 10-1. Introduction 225 10-2. Of Pointers and Cats 225 10-3. Wigner's Friend 228 10-4. The Veiled Reality Hypothesis 236 PART 2: A PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS CHAPTER 11: Science and Philosophy 249 11-1. The Impossible Split 249 11-2. Epistemology in the Late Twentieth Century 250 11-3. A Critical Glance at Some Claims 255 11-4. Physics and Linguistics 258 11-5. Sociologism 261 11-6. The End of Certainties? 263 CHAPTER 12: Materialisms 265 12-1. Introduction 265 12-2. Dialectical Materialism 265 12-3. The So-Called "Scientific" Materialism 266 12-4. "Neomaterialism" and Physics 272 12-5. The Purely Philosophical Aspects of Neomaterialism 276 12-6. Materialism and Wisdom 281 CHAPTER 13: Suggestions from Kantism 282 13-1. Introduction 282 13-2. A Look at Kantism 282 13-3. Facing the Refusal of the Independent Reality Notion 291 13-4. Kant and Our Contemporaries 306 CHAPTER 14: Causality and Observational Predictability 312 14-1. Introduction 312 14-2. Causes and Laws 312 14-3. Determinism and Causality 315 14-4. Determinism and Chaos 316 14-5. Quantum Indeterminacy 319 14-6. Predictability and Reliability Revisited 326 14-7. The Influence Notion Revisited 330 CHAPTER 15: Explanation and Phenomena 333 15-1. Introduction 333 15-2. The Notion of Explanation 333 15-3. Back to the "Explanatory Power of Predictive Rules" Question 342 15-4. Empirical Reality and Abstractions, Explanation, and Empirical Causality 344 15-5. The Rainbow Analogy 347 15-6. Removing the "Paradox of the Dinosaurs" 351 15-7. The "False Explanation" Question 352 CHAPTER 16: Mind and Things 354 16-1. Empiricism, Positivism, and So On 354 16-2. Phenomenalism 355 16-3. Ambiguities about Innatism 366 16-4. Poincare, Conventionalism, and Structural Realism 368 CHAPTER 17: Pragmatic-Transcendental versus Veiled Reality Approaches 376 17-1. Introduction 376 17-2. Replies to Michel Bitbol's and Herve Zwirn's Objections 376 17-3. The Pragmatic-Transcendental Approach 396 17-4. A Few Notes on Zwirn's Approach 402 CHAPTER 18: Objects and Consciousness 405 18-1. Introduction 405 18-2. Truth: Definitions and Criteria 406 18-3. Objects and "Orders," or "Levels," of Reality 408 18-4. A Few Remarks Concerning Sensations 411 18-5. On the Question of the Plurality of Minds 426 CHAPTER 19: The "Ground of Things" 429 19-1. Introduction 429 19-2. Mystery, Affectivity, and Meaning 429 19-3. Do Things Have a "Ground"? Pro and Con Received Arguments 434 19-4. Some Consequences of the Evolution of Physics 443 19-5. The Veiled Reality Conception Reexamined 449 APPENDIX 1: The Bell Theorem 465 A. Proof 465 B. A Simplified Proof 470 C. A Glance at the Experimental State of Things 473 D. Historical Comments and a Short Bibliography 474 APPENDIX 2: Consistent Histories, Counterfactuality, and Bell's Theorem 477 APPENDIX 3 Correlation-at-a-Distance in the Broglie-Bohm Model 483 References 485 Name Index 493 Subject Index 497

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Book SynopsisAn essential introduction to the philosophy of biologyThis is a concise, comprehensive, and accessible introduction to the philosophy of biology written by a leading authority on the subject. Geared to philosophers, biologists, and students of both, the book provides sophisticated and innovative coverage of the central topics and many of the latest developments in the field. Emphasizing connections between biological theories and other areas of philosophy, and carefully explaining both philosophical and biological terms, Peter Godfrey-Smith discusses the relation between philosophy and science; examines the role of laws, mechanistic explanation, and idealized models in biological theories; describes evolution by natural selection; and assesses attempts to extend Darwin''s mechanism to explain changes in ideas, culture, and other phenomena. Further topics include functions and teleology, individuality and organisms, species, the tree of life, and human nature. The bookTrade ReviewOne of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2014 "Tracing the history of the great debates and ideas that punctuated this specialty, Peter Godfrey-Smith offers a clear and accessible introduction, which extends to the review of its current key issues. This book will interest course philosophers and biologists, but also sociologists and psychologists, as the issues come from classic biology and philosophy."--Romaric Jannel, Liens Socio "Peter Godfrey-Smith's Philosophy of Biology ... [is] a great way to get up to speed on all the issues that working biologists love to debate amongst themselves... [N]on-specialists should not be put off. Godfrey-Smith's style is engaging, almost conversational."--John Farrell, Forbes.com "Here, Godfrey-Smith, a prominent and prolific scholar working in the field, delivers an elegant and stimulating analysis of key areas in the life sciences where conceptual questions arise regularly... Godfrey-Smith provides an exemplar of expositional clarity and philosophical insight for those who would imitate his approach in these domains."--Choice "[O]ne of the very best textbooks in its field."--Brian Garvey, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews "[A]lthough it is too brief to be the only text for any course, it would be a perfect addition to or foundation for the reading list for many. And no practicing biologist who reads it is likely to think her time was wasted."--W. Ford Doolittle, Current Biology "Philosophy of Biology can be recommended mainly as an excellent resource for teachers. They will find an up to date overview of important topics and can rely on the further reading sections to supplement this volume with additional material."--Christina Behme, Metapsychology "Philosophy of Biology is a valuable addition to the introductions already out there, and one that stands out in many ways."--Joeri Witteveen, History and Philosophy of Life SciencesTable of ContentsPreface ix CHAPTER ONE Philosophy and Biology 1 CHAPTER TWO Laws, Mechanisms, and Models 11 CHAPTER THREE Evolution and Natural Selection 28 CHAPTER FOUR Adaptation, Construction, Function 50 CHAPTER FIVE Individuals 66 CHAPTER SIX Genes 81 CHAPTER SEVEN Species and the Tree of Life 100 CHAPTER EIGHT Evolution and Social Behavior 120 CHAPTER NINE Information 144 References 159 Index 179

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Shapin and Schaffer work out the implications of these debates [between Hobbes and Boyle] for the history of science with great skill of interpretation and exposition. They use their findings and their analysis to give an explanation of the experimental enterprise in general, which, although it is not philosophical in nature, always takes philosophy most seriously. This is simply one of the most original, enjoyable and important books published in the history of science in recent years."--Owen Hannaway, Technology and Culture "If any proof of the intellectual buoyancy or intrinsic worth of the history and philosophy for science was needed, nothing better could be provided than this study by Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer... Their findings suggest the futility of wrenching science from its ideological context, and not only with respect to the seventeenth century; they also detect parallels with the crisis of confidence affecting contemporary science."--Charles Webster, The Times Literary Supplement Praise for Princeton's previous editions: "Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer have ventured beyond ordinary history of science or history of ideas to produce a novel 'exercise in the sociology of scientific knowledge.' ... a historical study rich in new interpretations and notable for the use of sources of a kind not hitherto fully exploited by scholars."--Clive Holmes, American Historical Review "[T]he most influential text in our field since Thomas Kuhn'sStructure of Scientific Revolutions."--James Secord, Isis "This is simply one of the most original, enjoyable, and important books published in the history of science in recent years."--Owen Hannaway, Technology and Culture "[A]n unparalleled vignette of the birth pangs of a new style of reasoning."--Ian Hacking, British Journal for the History of Science "Before Shapin and Schaffer, other historians of science had studied scientific practice; other historians had studied the religious, political and cultural context of science. No one, before Shapin and Schaffer, had been capable of doing both at once."--Bruno Latour, author ofWe Have Never Been Modern "There is every reason to regard this as one of the most important achievements in science studies in the late twentieth century."--John H. Zammito, author ofA Nice Derangement of Epistemes "One of the most influential books in the modern history of science."--Melinda Baldwin, Physics Today

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Longlisted for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, PEN America""One of Waterstones' Books of the Year 2020: Popular Science""Longlisted for the AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books for Young Adults""The role of happenstance in determining the fate of the world may seem a matter for philosophy more than science, but Carroll, a biologist, shows how central the idea is to everyday existence." * New York Times Book Review *"With conversational wit, Carroll encourages us to embrace the randomness of the world."---Scott Hershberger, Scientific American"The Yucatan asteroid is an epic example of the sheer randomness which, as Sean B. Carroll argues in this short but thought-provoking book, rules both the universe and our own lives."---Nick Rennison, Daily Mail"Carroll takes readers on an entertaining tour of biological discovery that emphasizes the dominant role played by chance in shaping the conditions for life on Earth. Along the way, he provides insights and humor that make the book a quick, lively read that both educates and entertains. . . . Books such as this remind us to make our unlikely time here count."---Ivor Knight, Science"Carroll’s work renders hefty topics accessible, exploring the perfect storm of events responsible for evolution, the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs and every living person’s conception."---Meilan Solly, Smithsonian Magazine"It is to biologist Sean B. Carroll’s credit that he’s found a way of taking a puzzle that could easily fill volumes (and probably has filled volumes), and presenting it to us in a slim, non-technical, and fun little book."---Dan Falk, Undark"A history book about humanity told with wit and style."---John Brandon, Forbes"A short, sweet, and scientifically solid view of life." * Kirkus, starred review *"I couldn’t put it down. If you’re at all interested in science, you’ll keep turning these pages."---Flora Taylor, American Scientist"If you enjoyed Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, you'll like this breezy, equally amusing trip through time. . . . A stellar little book about science.""---Jenny Nicholls, Waiheke Weekender"In Carroll, three traits that are rare in themselves conjoin in an even rarer alignment: a command of multiple scientific fields, an unrivaled ability to clearly explain complex scientific concepts, and a deep instinct for storytelling. It is only fitting that such an unlikely combination produced A Series of Fortunate Events, since this discipline-spanning, highly engaging volume is all about the unlikely combinations that gave rise to all life, to the human species, and to each of us as unique individuals."---Barbara N. Horowitz, The Quarterly Review of Biology"Entertaining and informative, Carroll’s latest is a real eye-opener."---Nick Smith, Engineering & Technology"Golf games, coincidental immunity, and pandemics: A Series of Fortunate Events ranges from examining trivial events to sobering ones, but remains relevant throughout, revealing how chance affects everyday life."---Rebecca Foster, Foreword Reviews"Entertaining and informative, Carroll’s latest is a real eye-opener."---Dr Alyson Hitch, The Bay"This book lays bare how often unpredictable events have shaped our world; it educates, engages, and entertains."---R. M. Denome, Choice"A short and charming book that will give you a new appreciation of the vagaries of life and their influence."---Ian Simmons, Fortean Times"This is an accessible and fun book but be forewarned that it might leave you wanting more. Personally, I take that as a good sign."---Leon Vlieger, The Inquisitive Biologist

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Book SynopsisOver the last forty years, scientists have uncovered evidence that if the Universe had been forged with even slightly different properties, life as we know it - and life as we can imagine it - would be impossible. Join us on a journey through how we understand the Universe, from its most basic particles and forces, to planets, stars and galaxies, and back through cosmic history to the birth of the cosmos. Conflicting notions about our place in the Universe are defined, defended and critiqued from scientific, philosophical and religious viewpoints. The authors'' engaging and witty style addresses what fine-tuning might mean for the future of physics and the search for the ultimate laws of nature. Tackling difficult questions and providing thought-provoking answers, this volumes challenges us to consider our place in the cosmos, regardless of our initial convictions.Trade Review'My colleagues, Geraint and Luke, in A Fortunate Universe, take you on a tour of the Cosmos in all of its glory, and all of its mystery. You will see that humanity appears to be part of a remarkable set of circumstances involving a special time around a special planet, which orbits a special star, all within a specially constructed Universe. It is these sets of conditions that have allowed humans to ponder our place in space and time. I have no idea why we are here, but I do know the Universe is beautiful. A Fortunate Universe captures the mysterious beauty of the Cosmos in a way that all can share.' Brian Schmidt, Australian National University, Canberra, and Nobel Laureate in Physics (2011), from the Foreword'Geraint Lewis and Luke Barnes provide a breathtaking tour of contemporary physics from the subatomic to the cosmological scale. Everywhere they find the Universe to be fine-tuned for complex structure. If the quark masses, or the basic forces, or the cosmological constant had been much different, the Universe would have been a sterile wasteland. It seems that the only reactions are either to embrace a multiverse or a designer. The authors have constructed a powerful case for the specialness of our Universe.' Tim Maudlin, New York University'The Universe could have been of such a nature that no life at all could exist. The anthropic question asks why the constants of nature that enter various physical laws are such as to permit life to come into being. This engaging book is a well-written and detailed explanation of all the many ways these physical constants affect the possibility of life, considering atomic, nuclear and particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology. It then discusses in an open-minded way the variety of explanations one might give for this strange fine-tuning, possible solutions ranging from pure chance, existence of multiverses, or theistic explanations. The book is the most comprehensive current discussion of this intriguing range of issues. Highly recommended.' George Ellis, University of Cape Town'Lewis and Barnes' book is the most up-to-date, accurate, and comprehensive explication of the evidence that the Universe is fine-tuned for life. It is also among the two most philosophically sophisticated treatments, all the while being accessible to a non-academic audience. I strongly recommend this book.' Robin Collins, Messiah College, Pennsylvania'… charming, intelligent and exceedingly well-written … a gentle stroll through the details of the Standard Model of particle physics, as well as the Standard Model of cosmology, but [the authors] lead us with such a light hand, a streak of humour and a lack of pedantry that the information is easily absorbed … Lewis and Barnes show us how small changes lead to a variety of disasters. ('Ruining a universe is easy' Mr. Barnes quips) … Is [our universe] a happy coincidence, as the authors ask each other in an amusing mock debate modeled on one Galileo wrote 400 years earlier, or is there some deeper reason? Where does science go from here? Does what has been popularly called a theory of everything exist? Is there a multiverse? Must we be satisfied with an anthropic principle? The authors discuss these questions and more in a final dialogue.' Gino Segrè, The Wall Street Journal'A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos by Geraint Lewis and Luke Barnes, is a nice up to date book for the general (educated) public on modern physics and cosmology. If covers modern cosmology and some of the Big Questions of our times, in particular the issue of anthropomorphism how 'fine tuned' our Universe is.' Steinn Sigurðsson, ScienceBlogs (www.scienceblogs.com)'… what is truly unique about this book is that it presents the data at a popular level so that the material is accessible to anyone interested in this topic … As I read the book, I was awestruck by the finely-tuned constants and conditions that had to be just right to get a universe that would permit life … This evidence should move each one of us to ask, what is the best explanation of this incredible fine-tuning?' Tim Barnett, Stand to Reason (www.str.org)'A Fortunate Universe is basically a book of physics, written by two scientists who are fascinated by the question 'Why are we here?' The language is straightforward, the style is easy, often witty, with short digestible paragraphs, and yet the subject-matter is inevitably dense and demanding … It is pleasing to come across the line 'we do not know' so regularly in this book about the fundamentals of science, which echoes the book of Job … When science reaches its limits, we have to consider a different kind of explanation for why the laws of nature are as they are, and why they are so finely tuned for the emergence of intelligent life. … [The authors] wonder if classical arguments for the existence of God have anything to say about the fine-tuning of the universe, speculating whether God is a necessary being and whether our sense of truth and morality hint at God's inevitable existence.' Adam Ford, Church Times'In this book, the authors deal with nothing less than the question of how it is possible that we exist. In an introductory and a closing chapter, the first of which introduces the subject in a simple dialogue, and the latter, in turn, completes the dialogue in the same colloquial manner, the authors draw a detailed picture of our universe and, in particular, how peculiar our existence is. … Reading this book is a great pleasure, not only intellectual, but also entertaining. … They describe what is and what could be. They give their audience well-founded, solid scientific arguments, chat with them, and then leave their own thoughts. A highly readable, enriching, and knowledgeable book.' Matthias Bartelmann, translated from Sterne und Weltraum'The title claims that the Universe is finely tuned for the existence of life. The authors provide evidence for this, investigate various possible explanations, and rebut the most common criticisms … the book provides an opportunity to learn more at an accessible level … The case is well made that the Universe is finely tuned for life; the interesting question is why. It could be coincidence … Or could the Universe be no other way? … Was it designed? Did it evolve? Or are there many universes in a Multiverse, and we shouldn't be surprised that we live in one which allows life? … The arguments are clear; references are provided for those wishing to delve deeper; essentially all points of view are presented … This is an important topic and the book is a good summary of the field. I enjoyed reading it and recommend it to those interested in the big Question.' Phillip Helbig, The Observatory'It is the vivid, direct tone and writing style of a friendly physics lecture that perhaps most sets this text apart among popular-level science books about 'big questions' … [The book] provides a big picture of the physics of fine-tuning, mostly accessible in lay terms, and gives aspiring philosophers of physics a taste of the tone and intellectual style one can find at cosmology conferences. Beyond that, it does so by showing the readers that a response from philosophers might be welcome. Because the authors make clear how their thinking is informed by works in metaphysics, philosophy of physics, epistemology, and the philosophy of religion, they tell the readers how they think philosophy does or could contribute, and where they think they do not know enough to see how it might.' Yann Benétreau-Dupin, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews'This book is for anyone who has ever wondered: 'Why is it so?' With colourful analogies and admirably accurate simplifications, Geraint and Luke have succeeded in making much of modern physics and cosmology comprehensible … They address the biggest questions of science. What is dark energy? What is dark matter? Why is there something rather than nothing? Why is there more matter than antimatter? Where did the laws physics come from? Do we live in a multiverse? Do we live in a simulation? How different could the universe have been? If God is omnipotent, why does evil exist? … Not even the popular scientist and writer Paul Davies tries to address so many important big questions in one book … I enjoyed the book a lot, but I disagreed with the main thesis. No matter what your religious beliefs are, this book will make you think.' Charley Lineweaver, The Conversation (www.theconversation.com)'What makes this part of the book different from many other works on fine-tuning is the degree to which Lewis and Barnes explain the physics of fine-tuning … they explain how the proton mass is a function of the quark masses, and these in turn of the Higgs field, and this in turn, perhaps, of supersymmetry. The reader's understanding of fine-tuning is deepened, and [they] … [come] to see that at every level fine-tuning appears. … [T]he authors discuss the philosophical issues that surround fine-tuning. The handling of these issues displays Luke Barnes's philosophical sophistication. Barnes is thoroughly familiar with the work of analytic philosophers on these issues and has interesting contributions to make to the discussion. … I highly recommend it for students of fine-tuning.' William Lane Craig, Philosophia Christi'Geraint Lewis and Luke Barnes's lucid, fast-paced, and funny new book might best be summed up in their own words: 'Our conclusion is that the fundamental properties of the Universe appear to be fine-tuned for life'. As the authors carefully explain in A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos, it doesn't matter whether other kinds of life are out there. It's enough that there is life here on Earth to raise the question of why the universe is the way it is, seemingly fine-tuned to allow for life. After all, in the vast parameter space of hypothetical universes, life is a tight fit. Change the fundamental constants, or the basic laws of physics, or the low-entropy, free-energy-rich initial state of the universe, and the story on Earth would have been radically different. Life has very little wiggle room.' Marcelo Gleiser, Physics Today'The tone is lively, and these authors are witty; their banter is appealing; and the indulgences are infrequent and always welcome. … Both authors of A Fortunate Universe are physicists and cosmologists, so they are in a position to avoid the scientific inaccuracies that weaken other attempts to explore the philosophical consequences of cosmic fine-tuning. On the other hand, it is rare to find physicists capable of avoiding even elementary errors in discussing the metaphysical implications of their work. But I can find at least no obvious misunderstandings in Lewis and Barnes's discussions of Aristotle or Boethius or Aquinas. Equally refreshing, they seem to have enough humility to recognize that philosophical investigations, like scientific investigations, do require a serious investment of time and study. … We may be approaching a new era in the relation between science and philosophy. Stranger things have happened in human history.' Tucker Landy, InterpretationTable of ContentsForeword Brian Schmidt; Preface; 1. A conversation on fine-tuning; 2. I'm only human!; 3. Can you feel the force?; 4. Energy and entropy; 5. The Universe is expanding; 6. All bets are off!; 7. A dozen (or so) reactions to fine-tuning; 8. A conversation continued; Further reading; References; Index.

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Book SynopsisDr Francis S. Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, is one of the world's leading scientists, working at the cutting edge of the study of DNA, the code of life. Yet he is also a man of unshakable faith in God. How does he reconcile the seemingly unreconcilable? In THE LANGUAGE OF GOD he explains his own journey from atheism to faith, and then takes the reader on a stunning tour of modern science to show that physics, chemistry and biology -- indeed, reason itself -- are not incompatible with belief. His book is essential reading for anyone who wonders about the deepest questions of all: why are we here? How did we get here? And what does life mean?

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