Evolutionary thinking has expanded in the last decades, spreading from its traditional stronghold the explanation of speciation and adaptation in biology - to new domains. Fascinating pieces of work, the essays in this collection attest to the illuminating power of evolutionary thinking when applied to the understanding of the human mind.
The contributors to Cognition, Evolution and Rationality use an evolutionary standpoint to approach the nature of the human mind, including both cognitive and behavioural functions. Cognitive science is by its nature an interdisciplinary...
Evolutionary thinking has expanded in the last decades, spreading from its traditional stronghold the explanation of speciation and adaptation in b...
Presents Popper's views on science, knowledge, and inquiry, and examines the significance and tenability of these in light of various developments in philosophy of science, philosophy of probability, and epistemology.
Presents Popper's views on science, knowledge, and inquiry, and examines the significance and tenability of these in light of various developments in ...
This study addresses a central theme in current philosophy: Platonism vs Naturalism and provides accounts of both approaches to mathematics, crucially discussing Quine, Maddy, Kitcher, Lakoff, Colyvan, and many others. Beginning with accounts of both approaches, Brown defends Platonism by arguing that only a Platonistic approach can account for concept acquisition in a number of special cases in the sciences. He also argues for a particular view of applied mathematics, a view that supports Platonism against Naturalist alternatives. Not only does this engaging book present the...
This study addresses a central theme in current philosophy: Platonism vs Naturalism and provides accounts of both approaches to mathematics, crucially...
Conservative Reductionism sets out a new theory of the relationship between physics and the special sciences within the framework of functionalism. It argues that it is wrong-headed to conceive an opposition between functional and physical properties (or functional and physical descriptions, respectively) and to build an anti-reductionist argument on multiple realization. By contrast, (a) all properties that there are in the world, including the physical ones, are functional properties in the sense of being causal properties, and (b) all true descriptions (laws, theories) that the special...
Conservative Reductionism sets out a new theory of the relationship between physics and the special sciences within the framework of functionalism. It...
Although scientific models and simulations differ in numerous ways, they are similar in so far as they are posing essentially philosophical problems about the nature of representation. This collection is designed to bring together some of the best work on the nature of representation being done by both established senior philosophers of science and younger researchers. Most of the pieces, while appealing to existing traditions of scientific representation, explore new types of questions, such as: how understanding can be developed within computational science; how the format of...
Although scientific models and simulations differ in numerous ways, they are similar in so far as they are posing essentially philosophical problems a...
From Lucretius throwing a spear beyond the boundary of the universe to Einstein racing against a beam of light, thought experiments stand as a fascinating challenge to the necessity of data in the empirical sciences. Are these experiments, conducted uniquely in our imagination, simply rhetorical devices or communication tools or are they an essential part of scientific practice? This volume surveys the current state of the debate and explores new avenues of research into the epistemology of thought experiments.
From Lucretius throwing a spear beyond the boundary of the universe to Einstein racing against a beam of light, thought experiments stand as a fascina...
Popper's Critical Rationalism presents Popper's views on science, knowledge, and inquiry, and examines the significance and tenability of these in light of recent developments in philosophy of science, philosophy of probability, and epistemology. It develops a fresh and novel philosophical position on science, which employs key insights from Popper while rejecting other elements of his philosophy. Central theses include: Crucial questions about scientific method arise at the level of the group, rather than that of the individual. Although criticism is vital for science, dogmatism is important...
Popper's Critical Rationalism presents Popper's views on science, knowledge, and inquiry, and examines the significance and tenability of these in lig...
In the 1980s, philosophical, historical and social studies of science underwent a change which later evolved into a turn to practice. Analysts of science were asked to pay attention to scientific practices in meticulous detail and along multiple dimensions, including the material, social and psychological. Following this turn, the interest in scientific practices continued to increase and had an indelible influence in the various fields of science studies. No doubt, the practice turn changed our conceptions and approaches of science, but what did it really teach us? What does it mean to study...
In the 1980s, philosophical, historical and social studies of science underwent a change which later evolved into a turn to practice. Analysts of scie...
In this book, David Stump traces alternative conceptions of the a priori in the philosophy of science and defends a unique position in the current debates over conceptual change and the constitutive elements in science. Stump emphasizes the unique epistemological status of the constitutive elements of scientific theories, constitutive elements being the necessary preconditions that must be assumed in order to conduct a particular scientific inquiry. These constitutive elements, such as logic, mathematics, and even some fundamental laws of nature, were once taken to be a priori knowledge...
In this book, David Stump traces alternative conceptions of the a priori in the philosophy of science and defends a unique position in the current ...
