Kategoria BISAC: Philosophy >> General

This book analyzes the different ways mathematics is applicable in the physical sciences, and presents a startling thesis--the success of mathematical physics appears to assign the human mind a special place in the cosmos.

Mark Steiner distinguishes among the semantic problems that arise from the use of mathematics in logical deduction; the metaphysical problems that arise from the alleged gap between mathematical objects and the physical world; the descriptive problems that arise from the use of mathematics to describe nature; and the epistemological problems that arise from the use...

Most observers agree that modern physical theory attempts to provide objective representations of reality. However, the claim that these representations are based on conventional choices is viewed by many as a denial of their objectivity. As a result, objectivity and conventionality in representation are often framed as polar opposites.

Offering a new appraisal of symmetry in modern physics, employing detailed case studies from relativity theory and quantum mechanics, Objectivity, Invariance, and Convention contends that the physical sciences, though dependent on convention,...

Love's confusions are legion. We promise to love, but we cannot love at will. Love God, we're commanded, but we cannot love on command. And given the vicissitudes of self-love, even if we could love our neighbors as we love ourselves, would it be a good thing to do so? These are a few of the paradoxes that typically lead philosophers to oversimplify love--and that draw C. D. C. Reeve to explore it in all its complexity, searching for the lessons to be found within love's confusions.

Ranging from Plato, who wrote so eloquently on the subject, to writers as diverse as Shakespeare,...

This volume contains the published contributions of one of the founders of modern logic and America's greatest logical genius. It is not only of historical but of contemporary interest because of its many acute discussions of fundamental logical problems. To assist the general reader, the editors have prefixed to the text a selected list of important topics and have provided many footnotes and an exhaustive index.

The present, the longest volume of the series of Peirce's Collected Papers, reveals most clearly his stature as a logician and a student of the foundations of...

Representations--in visual arts and in fiction--play an important part in our lives and culture. Kendall Walton presents here a theory of the nature of representation, which illuminates its many varieties and goes a long way toward explaining its importance.

Drawing analogies to children's make believe activities, Walton constructs a theory that addresses a broad range of issues: the distinction between fiction and nonfiction, how depiction differs from description, the notion of points of view in the arts, and what it means for one work to be more "realistic" than another. He...

Philosophy and the Young Child presents striking evidence that young children naturally engage in a brand of thought that is genuinely philosophical. In a series of exquisite examples that could only have been gathered by a professional philosopher with an extraordinary respect for young minds, Gareth Matthews demonstrates that children have a capacity for puzzlement and mental play that leads them to tackle many of the classic problems of knowledge, value and existence that have traditionally formed the core of philosophical thought. Matthews' anecdotes reveal children reasoning...

How must our knowledge be systematically organized in order to justify our beliefs? There are two options--the solid securing of the ancient foundationalist pyramid or the risky adventure of the new coherentist raft. For the foundationalist like Descartes each piece of knowledge can be stacked to build a pyramid. Not so, argues BonJour. What looks like a pyramid is in fact a dead end, a blind alley. Better by far to choose the raft.

Here BonJour sets out the most extensive antifoundationalist argument yet developed. The first part of the book offers a systematic exposition of...

Gnosticism, together with alchemy, was for C. G. Jung the chief prefiguration of his analytical psychology. Jung did not simply interpret Gnostic texts psychologically but also cited them as confirmation of his psychology. An authority on theories of myth and Gnosticism, Robert Segal has searched the Jungian corpus to bring together in one volume Jung's main discussions of this ancient form of spirituality. Included in this volume are both Jung's sole work devoted entirely to Gnosticism, "Gnostic Symbols of the Self," and his own Gnostic myth, "Seven Sermons to the Dead." The book also...

During its first two years of publication, Philosophy & Public Affairs contributed to the public debate on abortion a set of remarkable and brilliant articles which examine the basic philosophical issues posed by this controversial subject: whether the fetus is a person, whether it has a right to life, whether a woman has a right to decide what happens in and to her body, whether there is an ethical connection between abortion and infanticide, whether there is any point after conception where it is possible to draw the line beyond which killing is impermissible. These five essays,...

When Mahatma Gandhi died in 1948 by an assassin's bullet, the most potent legacy he left to the world was the technique of satyagraha (literally, holding on to the Truth). His "experiments with Truth" were far from complete at the time of his death, but he had developed a new technique for effecting social and political change through the constructive conduct of conflict: Gandhian satyagraha had become eminently more than "passive resistance" or "civil disobedience."

By relating what Gandhi said to what he did and by examining instances of satyagraha led by others, this book...

Since its publication in the mid-eighteenth century, Hume's discussion of miracles has been the target of severe and often ill-tempered attacks. In this book, one of our leading historians of philosophy offers a systematic response to these attacks.

Arguing that these criticisms have--from the very start--rested on misreadings, Robert Fogelin begins by providing a narrative of the way Hume's argument actually unfolds. What Hume's critics (and even some of his defenders) have failed to see is that Hume's primary argument depends on fixing the appropriate standards of evaluating...

"The problem for most of us, excepting moral masochists, is that responsibility does get doled," he writes. "The strategy is either not to be in the receiving line or to find a way to get as little dumped on one's plate as possible, to trade off to others as much as one can. Consequently, the responsibility barter game is probably the most common experience ordinary people have with morality."...

In Good Gossip, twenty-two scholars from several disciplines turn a professional eye to that much-maligned yet heavily practiced form of conversation. Going beyond merely trying to explain a previously ignored human behavior, many of them argue that gossip has unexpected virtues. They show how it contributes to community cohesion and helps individuals better understand their own predicaments, problems, and personal...