Particle physics studies highly complex processes which cannot be directly observed. Scientific realism claims that we are nevertheless warranted in believing that these processes really occur and that the objects involved in them really exist. This book defends a version of scientific realism, called causal realism, in the context of particle physics. The first part of the book introduces the central theses and arguments in the recent philosophical debate on scientific realism and discusses entity realism, which is the most important precursor of causal realism. It also argues against the view that the very debate on scientific realism is not worth pursuing at all. In the second part, causal realism is developed and the key distinction between two kinds of warrant for scientific claims is clarified. This distinction proves its usefulness in a case study analyzing the discovery of the neutrino. It is also shown to be effective against an influential kind of pessimism, according to which even our best present theories are likely to be replaced some day by radically distinct alternatives. The final part discusses some specific challenges posed to realism by quantum physics, such as non-locality, delayed choice and the absence of particles in relativistic quantum theories.

The Force of Reason and the Logic of Force investigates the concept of force through various 'episodes' in the history of philosophy. The author argues that force arises on the basis of the distinction of reality and mere appearance. The book looks at figures who reduce force to something other than itself as well as figures who develop a 'logic of force' that allows them to trace the operation of force without such a reduction. MARKET 1: Postgraduate students studying history of philosophy, medieval philosophy and continental philosophy, epistemology and theory of knowledge

Representation is a concern crucial to the sciences and the arts alike. Scientists devote substantial time to devising and exploring representations of all kinds. From photographs and computer-generated images to diagrams, charts, and graphs; from scale models to abstract theories, representations are ubiquitous in, and central to, science. Likewise, after spending much of the twentieth century in proverbial exile as abstraction and Formalist aesthetics reigned supreme, representation has returned with a vengeance to contemporary visual art. Representational photography, video and ever-evolving forms of new media now figure prominently in the globalized art world, while this "return of the real" has re-energized problems of representation in the traditional media of painting and sculpture. If it ever really left, representation in the arts is certainly back. Central as they are to science and art, these representational concerns have been perceived as different in kind and as objects of separate intellectual traditions. Scientific modeling and theorizing have been topics of heated debate in twentieth century philosophy of science in the analytic tradition, while representation of the real and ideal has never moved far from the core humanist concerns of historians of Western art. Yet, both of these traditions have recently arrived at a similar impasse. Thinking about representation has polarized into oppositions between mimesis and convention. Advocates of mimesis understand some notion of mimicry (or similarity, resemblance or imitation) as the core of representation: something represents something else if, and only if, the former mimics the latter in some relevant way. Such mimetic views stand in stark contrast to conventionalist accounts of representation, which see voluntary and arbitrary stipulation as the core of representation. Occasional exceptions only serve to prove the rule that mimesis and convention govern current thinking about representation in both analytic philosophy of science and studies of visual art. This conjunction can hardly be dismissed as a matter of mere coincidence. In fact, researchers in philosophy of science and the history of art have increasingly found themselves trespassing into the domain of the other community, pilfering ideas and approaches to representation. Cognizant of the limitations of the accounts of representation available within the field, philosophers of science have begun to look outward toward the rich traditions of thinking about representation in the visual and literary arts. Simultaneously, scholars in art history and affiliated fields like visual studies have come to see images generated in scientific contexts as not merely interesting illustrations derived from "high art", but as sophisticated visualization techniques that dynamically challenge our received conceptions of representation and aesthetics. "Beyond Mimesis and Convention: Representation in Art and Science" is motivated by the conviction that we students of the sciences and arts are best served by confronting our mutual impasse and by recognizing the shared concerns that have necessitated our covert acts of kleptomania. Drawing leading contributors from the philosophy of science, the philosophy of literature, art history and visual studies, our volume takes its brief from our title. That is, these essays aim to put the evidence of science and of art to work in thinking about representation by offering third (or fourth, or fifth) ways beyond mimesis and convention. In so doing, our contributors explore a range of topics-fictionalism, exemplification, neuroaesthetics, approximate truth-that build upon and depart from ongoing conversations in philosophy of science and studies of visual art in ways that will be of interest to both interpretive communities. To put these contributions into context, the remainder of this introduction aims to survey how our communities have discretely arrived at a place wherein the perhaps-surprising collaboration between philosophy of science and art history has become not only salubrious, but a matter of necessity.

Several of the basic ideas of current language theory are subjected to critical scrutiny and found wanting, including the concept of scope, the hegemony of generative syntax, the Frege-Russell claim that verbs like is' are ambiguous, and the assumptions underlying the so-called New Theory of Reference. In their stead, new constructive ideas are proposed.

"Pragmatic Encroachment, Religious Belief and Practice" engages several recent and important discussions in the mainstream epistemological literature surrounding 'pragmatic encroachment'. It has been argued that what is at stake for a person in regards to acting as if a proposition is true can raise the levels of epistemic support required to know that proposition. Do the high stakes involved in accepting or rejecting religious beliefs raise the standards for knowledge that 'God exists', 'Jesus rose from the dead' and other propositions? Professor Rizzieri also examines whether or not knowledge and justification norms of belief and action undermine the pragmatic grounds for religious belief suggested by William James. Rizzieri argues that such norms favor an attitude of hope, as opposed to belief, under conditions of uncertainty. Finally, Rizzieri argues the connections between knowledge and rational action undermine radically externalist accounts of religious knowledge and proposes an alternative account of the justification of religious beliefs.

Metaphor is one of the most frequently evoked but at the same time most poorly understood concepts in philosophy and literary theory. In recent years, several interesting approaches to metaphor have been presented or outlined. In this volume, authors of some of the most important new approaches re-present their views or illustrate them by means of applications, thus allowing the reader to survey some of the prominent ongoing developments in this field. These authors include Robert Fogelin, Susan Haack, Jaakko Hintikka (with Gabriel Sandu), Bipin Indurkhya and Eva Kittay (with Eric Steinhart). Their stance is in the main constructive rather than critical; but frequent comparisons of different views further facilitate the reader's overview. In the other contributions, metaphor is related to the problems of visual representation (Noel Carroll), to the open class test (Avishai Margalit and Naomi Goldblum) as well as to Wittgenstein's idea of 'a way of life' (E.M. Zemach).

The Nature of Normativity presents a complete theory about the nature of normative thought --that is, the sort of thought that is concerned with what ought to be the case, or what we ought to do or think. Ralph Wedgwood defends a kind of realism about the normative, according to which normative truths or facts are genuinely part of reality.
Anti-realists often complain that realism gives rise to demands for explanation that it cannot adequately meet. What is the nature of these normative facts? How could we ever know them or even refer to them in language or thought? Wedgwood accepts that any adequate version of realism must answer these explanatory demands. However, he seeks to show that these demands can be met -- in large part by relying on a version of the idea, which has been much discussed in recent work in the philosophy of mind, that the intentional is normative -- that is, that there is no way of explaining the nature of the various sorts of mental states that have intentional or representational content (such as beliefs, judgments, desires, decisions, and so on), without stating normative facts. On the basis of this idea, Wedgwood provides a detailed systematic theory that deals with the following three areas: the meaning of statements about what ought to be; the nature of the facts stated by these statements; and what justifies us in holding beliefs about what ought to be.

This book is a discussion of some of the major philosophical problems centering around the topic of sense perception and the foundations of human knowledge. It begins with a characterization of our common sense understanding of the role of the senses in the acquisition of belief, and it argues that scientific accounts of the processes of perception undermine salient parts of this understanding. The naive point of view of direct realism cannot be sustained in the light of a scientifically instructed understanding of perception. This critique of direct realism points to the correctness of the representative theory of perception characteristic of such early modem philosophers as Descartes and Locke, and it also endorses the subjective tum that they defended. It argues that these positions do not require introducing sense data into the picture, and thus it avoids the intractable problems that the sense datum philosophy introduces. In addition, several versions of cognitive accounts of sense perception are criticized with the result that it is unnecessary to characterize sensory processes in intentional terms. The book then turns to a leading question introduced into modem philosophy by Descartes and Locke, the question of the accuracy of the information delivered by the senses to our faculty of belief. In particular, how accurate are our representations of the secondary qualities? The case of color is considered in detail.

This monograph is unique in its kind, giving as it does an independent and self-contained introduction to the eight prominent verisimilitude proposals that make up the verisimilitude literature after the breakdown of Popper's definition in 1974. The author brings them together by comparing the ways in which they order propositional formulae. Using this method, he shows that the distinction of content and likeness definitions partitions the entire field of investigation. In addition, it is shown that the weak content definitions can be strengthened by incorporating considerations of similarity between possible worlds. The resulting refined verisimilitude definition has many desirable properties. For instance, it is the first qualitative proposal that evades the problem of truth-value dependence. In addition, in chapter five the often discussed and misunderstood problem of "language dependency" is solved. The book will be of interest to those working in the fields of logic, epistemology, philosophy of science, and (computational) linguistics.

This book offers an integrated historical and philosophical examination of the origin of genetics. The author contends that an integrated HPS analysis helps us to have a better understanding of the history of genetics, and sheds light on some general issues in the philosophy of science. This book consists of three parts. It begins with historical problems, revisiting the significance of the work of Mendel, de Vries, and Weldon. Then it turns to integrated HPS problems, developing an exemplar-based analysis of the development and the progress in early genetics. Finally, it discusses philosophical problems: conceptual change, evidence, and theory choice. Part I lays out a new historiography, serving as a basis for the discussions in part II and part III. Part II introduces a new integrated HPS method to analyse and interpret the historiography in Part I and to re-examine the philosophical issues in Part III. Part III develops new philosophical accounts which will in turn make a better sense of the history of scientific practice more generally. This book provides a practical defence of integrated HPS: the best way to defend integrated HPS is to do it.

How is knowledge of the external world possible? How is knowledge of other minds possible? How is a priori knowledge possible? These are all examples of how-possible questions in epistemology. Quassim Cassam explains how such questions arise and how they should be answered.
In general, we ask how knowledge, or knowledge of some specific kind, is possible when we encounter obstacles to its existence or acquisition. So the question is: how is knowledge possible given the various factors that make it look impossible? A satisfactory answer to such a question will therefore need to do several different things. In essence, explaining how a particular kind of knowledge is possible is a matter of identifying ways of acquiring it, overcoming or dissipating obstacles to its acquisition, and figuring out what makes it possible to acquire it.
To respond to a how-possible question in this way is to go in for what might be called a "multi-levels" approach. The aim of this book is to develop and defend this approach. The first two chapters bring out its advantages and explain why it works better than more familiar "transcendental" approaches to explaining how knowledge is possible. The remaining chapters use the multi-levels framework to explain how perceptual knowledge is possible, how it is possible to know of the existence of minds other than one's own and how a priori knowledge is possible.

Philosophy of Probability provides a comprehensive introduction to theoretical issues that occupy a central position in disciplines ranging from philosophy of mind and epistemology to cognitive science, decision theory and artificial intelligence. Some contributions shed new light on the standard conceptions of probability (Bayesianism, logical and computational theories); others offer detailed analyses of two important topics in the field of cognitive science: the meaning and the representation of (partial) belief, and the management of uncertainty. The authors of this well-balanced account are philosophers as well as computer scientists (among them, L.J. Cohen, D. Miller, P. Gardenfors, J. Vickers, D. Dubois and H. Prade). This multidisciplinary approach to probability is designed to illuminate the intricacies of the problems in the domain of cognitive inquiry. No one interested in epistemology or aritificial intelligence will want to miss it.

Expressionism, Deleuze's philosophical commentary on Spinoza, is a critically important work because its conclusions provide the foundations for Deleuze's later metaphysical speculations on the nature of power, the body, difference and singularities. Deleuze and Spinoza is the first book to examine Deleuze's philosophical assessment of Spinoza and appraise his arguments concerning the Absolute, the philosophy of mind, epistemology and moral and political philosophy. The author respects and disagrees with Deleuze the philosopher and suggests that his arguments not only lead to eliminativism and an Hobbesian politics but that they also cast a mystifying spell.

This monograph investigates the development of hydrostatics as a science. In the process, it sheds new light on the nature of science and its origins in the Scientific Revolution. Readers will come to see that the history of hydrostatics reveals subtle ways in which the science of the seventeenth century differed from previous periods. The key, the author argues, is the new insights into the concept of pressure that emerged during the Scientific Revolution. This came about due to contributions from such figures as Simon Stevin, Pascal, Boyle and Newton. The author compares their work with Galileo and Descartes, neither of whom grasped the need for a new conception of pressure. As a result, their contributions to hydrostatics were unproductive. The story ends with Newton insofar as his version of hydrostatics set the subject on its modern course. He articulated a technical notion of pressure that was up to the task. Newton compared the mathematical way in hydrostatics and the experimental way, and sided with the former. The subtleties that lie behind Newton's position throws light on the way in which developments in seventeenth-century science simultaneously involved mathematization and experimentation. This book serves as an example of the degree of conceptual change that new sciences often require. It will be of interest to those involved in the study of history and philosophy of science. It will also appeal to physicists as well as interested general readers.

People believe in a great many things; and yet most of us know almost nothing about why other people believe what they do, or indeed about how it feels to believe it. This book presents an objective method for understanding and comparing belief systems - irrespective of whether the investigator happens to agree with them.

A provocative approach to the possibility of philosophical ethics, this study argues that all moral positions and theories are bound to fail. Using the dialectical tensions inherent to competing moral claims as his starting point, Michael Steinmann explains what he terms the "failure of morality" both in classical and contemporary positions. As moral claims lead in various ways to contradictions, the history of morality presents itself as an endless series of controversies. By using dialectical thinking, which has gone out of favour in current philosophy, Steinmann shows how we can capture the limitations of moral theories in a more holistic way. Without embracing skepticism about moral claims, a non-naturalistic and non-relativistic understanding of the good emerges as the fundamental notion of moral thought. Reframing Ethics Through Dialectics reinvigorates the classical notion of "the absolute good" as a fruitful conceptual structure through which to understand competing moral claims, without simply reproducing neo-Aristotelian literature on the good life. From the perspective of the good, the study allows us to take non-traditional theories more seriously, making space for moral philosophy to acknowledge and embrace the contradictions that all positions incur.

Despite their neglect in many histories of ideas in the West, the Cambridge Platonists constitute the most significant and influential group of thinkers in the Platonic tradition between the Florentine Renaissance and the Romantic Age. This anthology offers readers a unique, thematically structured compendium of their key texts, along with an extensive introduction and a detailed account of their legacy. The volume draws upon a resurgence of interest in thinkers such as Benjamin Whichcote, 1609-1683; Ralph Cudworth, 1618-1688; Henry More, 1614-1687; John Smith, 1618-1652, and Anne Conway 1631-1679, and includes hitherto neglected extracts and some works of less familiar authors within the group, like George Rust 1627?-1670; Joseph Glanville, 1636-1680 and John Norris 1657-1712. It also highlights the Cambridge Platonists’ important role in the history of philosophy and theology, influencing luminaries such as Shaftesbury, Berkeley, Leibniz, Joseph de Maistre, S.T. Coleridge, and W.R. Emerson. The Cambridge Platonist Anthology is an indispensable guide to the serious study of a pivotal group of Western metaphysicians, and is of great value for both students and scholars of philosophy, literature, history, and theology. Key Features The only systematic anthology to the Cambridge Platonists available, facilitating quick comprehension of key themes and ideas Uses new translations of the Latin works, vastly improving upon faulty and misleading earlier translations Offers a wide range of new perspective on the Cambridge Platonists, showing the extent of their influence in early modern philosophy and beyond.

Intuitionism is one of the main foundations for mathematics proposed in the twentieth century and its views on logic have also notably become important with the development of theoretical computer science. This book reviews and completes the historical account of intuitionism. It also presents recent philosophical work on intuitionism and gives examples of new technical advances and applications. It brings together 21 contributions from today's leading authors on intuitionism.

The study is the linking of view of science with the Qur'an related to the development of science. Approach that links, this faith is one way to provide an appropriate understanding of the true religion with the development of contemporary science. During the times that are not sent Messengers and Prophets, Muslims who have an understanding of the Qur'an must play a role in the expanding missionary and apostle and prophet continued to work to continue the history of civilization. In this paper the finding of investigating people about view of people about the harmonize between the Quran and science is formulated through mathematics formula.

This lucid, informal, and very accessible history of Western thought takes the unique approach of interpreting skepticism--i.e., doubts about knowledge claims and the criteria for making such claims--as an important stimulus for the development of philosophy. The authors argue that practically every great thinker from the time of the Greeks to the present has produced theories designed to forestall or refute skepticism: from Plato to Moore and Wittgenstein. The influence of and responses to such 20th-century skeptics as Russell and Derrida are also discussed critically.
Popkin and Stroll review each major theory of philosophy chronologically and then further organize these theories into their respective subject areas: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and philosophy of religion. Within each subject area the authors discuss how the skeptical challenge gave rise to new philosophical positions. The volume concludes with an especially interesting debate between the authors on the merits of skepticism today. Stroll thinks that ultimately the doubts expressed by skeptics can be refuted, while Popkin denies this.
This is an outstanding introduction to the problems of philosophy by two eminent philosophers with a gift for presenting the history of ideas in a very enjoyable fashion.

This book derives from a 1993 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute on Knowledge, Teaching, and Wisdom. The Institute took place at the University of California, Berkeley, and was co-directed by Keith Lehrer and Nicholas D. Smith. The aims of the Institute were several: we sought to reintroduce wisdom as a topic of discussion among contemporary philosophers, to undertake an historical investigation of how and when and why it was that wisdom faded from philosophical view, and to ask how contemporary epistemological theories might apply to the obviously related subjects of teaching and wisdom. In recruiting participants, Lehrer and Smith put the greatest emphasis on those with professional interests in epistemology and the history of philosophy, of the ancient Greeks especially ancient Greek philosophy (because in the writings all three subjects of the Institute were explicitly related and discussed). But in addition to these two groups, some effort was made also to include others, with academic specializations in a variety of fields other than epistemology and the history of philosophy, to ensure that a broad perspective could be achieved in our discussions. To an obvious extent, the papers in this book reflect the recruitment emphases and variety. They also testify to the extent that the Institute managed to bring life to our subjects, and to raise very old questions in a contemporary context.

The scope of this study is both ambitious and modest. One of its ambitions is to reintegrate Hegel's theory of knowledge into main stream epist ology. Hegel's views were formed in consideration of Classical Skepticism and Modern epistemology, and he frequently presupposes great familiarity with other views and the difficulties they face. Setting Hegel's discussion in the context of both traditional and contemporary epistemology is therefore necessary for correctly interpreting his issues, arguments, and views. Accordingly, this is an issues-oriented study. I analyze Hegel's problematic and method by placing them in the context of Sextus Empiricus, Descartes, Kant, Carnap, and William Alston. I discuss Carnap, rather than a Modern empiricist such as Locke or Hume, for several reasons. One is that Hegel himself refutes a fundamental presupposition of Modern empiricism, the doctrine of "knowledge by acquaintance," in the first chapter of the Phenomenology, a chapter that cannot be reconstructed within the bounds of this study.

Why is epistemic fallibilism a viable topic for Christian thought and cultural engagement today? Religious fundamentalists and scientific positivists tend to deal with reality in terms of "knockdown" arguments, and such binary approaches to lived reality have helped to underwrite the belligerence and polarization that mark this age of the social media echo chamber. For those who want to take both religion and science seriously, epistemic fallibilism offers a possible moderating stance that claims neither too much nor too little for either endeavor, nor forces a decision for one side over and against the other. This book uses this epistemological approach to fallibilism as a positive resource for conversations that arise at the intersection of philosophy, theology, and religion. The essays explore a range of openings into the interstices of these often siloed fields, with the aim of overcoming some of the impasses separating diverse ways of knowing.