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Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > Philosophy of science

Seeing Colour - A Journey Through Goethe's World of Colour (Paperback): Nora Loebe, Matthias Rang, Troy Vine Seeing Colour - A Journey Through Goethe's World of Colour (Paperback)
Nora Loebe, Matthias Rang, Troy Vine; Foreword by Arthur Zajonc
R556 Discovery Miles 5 560 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Colour is everywhere. From blue skies to red sunsets, from the first flowers in spring to the blazing leaves of autumn. But what is the nature of colour? Scientific books present a variety of mechanical explanations but this approach leaves colour as a whole unexplained. In the nineteenth century, the German poet and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe investigated a wide range of colour phenomena and discovered the underlying principles that govern colour itself. This lavishly illustrated book brings Goethe's pioneering research up to date. Through descriptions of simple observations and ingenious experiments, the reader will discover a series of colour phenomena that includes afterimages, coloured shadows, colour mixing, and prismatic and polarisation colours. Seeing Colour is a thought-provoking read for colour enthusiasts and experts alike, and an accessible route to a new way of seeing colour.

Probability and Inference in the Law of Evidence - The Uses and Limits of Bayesianism (Hardcover, 1988 ed.): Peter Tillers, E.... Probability and Inference in the Law of Evidence - The Uses and Limits of Bayesianism (Hardcover, 1988 ed.)
Peter Tillers, E. Green
R6,088 Discovery Miles 60 880 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This book explores the nature of factual inference in adjudication. The book should be useful to students of law in Continental Europe as well as to students of Anglo-American law. While a good many countries do not use the sorts of rules of evidence found in the Anglo-American legal tradition, their procedural systems nevertheless frequently use a variety of rules and principles to regulate and structure the acquisition, presentation, and evalu ation of evidence. In this sense, almost all legal systems have a law of proof. This book should also be useful to scholars in fields other than law. While the papers focus on inference in adjudication, they deal with a wide variety of issues that are important in disciplines such as the philosophy of science, statistics, and psychology. For example, there is extensive discussion of the role of generalizations and hypotheses in inference and of the significance of the fact that the actors who evaluate data also in some sense constitute the data that they evaluate. Furthermore, explanations of the manner in which some legal systems structure fact-finding processes may highlight features of inferential processes that have yet to be adequately tackled by scholars in fields other than law."

Scientific Realism and the Rationality of Science (Paperback): Howard Sankey Scientific Realism and the Rationality of Science (Paperback)
Howard Sankey
R1,707 Discovery Miles 17 070 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Scientific realism is the position that the aim of science is to advance on truth and increase knowledge about observable and unobservable aspects of the mind-independent world which we inhabit. This book articulates and defends that position. In presenting a clear formulation and addressing the major arguments for scientific realism Sankey appeals to philosophers beyond the community of, typically Anglo-American, analytic philosophers of science to appreciate and understand the doctrine. The book emphasizes the epistemological aspects of scientific realism and contains an original solution to the problem of induction that rests on an appeal to the principle of uniformity of nature.

Dialectical Theory of Meaning (Hardcover, 1984 ed.): Mihailo Markovic Dialectical Theory of Meaning (Hardcover, 1984 ed.)
Mihailo Markovic
R8,396 Discovery Miles 83 960 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This prize monograph was a pioneering work among Marxist philosophers, East and West, twenty-five years ago. To our mind, the work would have been received with respect and pleasure by philosophers of many viewpoints if it had been known abroad then. Now, revised for this English-language editiJn by our dear and honored colleague Mihailo Markovic, it is still admirable, still the insightful and stimulating accomplishment of a pioneering philosophical and scientific mind, still resonating to the three themes of technical mastery, humane purpose, political critique. Markovic has always worked with the scientific and the humanist disci plines inseparably, a faithful as well as a creative man oflate twentieth century thOUght. Reasoning is to be studied as any other object of investigation would be: empirically, theoretically, psychologically, historically, imaginatively. But the entry is often through the study of meaning, in language and in life. In his splendid guide into the work before us, his Introduction, Markovic shows his remarkable ability as the teacher, motivating, clarifying, sketching the whole, illuminating the detail, Critically situating the problem within a practical understanding of the tool oflanguage."

Reasoning in Measurement (Hardcover): Nicola Moessner, Alfred Nordmann Reasoning in Measurement (Hardcover)
Nicola Moessner, Alfred Nordmann
R4,859 Discovery Miles 48 590 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This collection offers a new understanding of the epistemology of measurement. The interdisciplinary volume explores how measurements are produced, for example, in astronomy and seismology, in studies of human sexuality and ecology, in brain imaging and intelligence testing. It considers photography as a measurement technology and Henry David Thoreau's poetic measures as closing the gap between mind and world. By focusing on measurements as the hard-won results of conceptual as well as technical operations, the authors of the book no longer presuppose that measurement is always and exclusively a means of representing some feature of a target object or entity. Measurement also provides knowledge about the degree to which things have been standardized or harmonized - it is an indicator of how closely human practices are attuned to each other and the world.

Nature's Principles (Hardcover, 2005 ed.): Jan Faye, Paul Needham, Uwe Scheffler, Max Urchs Nature's Principles (Hardcover, 2005 ed.)
Jan Faye, Paul Needham, Uwe Scheffler, Max Urchs
R5,419 Discovery Miles 54 190 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

One of the most basic problems in the philosophy of science involves determining the extent to which nature is governed by laws. This volume presents a wide-ranging overview of the contemporary debate and includes some of its foremost participants. It begins with an extensive introduction describing the historical, logical and philosophical background of the problems dealt with in the essays. Among the topics treated in the essays is the relationship between laws of nature and causal laws as well as the role of ceteris paribus clauses in scientific explanations. Traditionally, the problem of the unity of science was intimately connected to the problem of understanding the unity of nature. This fourth volume of Logic, Epistemology, and the Unity of Science tackles these problems as part of our consideration of the most fundamental aspects of scientific understanding.

Time: Its Structure and Role in Physical Theories (Hardcover, 1985 ed.): P.A Kroes Time: Its Structure and Role in Physical Theories (Hardcover, 1985 ed.)
P.A Kroes
R3,114 Discovery Miles 31 140 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This book on the structure and role of time in physical theories addresses itself to scientists and philosophers intereste: 'i in the 'no man's lard' between science and philosophy, in particular between physics and philoso phy. The p: lint of departure is physical time, Le. time as usErl 1: Y physicists in their theories; but the analysis is not oonfined to a purely physical level but caries the problem into the domain of philosophical in quiry. Altoough the book presupp: lses some knowledge of physics, I have avoided, wherever p: lssible, the use of advanced mathematics and technical details. Of all the people woo have been of help in writing this book, I w: >uld first of all like to mention Paul Scheurer and Guy Debrock who were my primary mentors in science and philosophy. This sttrly is a revision of my dissertation Kroes 1982a] which I wrote under the stimulating guidance of Scheurer; many of the ideas ex posed here have their origin in his w: >rk and were developErl in frequent discussions with him. Guy Debrock not only stimulated my interest in philosophy but also made valuable suggestions. Witoout any overstatement, I dare say that without their assistence, this book w: >uld never have been written. Furthernore, I w: >uld like to thank D. Dieks, J.J.C."

Neurophenomenology and Its Applications to Psychology (Hardcover, 2013 ed.): Susan Gordon Neurophenomenology and Its Applications to Psychology (Hardcover, 2013 ed.)
Susan Gordon
R3,370 Discovery Miles 33 700 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Thisbook explores the meaning and import of neurophenomenology and the philosophy of enactive or embodied cognition for psychology. It introduces the psychologist to an experiential, non-reductive, holistic, theoretical, and practical framework that integrates the approaches of natural and human science to consciousness. In integrating phenomenology with cognitive science, neurophenomenology provides a bridge between the natural and human sciences that opens an interdisciplinary dialogue on the nature of awareness, the ontological primacy of experience, the perception of the observer, and the mind-brain relationship, which will shape the future of psychological theory, research, and practice.

Evolution and Progress in Democracies - Towards New Foundations of a Knowledge Society (Hardcover, 2001 ed.): Johann Goetschl Evolution and Progress in Democracies - Towards New Foundations of a Knowledge Society (Hardcover, 2001 ed.)
Johann Goetschl
R6,751 Discovery Miles 67 510 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

In a ground-breaking series of articles, one of them written by a Nobel Laureate, this volume demonstrates the evolutionary dynamic and the transformation of today's democratic societies into scientific-democratic societies. It highlights the progress of modeling individual and societal evaluation by neo-Bayesian utility theory. It shows how social learning and collective opinion formation work, and how democracies cope with randomness caused by randomizers. Nonlinear evolution equations' and serial stochastic matrices of evolutionary game theory allow us to optimally compute possible serial evolutionary solutions of societal conflicts. But in democracies progress can be defined as any positive, gradual, innovative and creative change of culturally used, transmitted and stored mentifacts (models, theories), sociofacts (customs, opinions), artifacts and technifacts, within and across generations. The most important changes are caused, besides randomness, by conflict solutions and their realizations by citizens who follow democratic laws. These laws correspond to the extended Pareto principle, a supreme, socioethical democratic rule. According to this principle, progress is any increase in the individual and collective welfare which is achieved during any evolutionary progress. Central to evolutionary modeling is the criterion of the empirical realization of computed solutions. Applied to serial conflict solutions (decisions), evolutionary trajectories are formed; they become the most influential causal attractors of the channeling of societal evolution. Democratic constitutions, legal systems etc., store all advantageous, present and past, adaptive, competitive, cooperative and collective solutions and their rules; they have been accepted by majority votes. Societal laws are codes of statutes (default or statistical rules), and they serve to optimally solve societal conflicts, in analogy to game theoretical models or to statistical decision theory. Such solutions become necessary when we face harmful or advantageous random events always lurking at the edge of societal and external chaos. The evolutionary theory of societal evolution in democracies presents a new type of stochastic theory; it is based on default rules and stresses realization. The rules represent the change of our democracies into information, science and technology-based societies; they will revolutionize social sciences, especially economics. Their methods have already found their way into neural brain physiology and research into intelligence. In this book, neural activity and the creativity of human thinking are no longer regarded as linear-deductive. Only evolutive nonlinear thinking can include multiple causal choices by many individuals and the risks of internal and external randomness; this serves the increasing welfare of all individuals and society as a whole. Evolution and Progress in Democracies is relevant for social scientists, economists, evolution theorists, statisticians, philosophers, philosophers of science, and interdisciplinary researchers.

The Founders of Evolutionary Genetics - A Centenary Reappraisal (Hardcover, 1992 ed.): S. Sarkar The Founders of Evolutionary Genetics - A Centenary Reappraisal (Hardcover, 1992 ed.)
S. Sarkar
R6,077 Discovery Miles 60 770 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

genetics. " It is simply the appropriation of that term, very likely with insufficient knowledge and respect for its past usage. For that, the Editor alone is responsible and requests tolerance. He has, as far as he can tell, no intention or desire to use it for any historiographical purposes other than that just mentioned. Even more important, the decision to consider Muller together with Fisher, Haldane and Wright is also not original. Crow (1984) has already done so, arguing persua sively that Muller was "keenly interested in evolution and made sub stantial contributions to the development of the neo-Darwinian view. " Crow's reasons for considering these four figures together and the reasons discussed above are complementary. This book continues a historiographical choice he initiated; others will have to judge whether it is appropriate. The foregoing considerations were intended to show why Fisher, Haldane, Muller and Wright should be considered together in the history of theoretical evolutionary genetics. I By a welcome stroke of luck, from the point of view of the Editor, all four of these figures were born almost together, between 1889 and 1892, and almost exactly a century ago. It therefore seemed appropriate to use their birth cente naries to consider their work together. A conference was held at Boston University, on March 6, 1990, under the auspices of the Boston Center for the Philosophy and History of Science, to discuss their work. This book has emerged mainly from that conference."

Modern Physics and Ancient Faith (Hardcover): Stephen M. Barr Modern Physics and Ancient Faith (Hardcover)
Stephen M. Barr
R5,202 Discovery Miles 52 020 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

A considerable amount of public debate and media print has been devoted to the "war between science and religion". In his accessible and readable book, Stephen M. Barr demonstrates that what is really at war with religion is not science itself, but a philosophy called scientific materialism. "Modern Physics and Ancient Faith" argues that the great discoveries of modern physics are more compatible with the central teachings of Christianity and Judaism about God, the cosmos and the human soul than with the atheistic viewpoint of scientific materialism. Scientific discoveries from the time of Copernicus to the beginning of the 20th century have led many thoughtful people to the conclusion that the universe has no cause or purpose, that the human race is an accidental by-product of blind material forces, and that the ultimate reality is matter itself. Barr contends that the revolutionary discoveries of the 20th century run counter to this line of thought. He uses five of these discoveries - the Big Bang theory, unified field theories, anthropic coincidences, Godel's Theorem in mathematics, and quantum theory - to cast serious doubt on the materialist's view of the world and to give greater credence to Judeo-Christian claims about God and the universe. Written in clear language, Barr's rigorous and fair text explains modern physics to general readers without oversimplification. Using the insights of modern physics, he reveals that modern scientific discoveries and religious faith are deeply consonant.

Galileo's Logical Treatises - A Translation, with Notes and Commentary, of his Appropriated Latin Questions on... Galileo's Logical Treatises - A Translation, with Notes and Commentary, of his Appropriated Latin Questions on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics Book II (Hardcover, 1992 ed.)
W.A. Wallace
R4,427 Discovery Miles 44 270 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Hard as it is to believe, what is possibly Galileo's most important Latin manuscript was not transcribed for the National Edition of his works and so has remained hidden from scholars for centuries. In this volume William A. Wallace translates the logical treatises contained in that manuscript and makes them intelligible to the modern reader. He prefaces his translation with a lengthy introduction describing the contents of the manuscript, the sources from which it derives, its dating, and how it relates to Galileo's other Pisan writings. The translation is accompanied by extensive notes and commentary; these explain the text and tie it to the fuller exposition of Galileo's logical methodology in the author's companion volume, Galileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof. The result is a research tool that is indispensable for anyone intent on understanding Galileo's logic as described in that volume and the documentary evidence on which it is based.

The Completeness of Scientific Theories - On the Derivation of Empirical Indicators within a Theoretical Framework: The Case of... The Completeness of Scientific Theories - On the Derivation of Empirical Indicators within a Theoretical Framework: The Case of Physical Geometry (Hardcover, 1994 ed.)
Martin Carrier
R4,435 Discovery Miles 44 350 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The Completeness of Scientific Theories deals with the role of theories in measurement. Theories are employed in measurements in order to account for the operation of the instruments and to correct the raw data obtained. These observation theories thus guarantee the reliability of measurement procedures. In special cases a theory can be used as its own observation theory. In such cases it is possible, relying on the theory itself, to analyze the measuring procedures associated with theoretical states specified within its framework. This feature is called completeness. The book addresses the assets and liabilities of theories exhibiting this feature. Chief among the prima-facie liabilities is a testability problem. If a theory that is supposed to explain certain measurement results at the same time provides the theoretical means necessary for obtaining these results, the threat of circularity arises. Closer investigation reveals that various circularity problems do indeed emerge in complete theories, but that these problems can generally be solved. Some methods for testing and confirming theories are developed and discussed. The particulars of complete theories are addressed using a variety of theories from the physical sciences and psychology as examples. The example developed in greatest detail is general relativity theory, which exhibits an outstanding degree of completeness. In this context a new approach to the issue of the conventionality of physical geometry is pursued. The book contains the first systematic analysis of completeness; it thus opens up new paths of research. For philosophers of science working on problems of confirmation, theory-ladenness of evidence, empiricaltestability, and space--time philosophy (or students in these areas).

Humanity 2.0 - What it Means to be Human Past, Present and Future (Hardcover): S. Fuller Humanity 2.0 - What it Means to be Human Past, Present and Future (Hardcover)
S. Fuller
R1,676 Discovery Miles 16 760 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Social thinkers in all fields are faced with one unavoidable question: what does it mean to be 'human' in the 21st century? As definitions between what is "animal" and what is "human" break down, and as emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and nano- and bio- technologies develop, accepted notions of humanity are rapidly evolving.
"Humanity 2.0" is an ambitious and groundbreaking book, offering a sweeping overview of key historical, philosophical and theological moments that have shaped our understandings of humanity. Tackling head on the twin taboos that have always hovered over the scientific study of humanity -- race and religion -- Steve Fuller argues thar far from disappearing, they are being reinvented.
Fuller argues that these new developments will force us to decide which features of our current way of life -- not least our bodies -- are truly needed to remain human, and concludes with a consideration of these changes for ethical and social values more broadly.

The Logical Foundations of the Marxian Theory of Value (Hardcover, 1992 ed.): Adolfo Garcia De La Sienra The Logical Foundations of the Marxian Theory of Value (Hardcover, 1992 ed.)
Adolfo Garcia De La Sienra
R3,112 Discovery Miles 31 120 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Written before the impressive collapse of the socialist system in Eastern Europe, this book offers a quite objective and serious systematic analysis of the Marxian labor theory of value, Marx's main scientific legacy. After reconstructing the prototype' of this theory -- which is the theory as it was left by Marx himself in Capital -- the author proceeds to a careful and detailed analysis of its foundational problems, taking into account BAhm-Bawerk's important criticisms. After introducing advanced contemporary formal tools, the author proceeds to a thorough discussion of the dialectical method, just in order to tackle the foundational problems of the theory. He provides a formally precise and well motivated definition of abstract labor, and then proceeds to prove the existence of a measurement of abstract labor -- i.e. the existence of numerical labor-values. Using this result, the author provides rigorous axiomatic foundations for the theory of value and then proves the existence of a Marxian competitive equilibrium, which is tantamount to the proof of the possibility of reproduction for a capitalist economy. The author finishes the book by showing in detail how the problems of the prototype are solved, by reconstructing the Leontief model of the labor theory of value on the new logical bases. Written in a very clear style, in the language of contemporary philosophy of science, the book is of interest to philosophers of science and economists, applied logicians and all those interested in the scientific legacy of Karl Marx.

Aristotle on Teleology (Hardcover): Monte Ransome Johnson Aristotle on Teleology (Hardcover)
Monte Ransome Johnson
R4,440 Discovery Miles 44 400 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Monte Johnson examines one of the most controversial aspects of Aristiotle's natural philosophy: his teleology. Is teleology about causation or explanation? Does it exclude or obviate mechanism, determinism, or materialism? Is it focused on the good of individual organisms, or is god or man the ultimate end of all processes and entities? Is teleology restricted to living things, or does it apply to the cosmos as a whole? Does it identify objectively existent causes in the world, or is it merely a heuristic for our understanding of other causal processes? Johnson argues that Aristotle's aporetic approach drives a middle course between these traditional oppositions, and avoids the dilemma, frequently urged against teleology, between backwards causation and anthropomorphism. Although these issues have been debated with extraordinary depth by Aristotle scholars, and touched upon by many in the wider philosophical and scientific community as well, there has been no comprehensive historical treatment of the issue. Aristotle is commonly considered the inventor of teleology, although the precise term originated in the eighteenth century. But if teleology means the use of ends and goals in natural science, then Aristotle was rather a critical innovator of teleological explanation. Teleological notions were widespread among his predecessors, but Aristotle rejected their conception of extrinsic causes such as mind or god as the primary causes for natural things. Aristotle's radical alternative was to assert nature itself as an internal principle of change and an end, and his teleological explanations focus on the intrinsic ends of natural substances - those ends that benefit the natural thing itself. Aristotle's use of ends was subsequently conflated with incompatible 'teleological' notions, including proofs for the existence of a providential or designer god, vitalism and animism, opposition to mechanism and non-teleological causation, and anthropocentrism. Johnson addresses these misconceptions through an elaboration of Aristotle's methodological statements, as well as an examination of the explanations actually offered in the scientific works.

The Innermost Kernel - Depth Psychology and Quantum Physics. Wolfgang Pauli's Dialogue with C.G. Jung (Hardcover, 2005... The Innermost Kernel - Depth Psychology and Quantum Physics. Wolfgang Pauli's Dialogue with C.G. Jung (Hardcover, 2005 ed.)
Suzanne Gieser
R4,401 Discovery Miles 44 010 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The publication of W. Pauli's Scientific Correspondence by Springer-Verlag has motivated a vast research activity on Pauli's role in modern science. This excellent treatise sheds light on the ongoing dialogue between physics and psychology.

A Mind for Tomorrow - Facts, Values, and the Future (Hardcover, New): Erika Erdmann, David Stover A Mind for Tomorrow - Facts, Values, and the Future (Hardcover, New)
Erika Erdmann, David Stover
R2,659 Discovery Miles 26 590 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Stover and Erdmann deal with the crises confronting today's world and argue that solutions will come not from new technology nor in retreating to an idealized agrarian past, but by overhauling the beliefs that structure society. They link the dilemmas facing civilization to a fundamental rift running through society--one between religion and the humanities, rooted in subjective experience, and science, which emphasizes objective knowledge. They suggest a promising way of closing this rift found in the work of Nobel Laureate and neuroscientist Roger W. Sperry.

They examine Sperry's lifework, including his famous split- brain research and show how it led him to propose a theory of consciousness that challenged science's dismissal of subjective experience as irrelevant. By seeing consciousness as an emergent, causal property of brain function, Sperry reinstated subjective experience into the scientific worldview, laid the foundation for the cognitive revolution that has since swept through psychology, and created a means by which science can help create ethical systems better able to deal with today's challenges. Stover and Erdmann conclude by looking at ways in which others have built upon Sperry's ideas, and they hold out the hope that, with the creation of belief systems more compatible with science, a way out of humanity's current troubles may indeed be found. The result is an excursion through a world of exciting ideas, and a book sure to absorb anyone interested in the fate of our species--and how that fate might be influenced for the better. Students, researchers, scholars, and concerned citizens particularly interested in cognitive psychology, science and society, and futures studies will find the book intriguing.

One Hundred Years of Pressure - Hydrostatics from Stevin to Newton (Hardcover, 1st ed. 2017): Alan F. Chalmers One Hundred Years of Pressure - Hydrostatics from Stevin to Newton (Hardcover, 1st ed. 2017)
Alan F. Chalmers
R3,719 Discovery Miles 37 190 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

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.

Galileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof - The Background, Content, and Use of His Appropriated Treatises on... Galileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof - The Background, Content, and Use of His Appropriated Treatises on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics (Hardcover, 1992 ed.)
W.A. Wallace
R6,089 Discovery Miles 60 890 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This volume is presented as a companion study to my translation of Galileo's MS 27, Galileo's Logical Treatises, which contains Galileo's appropriated questions on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics - a work only recently transcribed from the Latin autograph. Its purpose is to acquaint an English-reading audience with the teaching in those treatises. This is basically a sixteenth-century logic of discovery and of proof about which little is known in the present day, yet one that arguably guided the most significant research program of the seventeenth century. Despite its historical and systematic importance, the teaching is difficult to explain to the modern reader. Part of the problem stems from the fragmentary nature of the manuscript in which it is preserved, part from the contents of the teaching itself, which requires a considerable propadeutic for its comprehension. A word of explanation is thus required to set out the structure of the volume and to detail the editorial decisions that underlie its organization. Two major manuscript studies have advanced the cause of scholarship on Galileo within the past two decades. The first relates to Galileo's experimental activity at Padua prior to his discoveries with the telescope that led to the publication of his Sidereus nuncius in 1610. Much of this activity has been uncovered by Stillman Drake in analyses of manuscript fragments associated with the composition of Galileo's Two New Sciences, fragments now bound in a codex identified as MS 72 in the collection of Galileiana at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence.

Epistemological and Experimental Perspectives on Quantum Physics (Hardcover, 1999 ed.): Daniel Greenberger, W.L. Reiter, Anton... Epistemological and Experimental Perspectives on Quantum Physics (Hardcover, 1999 ed.)
Daniel Greenberger, W.L. Reiter, Anton Zeilinger
R4,456 Discovery Miles 44 560 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

From the very beginning it was realised that quantum physics involves radically new interpretative and epistemological consequences. While hitherto there has been no satisfactory philosophical analysis of these consequences, recent years have witnessed the accomplishment of many experiments to test the foundations of quantum physics, opening up vistas to a completely novel technology: quantum technology. The contributions in the present volume review the interpretative situation, analyze recent fundamental experiments, and discuss the implications of possible future technological applications. Readership: Analytic philosophers (logical empiricists), scientists (especially physicists), historians of logic, mathematics and physics, philosophers of science, and advanced students and researchers in these fields. Can be used for seminars on theoretical and experimental physics and philosophy of science, and as supplementary reading at advanced undergraduate and graduate levels.

Metaphor and Analogy in the Sciences (Hardcover, 2000 ed.): F. Hallyn Metaphor and Analogy in the Sciences (Hardcover, 2000 ed.)
F. Hallyn
R3,116 Discovery Miles 31 160 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

This collection of papers contains historical case studies, systematic contributions of a general nature, and applications to specific sciences. The bibliographies of the contributions contain references to all central items from the traditions that are relevant today. While providing access to contemporary views on the issue, the papers illustrate the wide variety of functions of metaphors and analogies, as well as the many connections between the study of some of these functions and other subjects and disciplines.

Unified Science - The Vienna Circle Monograph Series originally edited by Otto Neurath, now in an English edition (Hardcover,... Unified Science - The Vienna Circle Monograph Series originally edited by Otto Neurath, now in an English edition (Hardcover, English ed)
B.F. McGuinness; Translated by H. Kaal
R6,080 Discovery Miles 60 800 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

a priori, and what is more, to a rejection based ultimately on a posteriori findings; in other words, the "pure" science of nature in Kant's sense of the term had proved to be, not only not pure, but even false. As for logic and mathematics, the decisive works of Frege, Russell, and White head suggested two conclusions: first, that it was possible to construct mathematics on the basis of logic (logicism), and secondly, that logical propositions had an irrevocably analytic status. But within the frame work of logicism, the status of logical propositions is passed on to mathematical ones, and mathematical propositions are therefore also conceived of as analytic. All this creates a situation where the existential presupposition contained in the Kantian question about the possibility of judgements that are both synthetic and a priori must, it seems, be rejected as false. But to drop this presupposition is, at the same time, to strike at the very core of Kant's programme of putting the natural sciences on a philosophical foundation. The failure of the modern attempt to do so suggests at the same time a reversal of the relationship between philosophy and the individual sciences: it is not the task of philosophy to meddle with the foundations of the individual sciences; being the less successful discipline, its task is rather to seek guidance from the principles of rationality operative in the individual sciences."

Wittgenstein: Mind and Language (Hardcover, 1995 ed.): R. Egidi Wittgenstein: Mind and Language (Hardcover, 1995 ed.)
R. Egidi
R4,442 Discovery Miles 44 420 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

The essays collected in this volume represent, in a revised version, the pa- pers of the Wittgenstein Conference held in November 1989 at the Univer- sity ofRome 'La Sapienza' to celebrate the centenary ofhis birth. They offer a systematic account ofWittgenstein's philosophy ofmind and contribute to illuminate his later conception of perceptive, emotional and cognitive lan- guage. Some of the reasons why it seemed the right time to promote an am- pIe confrontation ofideas on Wittgenstein's mature perspective are sufficiently c1ear as they derive from the need to sum up the state of research based on the availability of the Nachlass and the publication in the last decade of a conspicuous quantity ofwritings dedicated to philosophical psychology; other reasons are more complex as they depend on the already noticed tendency in the recent epistemological debate to interpret Wittgenstein's provocative and controversial theses in a "perverse" way, in a way which has been used as a banner for epistemic relativism, subjectivism, and irrationalism. The intention of this collection of essays is to construct an image of Wittgenstein's thought, which is as faithful as possible to his philosophy of mind and language from both a theoretical and exegetical point of view. The book also strives to assess the continuity and internal coherence of the theses developed throughout the different phases of his research.

The Concept of Nature (Hardcover): Alfred North Whitehead The Concept of Nature (Hardcover)
Alfred North Whitehead
R896 Discovery Miles 8 960 Ships in 10 - 15 working days

Hailed as "one of the most valuable books on the relation of philosophy and science," Alfred North Whitehead's The Concept of Nature, first published in 1920, was an important contribution to the development of philosophic naturalism. Examining the fundamental problems of substance, space, and time, Whitehead assesses the impact of Einstein's theories as well as the then-recent findings of modern physics on the concept of nature. For students and teachers of natural philosophy, this is essential reading. English mathematician and philosopher ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD (1861-1947) contributed significantly to 20th-century logic and metaphysics. With Bertrand Russell he cowrote the landmark Principia Mathematica, and also authored An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge, The Function of Reason, and Process and Reality.

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Derek Gow Paperback R347 R293 Discovery Miles 2 930
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