Originally published in 1937. A short account of the traditional logic, intended to provide the student with the fundamentals necessary for the specialized study. Suitable for working through individualy, it will provide sufficient knowledge of the elements of the subject to understand materials on more advanced and specialized topics. This is an interesting historic perspective on this area of philosophy and mathematics.

Originally published in 1934. This fourth edition originally published 1954., revised by C. W. K. Mundle. "It must be the desire of every reasonable person to know how to justify a contention which is of sufficient importance to be seriously questioned. The explicit formulation of the principles of sound reasoning is the concern of Logic". This book discusses the habit of sound reasoning which is acquired by consciously attending to the logical principles of sound reasoning, in order to apply them to test the soundness of arguments. It isn't an introduction to logic but it encourages the practice of logic, of deciding whether reasons in argument are sound or unsound. Stress is laid upon the importance of considering language, which is a key instrument of our thinking and is imperfect.

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 sciences propose can in principle be reduced to physical descriptions (laws, theories) by means of functional reduction, despite multiple realization. The book develops arguments for (a) from the metaphysics of properties and the philosophy of physics. These arguments lead to a conservative ontological reductionism. It then develops functional reduction into a fully-fledged, conservative theory reduction by means of introducing functional sub-types that are coextensive with physical types, illustrating that conservative reductionism by means of case studies from biology (notably the relationship between classical and molecular genetics).

Re-crafting Rationalization contributes to debates relating to the public understanding of science, regarding the conceptualization of the relationship between 'science' and 'the public'. It challenges the prevailing science-centred or 'top-down' framework that currently informs notions of 'public engagement' and 'knowledge-transfer', offering an alternative that remains firmly grounded in the discourse of classical social theory. By proposing an alternative version of rationalization to the standard interpretation of Weber's disenchantment thesis, this book establishes the public understanding of science as a matter of fundamental sociological concern. As such, it redefines this field to emphasize public meanings of science, engaging with a range of topics of major interest to the public and popular meaning of science, including science and religion, science fiction and fantasy, 'fringe' science and media representations of science. Combining rhetorical analysis with ethnomethodology and membership categorization analysis, the book outlines the basis of a new approach to the sociology of knowledge, in the light of which Weber's rationalization thesis is radically re-crafted in relation to studies of scientists' discourse, the rhetoric of science popularization and public usages of science. This re-crafted rationalization is applied in a series of detailed empirical studies of enchanted science (creationism and intelligent design, Scientology and reflexive spirituality, superhero comics) and mundane mysteries (Fortean discourse, conspiracy theory and media representations of 'the scientist' in the case of Jack the Ripper). Re-crafting Rationalization therefore redresses a significant shortcoming in contemporary social theory, which currently overlooks or misrepresents important public meanings of science, whilst excluding popular culture from attention. With profound implications for the ways in which we make sense of developments involving science, this book will be of interest not only to sociologists and social theorists, but also to those interested in popular culture and subcultures and the history, philosophy and sociology of science.

Philosophical questions regarding the nature and methodology of philosophical inquiry have garnered much attention in recent years. Perhaps nowhere are these discussions more developed than in relation to the field of metaphysics. The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics is an outstanding reference source to this growing subject. It comprises thirty-eight chapters written by leading international contributors, and is arranged around five themes: * The history of metametaphysics * Neo-Quineanism (and its objectors) * Alternative conceptions of metaphysics * The epistemology of metaphysics * Science and metaphysics. Essential reading for students and researchers in metaphysics, philosophical methodology, and ontology, The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics will also be of interest to those in closely related subjects such as philosophy of language, logic, and philosophy of science.

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

Biologists, climate scientists, and economists all rely on models to move their work forward. In this book, Stephen M. Downes explores the use of models in these and other fields to introduce readers to the various philosophical issues that arise in scientific modeling. Readers learn that paying attention to models plays a crucial role in appraising scientific work. This book first presents a wide range of models from a number of different scientific disciplines. After assembling some illustrative examples, Downes demonstrates how models shed light on many perennial issues in philosophy of science and in philosophy in general. Reviewing the range of views on how models represent their targets introduces readers to the key issues in debates on representation, not only in science but in the arts as well. Also, standard epistemological questions are cast in new and interesting ways when readers confront the question, "What makes for a good (or bad) model?" All examples from the sciences and positions in the philosophy of science are presented in an accessible manner. The book is suitable for undergraduates with minimal experience in philosophy and an introductory undergraduate experience in science. Key features: The book serves as a highly accessible philosophical introduction to models and modeling in the sciences, presenting all philosophical and scientific issues in a nontechnical manner. Students and other readers learn to practice philosophy of science by starting with clear examples taken directly from the sciences. While not comprehensive, this book introduces the reader to a wide range of views on key issues in the philosophy of science.

This book seeks to rectify misrepresentations of Popperian thought with a historical approach to Popper's philosophy, an approach which applies his own mature view, that we gain knowledge through conjectures and refutations, to his own development, by portraying him in his intellectual growth as just such a series. Gattei seeks to reconstruct the logic of Popper's development, in order to show how one problem and its tentative solution led to a new problem.

Scientists studying the burning of stars, the evolution of species, DNA, the brain, the economy, and social change, all frequently describe their work as searching for mechanisms. Despite this fact, for much of the twentieth century philosophical discussions of the nature of mechanisms remained outside philosophy of science. The Routledge Handbook of Mechanisms and Mechanical Philosophy is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems, and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook is divided into four Parts: Historical perspectives on mechanisms The nature of mechanisms Mechanisms and the philosophy of science Disciplinary perspectives on mechanisms. Within these Parts central topics and problems are examined, including the rise of mechanical philosophy in the seventeenth century; what mechanisms are made of and how they are organized; mechanisms and laws and regularities; how mechanisms are discovered and explained; dynamical systems theory; and disciplinary perspectives from physics, chemistry, biology, biomedicine, ecology, neuroscience, and the social sciences. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of science, the Handbook will also be of interest to those in related fields, such as metaphysics, philosophy of psychology, and history of science.

Arguing for the compatibility of phenomenology and naturalism, this book also refashions each. The opening chapters begin with a methodological focus, which seeks to curb the "over-bidding" characteristic of both traditional transcendental phenomenology and scientific naturalism. Having thus opened up the possibility that the twain might meet, it is in the detailed chapters on matters where scientific and phenomenological work overlap and sometimes conflict - on time, body, and others - that the book contests some of the standard ways of understanding the relationship between phenomenological philosophy and empirical science, and between phenomenology and naturalism. Without invoking a methodological move of quarantine, in which each is allocated to their proper and separate domains, the book outlines the significance of the first-person perspective characteristic of phenomenology - both epistemically and ontologically - while according due respect to the relevant empirical sciences. The book thus renews phenomenology and argues for its ongoing relevance and importance for the future of philosophy.

Anthropic Bias explores how to reason when you suspect that your evidence is biased by "observation selection effects"--that is, evidence that has been filtered by the precondition that there be some suitably positioned observer to "have" the evidence. This conundrum--sometimes alluded to as "the anthropic principle," "self-locating belief," or "indexical information"--turns out to be a surprisingly perplexing and intellectually stimulating challenge, one abounding with important implications for many areas in science and philosophy. There are the philosophical thought experiments and paradoxes: the Doomsday Argument; Sleeping Beauty; the Presumptuous Philosopher; Adam & Eve; the Absent-Minded Driver; the Shooting Room. And there are the applications in contemporary science: cosmology ("How many universes are there?", "Why does the universe appear fine-tuned for life?"); evolutionary theory ("How improbable was the evolution of intelligent life on our planet?"); the problem of time's arrow ("Can it be given a thermodynamic explanation?"); quantum physics ("How can the many-worlds theory be tested?"); game-theory problems with imperfect recall ("How to model them?"); even traffic analysis ("Why is the 'next lane' faster?"). Anthropic Bias argues that the same principles are at work across all these domains. And it offers a synthesis: a mathematically explicit theory of observation selection effects that attempts to meet scientific needs while steering clear of philosophical paradox.

Paracelsus has been called the father of modern chemistry and is legendary for his treatment of syphilis. This work argues that Paracelsus developed an understanding of the body as composed of two distinct sexes, revolutionizing early modern conceptions of the female body as an inversion of or flawed approximation of the male body.

Written by one of the preeminent researchers in the field, this book provides a comprehensive exposition of modern analysis of causation. It shows how causality has grown from a nebulous concept into a mathematical theory with significant applications in the fields of statistics, artificial intelligence, economics, philosophy, cognitive science, and the health and social sciences. Judea Pearl presents and unifies the probabilistic, manipulative, counterfactual, and structural approaches to causation and devises simple mathematical tools for studying the relationships between causal connections and statistical associations. The book will open the way for including causal analysis in the standard curricula of statistics, artificial intelligence, business, epidemiology, social sciences, and economics. Students in these fields will find natural models, simple inferential procedures, and precise mathematical definitions of causal concepts that traditional texts have evaded or made unduly complicated. The first edition of Causality has led to a paradigmatic change in the way that causality is treated in statistics, philosophy, computer science, social science, and economics. Cited in more than 5,000 scientific publications, it continues to liberate scientists from the traditional molds of statistical thinking. In this revised edition, Judea Pearl elucidates thorny issues, answers readers questions, and offers a panoramic view of recent advances in this field of research. Causality will be of interests to students and professionals in a wide variety of fields. Anyone who wishes to elucidate meaningful relationships from data, predict effects of actions and policies, assess explanations of reported events, or form theories of causal understanding and causal speech will find this book stimulating and invaluable."

The concept of emergence has seen a significant resurgence in philosophy and the sciences, yet debates regarding emergentist and reductionist visions of the natural world continue to be hampered by imprecision or ambiguity. Emergent phenomena are said to arise out of and be sustained by more basic phenomena, while at the same time exerting a "top-down" control upon those very sustaining processes. To some critics, this has the air of magic, as it seems to suggest a kind of circular causality. Other critics deem the concept of emergence to be objectionably anti-naturalistic. Objections such as these have led many thinkers to construe emergent phenomena instead as coarse-grained patterns in the world that, while calling for distinctive concepts, do not "disrupt" the ordinary dynamics of the finer-grained (more fundamental) levels. Yet, reconciling emergence with a (presumed) pervasive causal continuity at the fundamental level can seem to deflate emergence of its initially profound significance. This basic problematic is mirrored by similar controversy over how best to characterize the opposite systematizing impulse, most commonly given an equally evocative but vague term, "reductionism." The original essays in this volume help to clarify the alternatives: inadequacies in some older formulations and arguments are exposed and new lines of argument on behalf the two visions are advanced.

The Analysis of Matter is the product of thirty years of thinking by one of the twentieth century's best-known philosophers. An inquiry into the philosophical foundations of physics, it was written against the background of stunning new developments in physics earlier in the century, above all relativity, as well as the excitement around quantum theory, which was just being developed. Concerned to place physics on a stable footing at a time of great theoretical change, Russell argues that the concept of matter itself can be replaced by a logical construction whose basic foundations are events. He is careful to point out that this does not prove that matter does not exist, but it does show that physicists can get on with their work without assuming that matter does exist. Russell argues that fundamental bits of ''matter'', such as electrons and protons, are simply groups of events connected in a certain way and their properties are all that are required for physics. This Routledge Classics edition includes the 1992 Introduction by John G. Slater.

Originally published in 1994, The Incommensurability Thesis is a critical study of the Incommensurability Thesis of Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend. The book examines the theory that different scientific theories may be incommensurable because of conceptual variance. The book presents a critique of the thesis and examines and discusses the arguments for the theory, acknowledging and debating the opposing views of other theorists. The book provides a comprehensive and detailed discussion of the incommensurability thesis.

Originally published in 1960, The Future of Man is a chronicle of Professor Medwar's Reith lectures of 1959. The book outlines his predictions about the future estate of man, with the 'process of foretelling, rather than with what is actually foretold'. He asks, can we predict the future size of populations? What is the evidence and theoretical background for the belief that human intelligence is declining? Could human beings become uniformly excellent or is inborn diversity and inequality a necessary part of the texture of human populations? The lectures tried to answer these questions and attempts to end with a definition of the biological standing of man. This book will be of interest to anthropologists, biologists and natural historians.

Originally published in 1957, The Uniqueness of the Individual is a collection of 9 essays published from the ten years preceding publication. The essays deal with some of the central problems of biology. These are among the questions put and answered from the standpoint of modern experimental biology. What is ageing and how is it measured? What theories have been held to account for it, and with what success? Did ageing evolve, and if so how? Is Lamarckism and adequate explanation of evolutionary process? Does evolution sometimes go wrong? Do human beings evolve in a way peculiar to themselves? Other essays touch upon the problems of scientific method and of growth and transformation. This book will be of interest to natural historians, evolutionists and anthropologists.

All people desire to know. We want to not only know what has happened, but also why it happened, how it happened, whether it will happen again, whether it can be made to happen or not happen, and so on. In short, what we want are explanations. Asking and answering explanatory questions lies at the very heart of scientific practice. The primary aim of this book is to help readers understand how science explains the world. This book explores the nature and contours of scientific explanation, how such explanations are evaluated, as well as how they lead to knowledge and understanding. As well as providing an introduction to scientific explanation, it also tackles misconceptions and misunderstandings, while remaining accessible to a general audience with little or no prior philosophical training.

Might human morality be a product of evolution? An increasing number of philosophers and scientists believe that moral judgment and behaviour emerged because it enhanced the fitness of our distant ancestors. This volume collects some recent explorations of the evidence for this claim, as well as papers examining its implications. Is an evolved morality a genuine morality? Does an evolutionary origin deflate the pretensions of morality, or strip it of its force in guiding behaviour? Is an evolutionary approach compatible with realism about morality? All sides of these debates are represented in this volume.

This is the second of a pair of volumes by Jonathan Hodge, collecting all his most innovative, revisionist and influential papers on Charles Darwin and on the longer run of theories about origins and species from ancient times to the present. The focus here is on Darwin himself and the development of his theories. Darwin is now such an iconic hero in our histories and such a commanding authority in our sciences that it has become a serious challenge to study him as just another disaffected medical student - or would-be vicar, aspiring zoology professor or gentleman of independent means -- thinking about sexual reproduction in animals and plants, about coral islands or about rock strata and fossils in post-Napoleonic Edinburgh, Cambridge, South America and London. But the challenge is one well worth taking up, as the papers here demonstrate, for such studies require us integrate the precise details of his inquiries with those larger scientific, metaphysical, religious and political issues of the day that a young, ambitious 'philosopher' and 'naturalist' was then expected to engage. This contextual understanding can then allow us to reinterpret his relations to such longer- run legacies as Christian Platonism, Enlightenment materialism and British capitalism. Together with the companion volume devoted to those and other long run legacies, this volume offers throughout reinterpretations of both the theorist and his theories.

Over his philosophical career, David Wiggins has produced a body of work that, though varied and wide-ranging, stands as a coherent and carefully integrated whole. In this book Ferner examines Wiggins' conceptualist-realism, his sortal theory 'D' and his human being theory in order to assess how far these elements of his systematic metaphysics connect. In addition to rectifying misinterpretations and analysing the relations between Wiggins' works, Ferner reveals the importance of the philosophy of biology to Wiggins' approach. This book elucidates the biological anti-reductionism present in Wiggins' work and highlights how this stance stands as a productive alternative to emergentism. With an analysis of Wiggins' construal of substances, specifically organisms, the book goes on to discuss how Wiggins brings together the concept of a person with the concept of a natural substance, or human being. An extensive introduction to the work of David Wiggins, as well as a contribution to the dialogue between personal identity theorists and philosophers of biology, this book will appeal to students and scholars working in the areas of philosophy, biology and the history of Anglophone metaphysics.

A revelatory and vibrant story of measurement which will make you look at the world around you anew. 'A wildly ambitious book by a formidably talented young writer.' ROBERT MACFARLANE 'Vivid, epic, and full of curiosities. This is a book to delight and fascinate.' TIM HARFORD, bestselling author of How to Make the World Add Up 'Beyond Measure offers, with much intellectual flair and style, a bracing new history: how the once innocent urge to quantification took over our lives, our sense of ourselves and the world.' PANKAJ MISHRA 'The exact value of this book is hard to quantify. Weighty, precise and satisfyingly obsessive, it's also an absolute pleasure to read.' SIMON GARFIELD, bestselling author of The Timekeepers We measure rainfall and radiation, the depths of space and the emptiness of atoms, calories and steps, happiness and pain. But how did measurement become ubiquitous in modern life? When did humanity first take up scales and rulers, and why does this practice hold authority over so many aspects of our lives? Written with vim and dazzling intelligence, James Vincent provides a fresh and original perspective on human history as he tracks our long search for dependable truths in a chaotic universe. Full of mavericks and visionaries, adventure and the unexpected, Beyond Measure shows that measurement has not only made the world we live in, it has made us too. 'An epic story about humankind's relationship with the physical world. Vincent is an erudite and perceptive guide, who with energy and skill weaves history, science and reportage into an enthralling tale.' ALEX BELLOS 'Telling the story of metrology is not easy [but] Vincent is equal to the task . . . this book is extremely good.' THE TIMES 'This quirky history is inch-perfect.' FINANCIAL TIMES 'Gripping.' NEW SCIENTIST 'Worth its weight in gold . . . Enlightening.' OBSERVER 'Fascinating . . . an erudite and elegant read.' MAIL ON SUNDAY

This book is a result from a collective study on philosophy of scientific practice (PSP), which began around 2002 and still ongoing. There is an apparently increasing interest in scientific practice, influenced by the historicistic philosophy of science and the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK). Prof. WU Tong and his research group believe that it is necessary for PSP to turn from the theory-dominant position to the practice dominance. PSP has also put forward the possibility of reinterpreting the epistemic status of local knowledge in Chinese tradition, which provides the most significant motivation to participate this study. In this book, we have selected three main cases - namely, Chinese medicine, Fengshui, and Ethnobotany - to examine the effect of PSP. The aim of our collective study is not merely on theoretical construction of PSP, but also to consider the various applications of PSP, especially for re-interpreting and demonstrating the variety of local knowledge from traditional China, which seems to be a genuine contribution to the international enterprise of philosophy of science, particularly made by Chinese scholars.

First published in 1997, this volume expands the analytical philosophical tradition in the face of parochial Anglo-American philosophical interests. The essays making up the section on 'Antiquity' share one concern: to show that there are largely unrecognised but radical differences between the way in which certain fundamental questions - concerning the nature of number, sense perception, and scepticism - were thought of in antiquity and the way in which they were thought of from the 17th century onwards. Part 2, on early modern thought, explores the theoretical characterisation of the role of experiment in early modern physical theory through Galileo's embracing of experiments, along with Descartes' automata and issues in a relatively neglected but especially intractable part of Descartes' philosophy: how he conceives of what a successful inference consists in and what it is that makes it successful. The final section deals with the philosophical foundations of physical theory, the distinction between the human and the natural sciences, the philosophical-cum-scientific foundations of Marx's idea of socialism, and Nietzche's criticisms of the very notion of science, concluding that Nietzsche's probing questions cannot be dismissed, as he has opened up some genuinely challenging issues which we ignore at our peril.