Philosophical Essays on Physics and Biology

Philosophical Essays on Physics and Biology PDF Author: José Luis González Recio
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783487137131
Category : Biology
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description

Philosophical Essays on Physics and Biology

Philosophical Essays on Physics and Biology PDF Author: José Luis González Recio
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783487137131
Category : Biology
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description


The Understanding of Nature

The Understanding of Nature PDF Author: Marjorie Grene
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401022240
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
No student or colleague of Marjorie Grene will miss her incisive presence in these papers on the study and nature of living nature, and we believe the new reader will quickly join the stimulating discussion and critique which Professor Grene steadily provokes. For years she has worked with equally sure knowledge in the classical domain of philosophy and in modern epistemological inquiry, equally philosopher of science and metaphysician. Moreover, she has the deeply sensible notion that she should be a critically intelligent learner as much as an imaginatively original thinker, and as a result she has brought insightful expository readings of other philosophers and scientists to her own work. We were most fortunate that Marjorie Grene was willing to spend a full semester of a recent leave here in Boston, and we have on other occasions sought her participation in our colloquia and elsewhere. Now we have the pleasure of including among the Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science this generous selection from Grene's philosophical inquiries into the understanding of the natural world, and of the men and women in it. Boston University Center for the R. S. COHEN Philosophy and History of Science M. W. W ARTOFSKY April 1974 PREFACE This collection spans - spottily - years from 1946 ('On Some Distinctions between Men and Brutes') to 1974 ('On the Nature of Natural Necessity').

Old and New Questions in Physics, Cosmology, Philosophy, and Theoretical Biology

Old and New Questions in Physics, Cosmology, Philosophy, and Theoretical Biology PDF Author: Alwyn Van der Merwe
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1468488309
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 904

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Book Description
Simply to say that this is a collection of essays in honor of the late Wolfgang Yourgrau (1908-1979) is to explain, at least for-the obviously many-"insiders," the unusually wide-ranging title of the present volume. In a Foreword to the Proceedings of the First International Colloquium (focusing on logic, physical reality, and history), held at the University of Denver in May of 1966 under their leadership, Wolfgang Y ourgrau and Allen Breck wrote, in an oblique reference to C. P. Snow: "Indeed there are not two or three or four cultures: there is only one culture; our generation has lost its awareness of this . . . . Historians, logicians, physicists-all are banded in one common enterprise, namely in their des ire to weave an enlightened fabric of human knowledge. " Augment, if you will, the foregoing categories of scholars with biologists, philos ophers, cosmologists, and theologians-all of whom, in addition to historians, Wolf gang Yourgrau, by dint of his inextinguishable enthusiasm and charismatic qualities, assembled in Denver for the Second and Third International Colloquia (in 1967 and 1974, respectively)-and a few other besides, and one arrives at a statement of the credo wh ich Y ourgrau not only professed, but consistently exemplified throughout his adult life.

Fictions in Science

Fictions in Science PDF Author: Mauricio Suárez
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135854718
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 494

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Book Description
Science is popularly understood as being an ideal of impartial algorithmic objectivity that provides us with a realistic description of the world down to the last detail. The essays collected in this book—written by some of the leading experts in the field—challenge this popular image right at its heart, taking as their starting point that science trades not only in truth, but in fiction, too. With case studies that range from physics to economics and to biology, Fictions in Science reveals that fictions are as ubiquitous in scientific narratives and practice as they are in any other human endeavor, including literature and art. Of course scientific activity, most prominently in the formal sciences, employs logically precise algorithmic thinking. However, the key to the predictive and technological success of the empirical sciences might well lie elsewhere—perhaps even in scientists’ extraordinary creative imagination instead. As these essays demonstrate, within the bounds of what is empirically possible, a scientist’s capacity for invention and creative thinking matches that of any writer or artist.

Physics, Philosophy, and the Scientific Community

Physics, Philosophy, and the Scientific Community PDF Author: K. Gavroglu
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401726582
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
In three volumes, a distinguished group of scholars from a variety of disciplines in the natural and social sciences, the humanities and the arts contribute essays in honor of Robert S. Cohen, on the occasion of his 70th birthday. The range of the essays, as well as their originality, and their critical and historical depth, pay tribute to the extraordinary scope of Professor Cohen's intellectual interests, as a scientist-philosopher and a humanist, and also to his engagement in the world of social and political practice. The essays presented in Physics, Philosophy, and the Scientific Community (Volume I of Essays in Honor of Robert S. Cohen) focus on philosophical and historical issues in contemporary physics: on the origins and conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics, on the reception and understanding of Bohr's and Einstein's work, on the emergence of quantum electrodynamics, and on some of the sharp philosophical and scientific issues that arise in current scientific practice (e.g. in superconductivity research). In addition, several essays deal with critical issues within the philosophy of science, both historical and contemporary: e.g. with Cartesian notions of mechanism in the philosophy of biology; with the language and logic of science - e.g. with new insights concerning the issue of a `physicalistic' language in the arguments of Neurath, Carnap and Wittgenstein; with the notion of `elementary logic'; and with rational and non-rational elements in the history of science. Two original contributions to the history of mathematics and some studies in the comparative sociology of science round off this outstanding collection.

Theoretical Biology and Complexity

Theoretical Biology and Complexity PDF Author: Robert J. Rosen
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 1483272346
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
Theoretical Biology and Complexity: Three Essays on the Natural Philosophy of Complex Systems is made up of three short essays—each separately conceived and written, each with distinct thrusts and emphases, but nevertheless closely related in substance and spirit. All three spring from a common concern: to grasp and comprehend the material basis of living systems. The first essay is about the interaction between particles and the consequent observable manifestations. It casts the analysis of the measurement process into an elegant dualism relating modes of description, and explores the consequences of this dualism for what may be called classical physics. The second essay explores the deeper consequences of representing the properties of natural systems through states built up out of observable quantities, and the dynamics that such systems impose on each other through interactions. The final essay argues that traditional modes of system representation, involving fixed sets of states together with imposed dynamical laws, strictly pertains only to an extremely limited class of systems (called simple systems or mechanisms). Systems not in this class are called “complex, and these can only be in some sense approximated, locally and temporally, by simple ones. Such a radical alteration of viewpoint leads to a large number of concrete, practical consequences, some of which are described in the essay.

Biological Physics, Physic [and] Metaphysics; Studies and Essays

Biological Physics, Physic [and] Metaphysics; Studies and Essays PDF Author: Thomas Logan
Publisher: Legare Street Press
ISBN: 9781021090829
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book brings together prominent physicists and philosophers to explore the intersection of biology, physics, and metaphysics. P. Henderson Aitken, Quintin McLennan, and Thomas Logan delve into topics such as the nature of time, the relationship between physics and biology, and the mind-body problem. A must-read for anyone interested in the cutting edge of interdisciplinary research. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

A Many-colored Glass

A Many-colored Glass PDF Author: Freeman J. Dyson
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813926637
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
The emphasis of this book with philosophical essays is on the myriad ways in which the universe presents itself to us - and how, as observers and participants in its processes, we respond to it. The book begins with a consideration of the practical and political questions surrounding biotechnology. As it seeks how best to explain the place of life in the universe, the book then moves from ethical to purely scientific issues. The last part concludes with an attempt to understand the implications of biology for philosophy and religion. The pieces in this book touch on numerous disciplines, from astronomy and ecology to neurology and theology.

Basic Structures of Reality

Basic Structures of Reality PDF Author: Colin McGinn
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190208317
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
In Basic Structures of Reality, Colin McGinn deals with questions of metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind from the vantage point of physics. Combining general philosophy with physics, he covers such topics as the definition of matter, the nature of space, motion, gravity, electromagnetic fields, the character of physical knowledge, and consciousness and meaning. Throughout, McGinn maintains an historical perspective and seeks to determine how much we really know of the world described by physics. He defends a version of "structuralism": the thesis that our knowledge is partial and merely abstract, leaving a large epistemological gap at the center of physics. McGinn then connects this element of mystery to parallel mysteries in relation to the mind. Consciousness emerges as just one more mystery of physics. A theory of matter and space is developed, according to which the impenetrability of matter is explained as the deletion of volumes of space. McGinn proposes a philosophy of science that distinguishes physics from both psychology and biology, explores the ontology of energy, and considers the relevance of physics to seemingly remote fields such as the theory of meaning. In the form of a series of aphorisms, the author presents a metaphysical system that takes laws of nature as fundamental. With its broad scope and deep study of the fundamental questions at the heart of philosophy of physics, this book is not intended primarily for specialists, but for the general philosophical reader interested in how physics and philosophy intersect.

Essays on Life Itself

Essays on Life Itself PDF Author: Robert Rosen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231105118
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
Compiling twenty articles on the nature of life and on the objective of the natural sciences, this remarkable book complements Robert Rosen's groundbreaking Life Itself--a work that influenced a wide range of philosophers, biologists, linguists, and social scientists. In Essays on Life Itself, Rosen takes to task the central objective of the natural sciences, calling into question the attempt to create objectivity in a subjective world and forcing us to reconsider where science can lead us in the years to come.