Philosophical Explanations

Philosophical Explanations PDF Author: Robert Nozick
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674266277
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 788

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Book Description
In this highly original work, Robert Nozick develops new views on philosophy’s central topics and weaves them into a unified philosophical perspective. It is many years since a major work in English has ranged so widely over philosophy’s fundamental concerns: the identity of the self, knowledge and skepticism, free will, the question of why there is something rather than nothing, the foundations of ethics, the meaning of life. Writing in a distinctive and personal philosophical voice, Mr. Nozick presents a new mode of philosophizing. In place of the usual semi-coercive philosophical goals of proof, of forcing people to accept conclusions, this book seeks philosophical explanations and understanding, and thereby stays truer to the original motivations for being interested in philosophy. Combining new concepts, daring hypotheses, rigorous reasoning, and playful exploration, the book exemplifies how philosophy can be part of the humanities.

Philosophical Explanations

Philosophical Explanations PDF Author: Robert Nozick
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674266277
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 788

Get Book

Book Description
In this highly original work, Robert Nozick develops new views on philosophy’s central topics and weaves them into a unified philosophical perspective. It is many years since a major work in English has ranged so widely over philosophy’s fundamental concerns: the identity of the self, knowledge and skepticism, free will, the question of why there is something rather than nothing, the foundations of ethics, the meaning of life. Writing in a distinctive and personal philosophical voice, Mr. Nozick presents a new mode of philosophizing. In place of the usual semi-coercive philosophical goals of proof, of forcing people to accept conclusions, this book seeks philosophical explanations and understanding, and thereby stays truer to the original motivations for being interested in philosophy. Combining new concepts, daring hypotheses, rigorous reasoning, and playful exploration, the book exemplifies how philosophy can be part of the humanities.

Philosophical Explanations

Philosophical Explanations PDF Author: Robert Nozick
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674664791
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 788

Get Book

Book Description
Nozick develops new views on philosophy’s central topics and weaves them into a unified perspective. He ranges widely over philosophy’s fundamental concerns: the identity of the self, knowledge and skepticism, free will, the question of why there is something rather than nothing, the foundations of ethics, the meaning of life.

The Philosophical Structure of Historical Explanation

The Philosophical Structure of Historical Explanation PDF Author: Paul A. Roth
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810140896
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
In The Philosophical Structure of Historical Explanation, Paul A. Roth resolves disputes persisting since the nineteenth century about the scientific status of history. He does this by showing why historical explanations must take the form of a narrative, making their logic explicit, and revealing how the rational evaluation of narrative explanation becomes possible. Roth situates narrative explanations within a naturalistic framework and develops a nonrealist (irrealist) metaphysics and epistemology of history—arguing that there exists no one fixed past, but many pasts. The book includes a novel reading of Thomas S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, showing how it offers a narrative explanation of theory change in science. This book will be of interest to researchers in historiography, philosophy of history, philosophy of science, philosophy of social science, and epistemology.

Philosophical Devices: Proofs, Probabilities, Possibilities, and Sets

Philosophical Devices: Proofs, Probabilities, Possibilities, and Sets PDF Author: David Papineau
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191656240
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
This book is designed to explain the technical ideas that are taken for granted in much contemporary philosophical writing. Notions like denumerability, modal scope distinction, Bayesian conditionalization, and logical completeness are usually only elucidated deep within difficult specialist texts. By offering simple explanations that by-pass much irrelevant and boring detail, Philosophical Devices is able to cover a wealth of material that isnormally only available to specialists. The book contains four sections, each of three chapters. The first section is about sets and numbers, starting with the membership relation and ending with the generalized continuum hypothesis. The second is about analyticity, a prioricity, and necessity. The third is about probability, outlining the difference between objective and subjective probability and exploring aspects of conditionalization and correlation. The fourth deals with metalogic, focusing on the contrast between syntax andsemantics, and finishing with a sketch of Gödels theorem. Philosophical Devices will be useful for university students who have got past the foothills of philosophy and are starting to read more widely, but it does not assume any prior expertise. All the issues discussed are intrinsically interesting, and often downright fascinating. It can be read with pleasure and profit by anybody who is curious about the technical infrastructure of contemporary philosophy.

Examined Life

Examined Life PDF Author: Robert Nozick
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0671725017
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
An exploration of topics of everyday importance in the Socratic tradition.

The Philosophy Book

The Philosophy Book PDF Author: DK
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1465441069
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 772

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Book Description
Discover how our big social, political and ethical ideas are formed with The Philosophy Book. Part of the fascinating Big Ideas series, this book tackles tricky topics and themes in a simple and easy to follow format. Learn about Philosophy in this overview guide to the subject, great for beginners looking to learn and experts wishing to refresh their knowledge alike! The Philosophy Book brings a fresh and vibrant take on the topic through eye-catching graphics and diagrams to immerse yourself in. This captivating book will broaden your understanding of Philosophy, with: - Key quotes from more than 100 of the great thinkers of philosophy - Packed with facts, charts, timelines and graphs to help explain core concepts - A visual approach to big subjects with striking illustrations and graphics throughout - Easy to follow text makes topics accessible for people at any level of understanding The Philosophy Book is the perfect introduction to philosophy, aimed at adults with an interest in the subject and students wanting to gain more of an overview. Here you'll discover how key concepts in philosophy have shaped our world, with authoritative articles that explore big ideas. Learn about everyone who's contributed to the flow of world philosophy, from antiquity to the modern age, through superb mind maps explaining the line of thought. Your Philosophical Questions, Simply Explained If you thought it was difficult to learn philosophy and its many concepts, The Philosophy Book presents the key ideas in a clear layout. Find out what philosophers thought about the nature of reality, and the fundamental questions we ask ourselves; What is the meaning of life? What is the Universe made of? And work your way through the different branches of philosophy such as metaphysics and ethics, from ancient and modern thinkers. The Big Ideas Series With millions of copies sold worldwide, The Philosophy Book is part of the award-winning Big Ideas series from DK. The series uses striking graphics along with engaging writing, making big topics easy to understand.

Unconscious Knowing and Other Essays in Psycho-Philosophical Analysis

Unconscious Knowing and Other Essays in Psycho-Philosophical Analysis PDF Author: Linda Brakel
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199581479
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
In 'Unconscious Knowing and Other Essays in Psycho-Philosophical Analysis', Linda Brakel tackles a range of fascinating and puzzling phenomena that lie at the border between psychoanalysis and philosophy of mind. These include - unconscious knowing, vagueness, agency, the placebo effect, and even explanation itself. Unique in its use of tools and concepts from both philosophy and psychoanalysis, the book demonstrates how this interdisciplinary approach can provide some unique solutions to some impenetrable problems. Following the introduction, chapter two on 'unconscious knowing' puts forward a radical epistemological view of knowledge and belief, providing evidence from psychoanalytic data and empirical research, using the subliminal method. Chapter three considers philosophical accounts of vagueness in relation to a-rational mentation, finding surprising similarities. In Chapter four, an original account of agency is developed whilst discovering that a central problem for analysands is quite analogous to an important philosophical problem: namely, when I am concerned with my own survival, just what is the nature of the 'me' of concern? In Chapter five the mysterious placebo effect is made more understandable in terms of the basic psychoanalytic concepts that are shown to underlie it. Finally, chapter six concludes the book with an examination of explanations in general, including those in the proceeding chapters. This is a book that will be of great interest to those within both psychoanalysis and philosophy of mind, offering up some compelling explanations for some puzzling phenomena.

An Introduction to Philosophical Methods

An Introduction to Philosophical Methods PDF Author: Christopher Daly
Publisher: Broadview Press
ISBN: 155111934X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
An Introduction to Philosophical Methods is the first book to survey the various methods that philosophers use to support their views. Rigorous yet accessible, the book introduces and illustrates the methodological considerations that are involved in current philosophical debates. Where there is controversy, the book presents the case for each side, but highlights where the key difficulties with them lie. While eminently student-friendly, the book makes an important contribution to the debate regarding the acceptability of the various philosophical methods, and so it will also be of interest to more experienced philosophers.

Understanding, Explanation, and Scientific Knowledge

Understanding, Explanation, and Scientific Knowledge PDF Author: Kareem Khalifa
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107195632
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
The first comprehensive exploration of the nature and value of understanding, addressing burgeoning debates in epistemology and philosophy of science.

Four Decades of Scientific Explanation

Four Decades of Scientific Explanation PDF Author: Wesley C. Salmon
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN: 0822973022
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
As Aristotle stated, scientific explanation is based on deductive argument--yet, Wesley C. Salmon points out, not all deductive arguments are qualified explanations. The validity of the explanation must itself be examined. Four Decades of Scientific Explanation provides a comprehensive account of the developments in scientific explanation that transpired in the last four decades of the twentieth century. It continues to stand as the most comprehensive treatment of the writings on the subject during these years. Building on the historic 1948 essay by Carl G. Hempel and Paul Oppenheim, "Studies in the Logic of Explanation,” which introduced the deductive-nomological (D-N) model on which most work on scientific explanation was based for the following four decades, Salmon goes beyond this model's inherent basis of describing empirical knowledge to tells us “not only what, but also why.” Salmon examines the predominant models in chronological order and describes their development, refinement, and criticism or rejection. Four Decades of Scientific Explanation underscores the need for a consensus of approach and ongoing evaluations of methodology in scientific explanation, with the goal of providing a better understanding of natural phenomena.