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Laws And Explanations Theories And Modal Possibilities
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Book Synopsis Laws and Explanations; Theories and Modal Possibilities by : Arnold Koslow
Download or read book Laws and Explanations; Theories and Modal Possibilities written by Arnold Koslow and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-01-01 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book has two parts: In the first, after a review of some seminal classical accounts of laws and explanations, a new account is proposed for distinguishing between laws and accidental generalizations (LAG). Among the new consequences of this proposal it is proved that any explanation of a contingent generalization shows that the generalization is not accidental. The second part involves physical theories, their modality, and their explanatory power. In particular, it is shown that (1) Each theory has a theoretical implication structure associated with it, such that there are new physical modal operators on these structures and also special modal entities that are in these structures. A special subset of the physical modals, the nomic modals are associated with the laws of theories. (2) The familiar idea that theories always explain laws by deduction of them has to be seriously modified in light of the fact that there are a host of physical theories (including for example, Newtonian Classical mechanics, Hamiltonian, and Lagrangian theory, and probability theory) that we believe are schematic (they do not have any truth value). Nevertheless, we think that there is a kind of non-deductive explanation and generality that they achieve by subsumtion under a schema.
Book Synopsis Reflections on the Foundations of Probability and Statistics by : Thomas Augustin
Download or read book Reflections on the Foundations of Probability and Statistics written by Thomas Augustin and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-01-14 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Festschrift celebrates Teddy Seidenfeld and his seminal contributions to philosophy, statistics, probability, game theory and related areas. The 13 contributions in this volume, written by leading researchers in these fields, are supplemented by an interview with Teddy Seidenfeld that offers an abbreviated intellectual autobiography, touching on topics of timeless interest concerning truth and uncertainty. Indeed, as the eminent philosopher Isaac Levi writes in this volume: "In a world dominated by Alternative Facts and Fake News, it is hard to believe that many of us have spent our life’s work, as has Teddy Seidenfeld, in discussing truth and uncertainty." The reader is invited to share this celebration of Teddy Seidenfeld’s work uncovering truths about uncertainty and the penetrating insights they offer to our common pursuit of truth in the face of uncertainty.
Book Synopsis Rethinking the Concept of Law of Nature by : Yemima Ben-Menahem
Download or read book Rethinking the Concept of Law of Nature written by Yemima Ben-Menahem and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-06-13 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book subjects the traditional concept of law of nature to critical examination. There are two kinds of reasons that invite this reexamination, one deriving from philosophical concerns over the traditional concept, the other motivated by theoretical and practical changes in science. One of the philosophical worries is that the idiom of law of nature, especially when combined with the notion of laws 'governing' individual events and processes, is no longer as intelligible as it used to be in the theistic context in which the formulation of laws became central to science. The traditional concept is also challenged in various ways by contemporary scientific theories such as quantum mechanics, chaos theory and the general theory of relativity. It is no longer clear that there are any universal laws, laws do not always guarantee predictability, and the border between physical and mathematical considerations is constantly shifting. The most difficult challenge, perhaps, is to come up with a scientific explanation of the origin of laws. Wrestling with these intriguing problems, the papers in this volume broaden both our understanding of the natural order and our desiderata of scientific explanation.
Book Synopsis The Nature of Contingency by : Alastair Wilson
Download or read book The Nature of Contingency written by Alastair Wilson and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-01-30 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book defends a radical new theory of contingency as a physical phenomenon. Drawing on the many-worlds approach to quantum theory and cutting-edge metaphysics and philosophy of science, it argues that quantum theories are best understood as telling us about the space of genuine possibilities, rather than as telling us solely about actuality. When quantum physics is taken seriously in the way first proposed by Hugh Everett III, it provides the resources for a new systematic metaphysical framework encompassing possibility, necessity, actuality, chance, counterfactuals, and a host of related modal notions. Rationalist metaphysicians argue that the metaphysics of modality is strictly prior to any scientific investigation; metaphysics establishes which worlds are possible, and physics merely checks which of these worlds is actual. Naturalistic metaphysicians respond that science may discover new possibilities and new impossibilities. This book's quantum theory of contingency takes naturalistic metaphysics one step further, allowing that science may discover what it is to be possible. As electromagnetism revealed the nature of light, as acoustics revealed the nature of sound, as statistical mechanics revealed the nature of heat, so quantum physics reveals the nature of contingency.
Book Synopsis The Metaphysics Within Physics by : Tim Maudlin
Download or read book The Metaphysics Within Physics written by Tim Maudlin and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2007-04-19 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does physics tell us about metaphysics? Tim Maudlin's philosophical examination of the fundamental structure of the world as presented by physics challenges the most widely accepted philosophical accounts of laws of nature, universals, the direction of time and causation.
Download or read book Kant on Laws written by Eric Watkins and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-16 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a unified account of the notion of law - both natural and moral - in Kant's abstract and empirical philosophy.
Book Synopsis Real Metaphysics by : Hallvard Lillehammer
Download or read book Real Metaphysics written by Hallvard Lillehammer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-09-02 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Real Metaphysics brings together new articles by leading metaphysicians to honour Hugh Mellor's outstanding contribution to metaphysics. Some of the most outstanding minds of current times shed new light on all the main topics in metaphysics: truth, causation, dispositions and properties, explanation, and time. At the end of the book, Hugh Mellor responds to the issues raised by each of the thirteen contributors and gives us new insight into his own highly influential work on metaphysics.
Book Synopsis A Structuralist Theory of Logic by : Arnold Koslow
Download or read book A Structuralist Theory of Logic written by Arnold Koslow and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1992-03-27 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Professor Koslow advances a new account of the basic concepts of logic. A central feature of the theory is that it does not require the elements of logic to be based on a formal language. Rather, it uses a general notion of implication as a way of organizing the formal results of various systems of logic in a simple, but insightful way. The study has four parts. In the first two parts the various sources of the general concept of an implication structure and its forms are illustrated and explained. Part 3 defines the various logical operations and systematically explores their properties. A generalized account of extensionality and dual implication is given, and the extensionality of each of the operators, as well as the relation of negation and its dual are given substantial treatment because of the novel results they yield. Part 4 considers modal operators and studies their interaction with logical operators. By obtaining the usual results without the usual assumptions this new approach allows one to give a very simple account of modal logic minus the excess baggage of possible world semantics.
Book Synopsis Current Controversies in Philosophy of Science by : Shamik Dasgupta
Download or read book Current Controversies in Philosophy of Science written by Shamik Dasgupta and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-10-27 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Current Controversies in Philosophy of Science asks twelve philosophers to debate six questions that are driving contemporary work in this area of philosophy. The questions are: I. Are Boltzmann Brains Bad? II. Does Mathematical Explanation Require Mathematical Truth? III. Does Quantum Mechanics Suggest Spacetime is Nonfundamental? IV. Is Evolution Fundamental When It Comes to Defining Biological Ontology? V. Is Chance Ontologically Fundamental? VI. Are Sexes Natural Kinds? These debates explore the philosophical foundations of particular scientific disciplines, while also examining more general issues in the philosophy of science. The result is a book that’s perfect for the advanced philosophy student, building up their knowledge of the foundations of the field and engaging with its cutting-edge questions. Preliminary descriptions of each chapter, annotated lists of further readings for each controversy, and study questions for each chapter help provide clearer and richer snapshots of active controversies for all readers.
Book Synopsis Deontic Logic and Legal Systems by : Pablo E. Navarro
Download or read book Deontic Logic and Legal Systems written by Pablo E. Navarro and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-09-29 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Logic and law have a long history in common, but the influence has been mostly one-sided, except perhaps in the 5th and 6th centuries B.C., where disputes at the market place or in tribunals in Greece seem to have stimulated a lot of reflection among sophistic philosophers on such topics as language and truth. Most of the time it was logic that influenced legal thinking, but in the last 50 years logicians began to be interested in normative concepts and hence in law"--
Book Synopsis Logical Modalities from Aristotle to Carnap by : Max Cresswell
Download or read book Logical Modalities from Aristotle to Carnap written by Max Cresswell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-09-15 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interest in the metaphysics and logic of possible worlds goes back at least as far as Aristotle, but few books address the history of these important concepts. This volume offers new essays on the theories about the logical modalities (necessity and possibility) held by leading philosophers from Aristotle in ancient Greece to Rudolf Carnap in the twentieth century. The story begins with an illuminating discussion of Aristotle's views on the connection between logic and metaphysics, continues through the Stoic and mediaeval (including Arabic) traditions, and then moves to the early modern period with particular attention to Locke and Leibniz. The views of Kant, Peirce, C. I. Lewis and Carnap complete the volume. Many of the essays illuminate the connection between the historical figures studied, and recent or current work in the philosophy of modality. The result is a rich and wide-ranging picture of the history of the logical modalities.
Book Synopsis New Research on the Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann by : Keith Peterson
Download or read book New Research on the Philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann written by Keith Peterson and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2016-01-29 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The imposing scope and penetrating insights of German philosopher Nicolai Hartmann’s work have received renewed interest in recent years. The Neo-Kantian turned ontological realist established a philosophical approach unique among his peers, and it provides a wealth of resources for considering contemporary philosophical problems. The chapters included in this volume examine his ethics, ontology, aesthetics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of nature. They explore his ontology of values, autonomy and human enhancement, and law; his theory of levels of reality, space-time and geometry, the categories of temporality, causality, and “life,” the question of realism, and social ontology. Others take inspiration from his aesthetic theory, ideas about education, and his embrace of the Socratic pathos of wonder. They bring his philosophy into conversation with that of his contemporaries, including Roman Ingarden and Konrad Lorenz’s appropriation of Hartmann, as well as with the history of philosophy, including Plato’s theory of recollection, pre-Socratic philosophy, and that of his Russian teacher Nikolai Lossky. Those familiar with Hartmann’s wide-ranging systematic philosophy will benefit from these new engagements with his work, and those new to it will find them relevant to a number of current philosophical debates.
Book Synopsis Induction, Probability, and Causation by : C.D. Broad
Download or read book Induction, Probability, and Causation written by C.D. Broad and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-09 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his essay on 'Broad on Induction and Probability' (first published in 1959, reprinted in this volume), Professor G. H. von Wright writes: "If Broad's writings on induction have remained less known than some of his other contributions to philosophy . . . , one reason for this is that Broad never has published a book on the subject. It is very much to be hoped that, for the benefit of future students, Broad's chief papers on induction and probability will be collected in a single volume . . . . " The present volume attempts to perform this service to future students of induction and probability. The suggestion of publishing a volume of this kind in Synthese Library was first made by Professor Donald Davidson, one of the editors of the Library, and was partly prompted by Professor von Wright's statement. In carrying out this suggestion, the editors of Synthese Library have had the generous support of Professor Broad who has among other things supplied a new Addendum to 'The Principles of Problematic Induction' and corrected a number of misprints found in the first printings of this paper. The editors gratefully acknow ledge Professor Broad's help and encouragement. A bibliography of Professor Broad's writings (up to 1959) has been compiled by Dr. C. Lewy and has appeared in P. A. Schilpp, editor, The Philosophy of C. D. Broad (The Library of Living Philosophers), pp. 833-852.
Book Synopsis Explanation, Laws, and Causation by : Wei Wang
Download or read book Explanation, Laws, and Causation written by Wei Wang and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-04-21 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientific explanation, laws of nature, and causation are crucial and frontier issues in the philosophy of science. This book studies the complex relationship between the three concepts, aiming to achieve a holistic synthesis about explanation–laws–causation. By reviewing Hempel's scientific explanation models and Salmon's three conceptions – the epistemic, modal, and ontic conception – the book suggests that laws are essential to explanation and that our understanding of laws will help solve the problems of the latter. Concerning the nature of laws, this book tackles both the problems of regularity approach and necessitarian approach. It also proposes that the ontological order of explanation should be from events (or processes) to causation, then to regularity (laws), and finally to science system, but the epistemological order should be from science system to laws to explanation and causation. In addition, this book examines the legitimacy of ceteris paribus laws, the connection between explanation and reduction, the relation between explanation and interpretation, and some other issues closely related to explanation–laws–causation. This book will attract scholars and students of philosophy of science, natural sciences, social sciences, etc.
Download or read book Physics Avoidance written by Mark Wilson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mark Wilson explores our strategies for understanding the world. We frequently cannot reason about nature in the straightforward manner we anticipate, but must use alternative thought processes that reach useful answers in opaque and roundabout ways; and philosophy must find better descriptive tools to reflect this.
Book Synopsis The Cambridge Companion to Legal Positivism by : Torben Spaak
Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Legal Positivism written by Torben Spaak and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-04 with total page 807 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book brings together 33 state-of-the-art chapters on the import and the pros and cons of legal positivism.
Book Synopsis Perspectival Realism by : Michela Massimi
Download or read book Perspectival Realism written by Michela Massimi and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What does it mean to be a realist about science if one takes seriously the view that scientific knowledge is always perspectival, namely historically and culturally situated? In this book, Michela Massimi articulates an original answer to this question. The book begins with an exploration of how scientific communities often resort to several models and a plurality of practices in some areas of inquiry, drawing on examples from nuclear physics, climate science, and developmental psychology. Taking this plurality in science as a starting point, Massimi explains the perspectival nature of scientific representation, the role of scientific models as inferential blueprints, and the variety of scientific realism that naturally accompanies such a view. Perspectival realism is realism about phenomena (rather than about theories or unobservable entities). The book defends this novel realist view, which places epistemic communities and their situated knowledge center stage. The result is a portrait of scientific knowledge as a collaborative inquiry, where the reliability of science is made possible by a plurality of historically and culturally situated scientific perspectives. Along the way, Massimi offers insights into the nature of scientific modelling, scientific knowledge qua modal knowledge, data-to-phenomena inferences, and natural kinds as sortal concepts. Perspectival realism is ultimately realism that takes the multicultural nature of science seriously and couples it with cosmopolitan duties about how one ought to think about scientific knowledge and the distribution of the benefits resulting from scientific advancements"--
