Download or read book Power and Influence written by Richard Corry and published by . This book was released on 2019-07-25 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world is a complex place, and this complexity is an obstacle to our attempts to explain, predict, and control it. In Power and Influence, Richard Corry investigates the assumptions that are built into the reductive method of explanation - the method whereby we study the components of acomplex system in relative isolation and use the information so gained to explain or predict the behaviour of the complex whole. He investigates the metaphysical presuppositions built into the reductive method, seeking to ascertain what the world must be like in order that the method could work.Corry argues that the method assumes the existence of causal powers that manifest causal influence- - a relatively unrecognised ontological category, of which forces are a paradigm example. The success of the reductive method, therefore, is an argument for the existence of such causal influences.The book goes on to show that adding causal influence to our ontology gives us the resources to solve some traditional problems in the metaphysics of causal powers, laws of nature, causation, emergence, and possibly even normative ethics. What results, then, is not just an understanding of thereductive method, but an integrated metaphysical worldview that is grounded in an ontology of power and influence.
Download or read book Reductionism Emergence and Levels of Reality written by Sergio Chibbaro and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-05-13 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientists have always attempted to explain the world in terms of a few unifying principles. In the fifth century B.C. Democritus boldly claimed that reality is simply a collection of indivisible and eternal parts or atoms. Over the centuries his doctrine has remained a landmark, and much progress in physics is due to its distinction between subjective perception and objective reality. This book discusses theory reduction in physics, which states that the whole is nothing more than the sum of its parts: the properties of things are directly determined by their constituent parts. Reductionism deals with the relation between different theories that address different levels of reality, and uses extrapolations to apply that relation in different sciences. Reality shows a complex structure of connections, and the dream of a unified interpretation of all phenomena in several simple laws continues to attract anyone with genuine philosophical and scientific interests. If the most radical reductionist point of view is correct, the relationship between disciplines is strictly inclusive: chemistry becomes physics, biology becomes chemistry, and so on. Eventually, only one science, indeed just a single theory, would survive, with all others merging in the Theory of Everything. Is the current coexistence of different sciences a mere historical venture which will end when the Theory of Everything has been established? Can there be a unified description of nature? Rather than an analysis of full reductionism, this book focuses on aspects of theory reduction in physics and stimulates reflection on related questions: is there any evidence of actual reduction? Are the examples used in the philosophy of science too simplistic? What has been endangered by the search for (the) ultimate truth? Has the dream of reductionist reason created any monsters? Is big science one such monster? What is the point of embedding science Y within science X, if predictions cannot be made on that basis?
Download or read book Beyond Reduction written by Steven Horst and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-08-30 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary philosophers of mind tend to assume that the world of nature can be reduced to basic physics. Yet there are features of the mind consciousness, intentionality, normativity that do not seem to be reducible to physics or neuroscience. This explanatory gap between mind and brain has thus been a major cause of concern in recent philosophy of mind. Reductionists hold that, despite all appearances, the mind can be reduced to the brain. Eliminativists hold that it cannot, and that this implies that there is something illegitimate about the mentalistic vocabulary. Dualists hold that the mental is irreducible, and that this implies either a substance or a property dualism. Mysterian non-reductive physicalists hold that the mind is uniquely irreducible, perhaps due to some limitation of our self-understanding. In this book, Steven Horst argues that this whole conversation is based on assumptions left over from an outdated philosophy of science. While reductionism was part of the philosophical orthodoxy fifty years ago, it has been decisively rejected by philosophers of science over the past thirty years, and for good reason. True reductions are in fact exceedingly rare in the sciences, and the conviction that they were there to be found was an artifact of armchair assumptions of 17th century Rationalists and 20th century Logical Empiricists. The explanatory gaps between mind and brain are far from unique. In fact, in the sciences it is gaps all the way down.And if reductions are rare in even the physical sciences, there is little reason to expect them in the case of psychology. Horst argues that this calls for a complete re-thinking of the contemporary problematic in philosophy of mind. Reductionism, dualism, eliminativism and non-reductive materialism are each severely compromised by post-reductionist philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind is in need of a new paradigm. Horst suggests that such a paradigm might be found in Cognitive Pluralism: the view that human cognitive architecture constrains us to understand the world through a plurality of partial, idealized, and pragmatically-constrained models, each employing a particular representational system optimized for its own problem domain. Such an architecture can explain the disunities of knowledge, and is plausible on evolutionary grounds.
Download or read book Reductionism written by Richard H. Jones and published by Bucknell University Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reductionism's approach brings together many of the most interesting questions today in philosophy (consciousness and computers) and in science (issues of complexity and self-organization). It also presents a brief history of how reductionism has developed in Western philosophy and religion, with reference to Indian philosophy on certain issues.
Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy written by Daniele De Santis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-08-24 with total page 841 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Phenomenology was one of the twentieth century’s major philosophical movements, and it continues to be a vibrant and widely studied subject today with relevance beyond philosophy in areas such as medicine and cognitive sciences. The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy is an outstanding guide to this important and fascinating topic. Its focus on phenomenology’s historical and systematic dimensions makes it a unique and valuable reference source. Moreover, its innovative approach includes entries that don’t simply reflect the state-of-the-art but in many cases advance it. Comprising seventy-five chapters by a team of international contributors, the Handbook offers unparalleled coverage and discussion of the subject, and is divided into five clear parts: • Phenomenology and the history of philosophy • Issues and concepts in phenomenology • Major figures in phenomenology • Intersections • Phenomenology in the world. Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy studying phenomenology, The Routledge Handbook of Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy is also suitable for those in related disciplines such as psychology, religion, literature, sociology and anthropology.
Download or read book The Reductive Object written by Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston, Mass.) and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Democracy of Objects written by Levi R. Bryant and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2023-12-23 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since Kant, philosophy has been obsessed with epistemological questions pertaining to the relationship between mind and world and human access to objects. In The Democracy of Objects, Bryant proposes that we break with this tradition and once again initiate the project of ontology as first philosophy. Drawing on the object-oriented ontology of Graham Harman, as well as the thought of Roy Bhaskar, Gilles Deleuze, Niklas Luhman, Aristotle, Jacques Lacan, Bruno Latour and the developmental systems theorists, Bryant develops a realist ontology that he calls "onticology". This ontology argues that being is composed entirely of objects, properties, and relations such that subjects themselves are a variant of objects. Drawing on the work of the systems theorists and cyberneticians, Bryant argues that objects are dynamic systems that relate to the world under conditions of operational closure. In this way, he is able to integrate the most vital discoveries of the anti-realists within a realist ontology that does justice to both the material and cultural. Onticology proposes a flat ontology where objects of all sorts and at different scales equally exist without being reducible to other objects and where there are no transcendent entities such as eternal essences outside of dynamic interactions among objects. Contents: Towards a Finally Subjectless Object Grounds For a Realist Ontology The Paradox of Substance Virtual Proper Being The Interior of Objects Regimes of Attraction, Parts, and Structure The Four Theses of Flat Ontology
Download or read book The Reductive Object written by and published by . This book was released on 1979 with total page 13 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Reduction Explanation and Realism written by David Owain Maurice Charles and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributors to this volume evaluate the view that the phenomena studied in such varied fields as moral and mental philosophy, psychology, organic biology and social science are grounded in, but cannot be reduced to, phenomena that can be explained by the basic sciences.
Download or read book The Concept of Reduction written by Raphael van Riel and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2014-02-19 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume investigates the notion of reduction. Building on the idea that philosophers employ the term ‘reduction’ to reconcile diversity and directionality with unity, without relying on elimination, the book offers a powerful explication of an “ontological”, notion of reduction the extension of which is (primarily) formed by properties, kinds, individuals, or processes. It argues that related notions of reduction, such as theory-reduction and functional reduction, should be defined in terms of this explication. Thereby, the book offers a coherent framework, which sheds light on the history of the various reduction debates in the philosophy of science and in the philosophy of mind, and on related topics such as reduction and unification, the notion of a scientific level, and physicalism. The book takes its point of departure in the examination of a puzzle about reduction. To illustrate, the book takes as an example the reduction of water. If water reduces to H2O, then water is identical to H2O – thus we get unity. Unity does not come at the price of elimination – claiming that water reduces to H2O, we do not thereby claim that there is no water. But what about diversity and directionality? Intuitively, there should be a difference between water and H2O, such that we get diversity. This is required for there to be directionality: in a sense, if water reduces to H2O, then H2O is prior to, or more basic than water. At least, if water reduces to H2O, then H2O does not reduce to water. But how can this be, if water is identical to H2O? The book shows that the application of current models of reduction does not solve this puzzle, and proposes a new coherent definition, according to which unity is tied to identity, diversity is descriptive in nature, and directionality is the directionality of explanation.
Download or read book Treaty Between the Twenty Two Sovereign Nations on the Reduction of Their Conventional Armed Forces in Europe written by and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Emperor s New Mind written by Roger Penrose and published by Oxford Paperbacks. This book was released on 1999-03-04 with total page 634 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Wolf Prize for his contribution to our understanding of the universe, Penrose takes on the question of whether artificial intelligence will ever approach the intricacy of the human mind. 144 illustrations.
Download or read book The Reduction of Photographic Plate Measurements for Satellite Triangulation written by Anna-Mary Bush and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Statutes Second Revised Edition written by Great Britain and published by . This book was released on 1896 with total page 1254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Immanence and Immersion written by Will Schrimshaw and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-10-19 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Immersion is the new orthodoxy. Within the production, curation and critique of sound art, as well as within the broader fields of sound studies and auditory culture, the immersive is routinely celebrated as an experiential quality of sound, the value of which is inherent yet strengthened through dubious metaphysical oppositions to the visual. Yet even within the visual arts an acoustic condition grounded in Marshall McLuhan's metaphorical notion of acoustic space underwrites predispositions towards immersion. This broad conception of an acoustic condition in contemporary art identifies the envelopment of audiences and spectators who no longer perceive from a distance but immanently experience immersive artworks and environments. Immanence and Immersion takes a critical approach to the figures of immersion and interiority describing an acoustic condition in contemporary art. It is argued that a price paid for this predisposition towards immersion is often the conceptual potency and efficacy of the work undertaken, resulting in arguments that compound the marginalisation and disempowerment of practices and discourses concerned with the sonic. The variously phenomenological, correlational and mystical positions that support the predominance of the immersive are subject to critique before suggesting that a stronger distinction between the often confused concepts of immersion and the immanence might serve as a means of breaking with the figure of immersion and the circle of interiority towards attaining greater conceptual potency and epistemological efficacy within the sonic arts.
Download or read book Feature Dimension Reduction for Content Based Image Identification written by Das, Rik and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2018-06-29 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Image data has portrayed immense potential as a foundation of information for numerous applications. Recent trends in multimedia computing have witnessed a rapid growth in digital image collections, resulting in a need for increased image data management. Feature Dimension Reduction for Content-Based Image Identification is a pivotal reference source that explores the contemporary trends and techniques of content-based image recognition. Including research covering topics such as feature extraction, fusion techniques, and image segmentation, this book explores different theories to facilitate timely identification of image data and managing, archiving, maintaining, and extracting information. This book is ideally designed for engineers, IT specialists, researchers, academicians, and graduate-level students seeking interdisciplinary research on image processing and analysis.
Download or read book Educart Term 2 Chemistry CBSE Class 12 Objective Subjective Question Bank 2022 Exclusively on New Competency Based Education Pattern written by EduCart and published by Educart. This book was released on 2021-12-28 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Educart Class 12 Chemistry Question Bank combines remarkable features for Term 2 Board exam preparation. Exclusively developed based on Learning Outcomes and Competency-based Education Pattern, this one book includes Chapter-wise theory for learning; Solved Questions (from NCERT and DIKSHA); and Detailed Explanations for concept clearance and Unsolved Self Practice Questions for practice. Topper’s Answers are also given to depict how to answer Questions according to the CBSE Marking Scheme Solutions.
