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 Reduction Time and Reality written by Richard Healey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1981-06-18 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each of the contributors examine scientific realism by questioning or rejecting how it was traditionally discussed.
Download or read book Teleological Realism written by Scott Robert Sehon and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A non-reductionist account of mind and agency claiming that common-sense psychological explanations are teleological and not causal. Using the language of common-sense psychology (CSP), we explain human behavior by citing its reason or purpose, and this is central to our understanding of human beings as agents. On the other hand, since human beings are physical objects, human behavior should also be explicable in the language of physical science, in which causal accounts cast human beings as collections of physical particles. CSP talk of mind and agency, however, does not seem to mesh well with the language of physical science. In Teleological Realism, Scott Sehon argues that CSP explanations are not causal but teleological--that they cite the purpose or goal of the behavior in question rather than an antecedent state that caused the behavior. CSP explanations of behavior, Sehon claims, are answering a question different from that answered by physical science explanations, and, accordingly, CSP explanations and physical science explanations are independent of one another. Common-sense facts about mind and agency can thus be independent of the physical facts about human beings, and, contrary to the views of most philosophers of mind in recent decades, common-sense psychology will not be subsumed by physical science. Sehon defends his non-reductionist account of mind and agency in clear and nontechnical language. He carefully distinguishes his view from forms of "strong naturalism" that would seem to preclude it. And he evaluates key objections to teleological realism, including those posed by Donald Davidson's influential article "Actions, Reasons and Causes" and some put forth by more recent proponents of causal theories of action. CSP, Sehon argues, has a different realm than does physical science; the normative notions that are central to CSP are not reducible to physical facts and laws.
Download or read book A Na ve Realist Theory of Colour written by Keith Allen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Naive Realist Theory of Colour defends the view that colours are mind-independent properties of things in the environment. Keith Allen argues that a naive realist theory of colour best explains how colours appear to perceiving subjects, and that this view is not undermined by our modern scientific understanding of the world.
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 Reduction Realism and the Mind written by and published by . This book was released on 1977 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Taking Morality Seriously written by David Enoch and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2011-07-28 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Taking Morality Seriously: A Defense of Robust Realism David Enoch develops, argues for, and defends a strongly realist and objectivist view of ethics and normativity more broadly. This view—according to which there are perfectly objective, universal, moral and other normative truths that are not in any way reducible to other, natural truths—is familiar, but this book is the first in-detail development of the positive motivations for the view into reasonably precise arguments. And when the book turns defensive—defending Robust Realism against traditional objections—it mobilizes the original positive arguments for the view to help with fending off the objections. The main underlying motivation for Robust Realism developed in the book is that no other metaethical view can vindicate our taking morality seriously. The positive arguments developed here—the argument from the deliberative indispensability of normative truths, and the argument from the moral implications of metaethical objectivity (or its absence)—are thus arguments for Robust Realism that are sensitive to the underlying, pre-theoretical motivations for the view.
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 A Realist Theory of Science written by Roy Bhaskar and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Realist Theory of Science is one of the few books that have changed our understanding of the philosophy of science. In this analysis of the natural sciences, with a particular focus on the experimental process itself, Roy Bhaskar provides a definitive critique of the traditional, positivist conception of science and stakes out an alternative, realist position. Since it original publication in 1975, a movement known as 'Critical Realism', which is both intellectually diverse and international in scope, has developed on the basis of key concepts outlined in the text. The book has been hailed in many quarters as a 'Copernican Revolution' in the study of the nature of science, and the implications of its account have been far-reaching for many fields of the humanities and social sciences.
Download or read book A Metaphysics for Scientific Realism written by Anjan Chakravartty and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-10-18 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientific realism is the view that our best scientific theories give approximately true descriptions of both observable and unobservable aspects of a mind-independent world. Debates between realists and their critics are at the very heart of the philosophy of science. Anjan Chakravartty traces the contemporary evolution of realism by examining the most promising strategies adopted by its proponents in response to the forceful challenges of antirealist sceptics, resulting in a positive proposal for scientific realism today. He examines the core principles of the realist position, and sheds light on topics including the varieties of metaphysical commitment required, and the nature of the conflict between realism and its empiricist rivals. By illuminating the connections between realist interpretations of scientific knowledge and the metaphysical foundations supporting them, his book offers a compelling vision of how realism can provide an internally consistent and coherent account of scientific knowledge.
Download or read book End of Phenomenology written by Tom Sparrow and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-04 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shows how speculative realism is replacing phenomenology as the beacon of realism in contemporary Continental philosophy.
Download or read book Moral Realism written by Kevin DeLapp and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-04-11 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An accessible and original overview of contemporary debates in moral realism and relativism.
Download or read book Reducing Realism written by Aaron-Dirk Boyden and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finally, the larger reductionist project of reducing everything to some fundamental physical base is examined. Like reductionism about mind, this project has many obvious virtues, and realist intuitions produce needless difficulties for the project. The conclusion is that in general reductionism and realism are in conflict, and that of the two, it is realism which should be abandoned.
Download or read book Supervenience and Realism written by Dalia Drai and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-01-04 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1999, this volume focuses on the relation of supervenience which plays a crucial role in contemporary philosophical discussions in diverse fields including the philosophy of mind, ethics and aesthetics. Contrasting the material and conceptual worlds, Dalia Drai questions what we are committed to when we adopt a position affirming determination but denying reduction. The answer Drai develops is that in both cases this position commits us to an anti-realist approach with regard to the supervenient domains.
Download or read book Unbelievable Errors written by Bart Streumer and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-11 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Unbelievable Errors, Bart Streumer defends an error theory about all normative judgements: not just moral judgements, but also judgements about reasons for action, judgements about reasons for belief, and instrumental normative judgements. This theory says that these judgements are beliefs that ascribe normative properties, but that these properties do not exist. It therefore entails that all normative judgements are false. Streumer also argues, however, that we cannot believe this error theory. This may seem to be a problem for the theory, but he argues that it is not. Instead, he argues, our inability to believe this error theory makes the theory more likely to be true, since it undermines objections to the theory, it makes it harder to reject the arguments for the theory, and it undermines revisionary alternatives to the theory. Streumer then sketches how certain other philosophical views can be defended in a similar way, and how philosophers should modify their method if there can be true theories that we cannot believe. He concludes that to make philosophical progress, we should sharply distinguish the truth of a theory from our ability to believe it
Download or read book The Causal Power of Social Structures written by Dave Elder-Vass and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-17 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The problem of structure and agency has been the subject of intense debate in the social sciences for over 100 years. This book offers a solution. Using a critical realist version of the theory of emergence, Dave Elder-Vass argues that, instead of ascribing causal significance to an abstract notion of social structure or a monolithic concept of society, we must recognise that it is specific groups of people that have social structural power. Some of these groups are entities with emergent causal powers, distinct from those of human individuals. Yet these powers also depend on the contributions of human individuals, and this book examines the mechanisms through which interactions between human individuals generate the causal powers of some types of social structures. The Causal Power of Social Structures makes particularly important contributions to the theory of human agency and to our understanding of normative institutions.
Download or read book Realism and Anti Realism written by Stuart Brock and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-18 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are a bewildering variety of ways the terms "realism" and "anti-realism" have been used in philosophy and furthermore the different uses of these terms are only loosely connected with one another. Rather than give a piecemeal map of this very diverse landscape, the authors focus on what they see as the core concept: realism about a particular domain is the view that there are facts or entities distinctive of that domain, and their existence and nature is in some important sense objective and mind-independent. The authors carefully set out and explain the different realist and anti-realist positions and arguments that occur in five key domains: science, ethics, mathematics, modality and fictional objects. For each area the authors examine the various styles of argument in support of and against realism and anti-realism, show how these different positions and arguments arise in very different domains, evaluate their success within these fields, and draw general conclusions about these assorted strategies. Error theory, fictionalism, non-cognitivism, relativism and response-dependence are taken as the most important positions in opposition to the realist and these are explored in depth. Suitable for advanced level undergraduates, the book offers readers a clear introduction to a subject central to much contemporary work in metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of language.
