Philosophy of Molecular Medicine: Foundational Issues in Theory and Practice aims at a systematic investigation of a number of foundational issues in the field of molecular medicine. The volume is organized around four broad modules focusing, respectively, on the following key aspects: What are the nature, scope, and limits of molecular medicine? How does it provide explanations? How does it represent and model phenomena of interest? How does it infer new knowledge from data and experiments? The essays collected here, authored by prominent scientists and philosophers of science, focus on a handful of mainstream topics in the philosophical literature, such as causation, explanation, modeling, and scientific inference. These previously unpublished contributions shed new light on these traditional topics by integrating them with problems, methods, and results from three prominent areas of contemporary biomedical science: basic research, translational and clinical research, and clinical pr
In his newest work, distinguished philosopher Jude P. Dougherty challenges contemporary empiricisms and other accounts of science that reduce it to description and prediction. Dougherty argues that a
In his newest work, distinguished philosopher Jude P. Dougherty challenges contemporary empiricisms and other accounts of science that reduce it to description and prediction. Dougherty argues that a
For a long time philosophers and scientists have wrestled with explanatory and representational questions such as what can be considered the right form of explanation, what makes something explanatory
This volume of translations unites three shorter works by Arthur Schopenhauer that expand on themes from his book The World as Will and Representation. In On the Fourfold Root he takes the principle of sufficient reason, which states that nothing is without a reason why it is, and shows how it covers different forms of explanation or ground that previous philosophers have tended to confuse. Schopenhauer regarded this study, which he first wrote as his doctoral dissertation, as an essential preliminary to The World as Will. On Will in Nature examines contemporary scientific findings in search of corroboration of his thesis that processes in nature are all a species of striving towards ends; and On Vision and Colours defends an anti-Newtonian account of colour perception influenced by Goethe's famous colour theory. This is the first English edition to provide extensive editorial notes on the different published versions of these works.
Hume’s Science of Human Nature is an investigation of the philosophical commitments underlying Hume's methodology in pursuing what he calls ‘the science of human nature’. It argues that Hume understan
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 achi
This monograph develops a new way of justifying the claims made by science about phenomenon not directly observable by humans, such as atoms and black holes. It details a way of making inferences to t
Vigo presents students, academics, researchers, and professionals working in a variety of contexts with a theoretically based set of general mathematical principles for use in the explanation and pred
What are the metaphysical commitments which best 'make sense' of our scientific practice (rather than our scientific theories)? In this book, Andreas Hüttemann provides a minimal metaphysics for scientific practice, i.e. a metaphysics that refrains from postulating any structure that is explanatorily irrelevant. Hüttemann closely analyses paradigmatic aspects of scientific practice, such as prediction, explanation and manipulation, to consider the questions whether and (if so) what metaphysical presuppositions best account for these practices. He looks at the role which scientific generalisation (laws of nature) play in predicting, testing, and explaining the behaviour of systems. He also develops a theory of causation in terms of quasi-inertial processes and interfering factors, and he proposes an account of reductive practices that makes minimal metaphysical assumptions. His book will be valuable for scholars and advanced students working in both philosophy of science and metaphysics
In this collection of essays, Bromberger explores the centrality of questions and predicaments they create in scientific research. He discusses the nature of explanation, theory, and the foundations o
A revolutionary scientific explanation of psychic phenomena and the nature of human consciousness. Although much is now known about the brain, relatively little has been determined about where consci
Superstring theory is one of the most exciting and actively pursued branches of physics today. The far-reaching claims made for this theory would, if correct, provide the much sought-after Theory of Everything, the unification of physics. It would enable the fundamental building blocks of matter to be identified and amalgamated in a common description, with a unified theory of all the forces of nature. This book explains the theory for laymen, in an introduction to the subject which originated in the BBC Radio programme, Desperately Seeking Superstrings. A clear, concise, non-mathematical explanation of the theory and its profound implications is followed by transcripts of interviews with all the most important physicists involved in its development. Superstrings makes a fascinating topic at the forefront of modern scientific research accessible to physicists, philosophers and general readers alike.
Scholars in the early seventeenth century who studied ancient Greek scientific theories often drew upon philology and history to reconstruct a more general picture of the Greek past. Gassendi's training as a humanist historiographer enabled him to formulate a conception of the history of philosophy in which the rationality of scientific and philosophical inquiry depended on the historical justifications which he developed for his beliefs. Professor Joy examines this conception and analyzes the nature of Gassendi's historical training, especially its relationship to his career as a physicist and astronomer. She shows how he rehabilitated Epicurean atomism by bringing together the arguments of the Greek atomists and those of his contemporaries. In doing so, he produced an account of the natural world which made it an object of empirical study and mechanical explanation.
What is it about human nature that makes our species capable of thinking scientifically? Inspired by the debate he set up between Noam Chomsky and Jean Piaget, Scott Atran traces the development of Natural History from Aristotle to Darwin, and demonstrates how the science of plants and animals has emerged from common conceptions of folk biology. The author proceeds not only from the more traditional philosophical, historical, or sociological perspectives, but from a point of view which he considers to be more basic and necessary to all of these: that of cognition. He applies a 'cognitive' perspective to an explanation of the successive scientific incarnations, transformations, and mutations of what Hume called 'mankind's original stock of ideas'.
Aiken weaves scientific research, theory, and philosophical thought into an explanation of the nature of art. The mystery of how art evokes emotion is unraveled and answers are found as to why we make
Cyril Crossland (1878–1943) was Director of the Sudan Pearl Fishery between 1905 and 1922. At this time, the British colonial government had taken charge of running the fishery, with local fishermen as employees. A marine biologist and zoologist, Crossland was praised in his obituary in the journal Nature as 'one of the last explorer-naturalists of the Darwin type'. This book is both an account of his life in the Sudan and a scientific survey of the coral reefs on the Red Sea coast. It offers a lively description of the region, its people and customs, and a clear, accessible explanation of the development of coral reefs. In Crossland's time this region had not been fully mapped by Western explorers and this study was an important contribution to knowledge. The book is illustrated with many of Crossland's own photographs of landscapes and people and his diagrams of the coral reefs.
