Carving Nature At Its Joints

Author : Joseph Keim Campbell,Michael O'Rourke,Matthew H. Slater
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 367 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2011-10-28
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780262297905

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Carving Nature at Its Joints by Joseph Keim Campbell,Michael O'Rourke,Matthew H. Slater Pdf

Reflections on the metaphysics and epistemology of classification from a distinguished group of philosophers. Contemporary discussions of the success of science often invoke an ancient metaphor from Plato's Phaedrus: successful theories should "carve nature at its joints." But is nature really "jointed"? Are there natural kinds of things around which our theories cut? The essays in this volume offer reflections by a distinguished group of philosophers on a series of intertwined issues in the metaphysics and epistemology of classification. The contributors consider such topics as the relevance of natural kinds in inductive inference; the role of natural kinds in natural laws; the nature of fundamental properties; the naturalness of boundaries; the metaphysics and epistemology of biological kinds; and the relevance of biological kinds to certain questions in ethics. Carving Nature at Its Joints offers both breadth and thematic unity, providing a sampling of state-of-the-art work in contemporary analytic philosophy that will be of interest to a wide audience of scholars and students concerned with classification.

Author : Joseph Keim Campbell,Michael O'Rourke,Matthew H. Slater
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 367 pages
File Size : 51,7 Mb
Release : 2011
Category : History
ISBN : 9780262015936

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Carving Nature at Its Joints by Joseph Keim Campbell,Michael O'Rourke,Matthew H. Slater Pdf

Reflections on the metaphysics and epistemology of classification from a distinguished group of philosophers. Contemporary discussions of the success of science often invoke an ancient metaphor from Plato's Phaedrus: successful theories should "carve nature at its joints." But is nature really "jointed"? Are there natural kinds of things around which our theories cut? The essays in this volume offer reflections by a distinguished group of philosophers on a series of intertwined issues in the metaphysics and epistemology of classification. The contributors consider such topics as the relevance of natural kinds in inductive inference; the role of natural kinds in natural laws; the nature of fundamental properties; the naturalness of boundaries; the metaphysics and epistemology of biological kinds; and the relevance of biological kinds to certain questions in ethics. Carving Nature at Its Joints offers both breadth and thematic unity, providing a sampling of state-of-the-art work in contemporary analytic philosophy that will be of interest to a wide audience of scholars and students concerned with classification.

Author : Joseph Keim Campbell,Michael O'Rourke,Matthew H. Slater
Publisher : National Geographic Books
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 44,9 Mb
Release : 2011-10-28
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780262516266

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Carving Nature at Its Joints by Joseph Keim Campbell,Michael O'Rourke,Matthew H. Slater Pdf

Reflections on the metaphysics and epistemology of classification from a distinguished group of philosophers. Contemporary discussions of the success of science often invoke an ancient metaphor from Plato's Phaedrus: successful theories should "carve nature at its joints." But is nature really "jointed"? Are there natural kinds of things around which our theories cut? The essays in this volume offer reflections by a distinguished group of philosophers on a series of intertwined issues in the metaphysics and epistemology of classification. The contributors consider such topics as the relevance of natural kinds in inductive inference; the role of natural kinds in natural laws; the nature of fundamental properties; the naturalness of boundaries; the metaphysics and epistemology of biological kinds; and the relevance of biological kinds to certain questions in ethics. Carving Nature at Its Joints offers both breadth and thematic unity, providing a sampling of state-of-the-art work in contemporary analytic philosophy that will be of interest to a wide audience of scholars and students concerned with classification.

Author : Theodore Sider
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 333 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2011-11-24
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780199697908

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Writing the Book of the World by Theodore Sider Pdf

Theodore Sider presents a broad new vision of metaphysics centred on the idea of structure. To describe the world well we must use concepts that 'carve at the joints', so that conceptual structure matches reality's structure. This approach illuminates a wide range of topics, such as time, modality, ontology, and the status of metaphysics itself.

Author : Simon Blackburn
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 345 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 1999-08-05
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780199769841

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Think by Simon Blackburn Pdf

This is a book about the big questions in life: knowledge, consciousness, fate, God, truth, goodness, justice. It is for anyone who believes there are big questions out there, but does not know how to approach them. Think sets out to explain what they are and why they are important. Simon Blackburn begins by putting forward a convincing case for the study of philosophy and goes on to give the reader a sense of how the great historical figures such as Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Wittgenstein have approached its central themes. Each chapter explains a major issue, and gives the reader a self-contained guide through the problems that philosophers have studied. The large scope of topics covered range from scepticism, the self, mond and body, and freedom to ethics and the arguments surrounding the existence of God. Lively and approachable, this book is ideal for all those who want to learn how the basic techniques of thinking shape our existence.

Author : Ben Law
Publisher : HarperCollins UK
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2013-03-28
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9780007498734

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Woodsman by Ben Law Pdf

Ben Law’s incredible sense of the land and his respect for age old traditions offers a wonderful insight into the life of Prickly Nut Wood.

Author : Stephen Mumford,Matthew Tugby
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 255 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2013-06-27
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780199674527

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Metaphysics and Science by Stephen Mumford,Matthew Tugby Pdf

This collection brings together the latest new work within an emerging philosophical discipline: the metaphysics of science. A new definition of this line of philosophical enquiry is developed, and leading academics offer original essays on four key topics at the heart of the subject—laws, causation, natural kinds, and emergence.

Author : Robert J. Glushko
Publisher : "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
Page : 743 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2014-08-25
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9781491911716

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The Discipline of Organizing: Professional Edition by Robert J. Glushko Pdf

Note about this ebook: This ebook exploits many advanced capabilities with images, hypertext, and interactivity and is optimized for EPUB3-compliant book readers, especially Apple's iBooks and browser plugins. These features may not work on all ebook readers. We organize things. We organize information, information about things, and information about information. Organizing is a fundamental issue in many professional fields, but these fields have only limited agreement in how they approach problems of organizing and in what they seek as their solutions. The Discipline of Organizing synthesizes insights from library science, information science, computer science, cognitive science, systems analysis, business, and other disciplines to create an Organizing System for understanding organizing. This framework is robust and forward-looking, enabling effective sharing of insights and design patterns between disciplines that weren’t possible before. The Professional Edition includes new and revised content about the active resources of the "Internet of Things," and how the field of Information Architecture can be viewed as a subset of the discipline of organizing. You’ll find: 600 tagged endnotes that connect to one or more of the contributing disciplines Nearly 60 new pictures and illustrations Links to cross-references and external citations Interactive study guides to test on key points The Professional Edition is ideal for practitioners and as a primary or supplemental text for graduate courses on information organization, content and knowledge management, and digital collections. FOR INSTRUCTORS: Supplemental materials (lecture notes, assignments, exams, etc.) are available at http://disciplineoforganizing.org. FOR STUDENTS: Make sure this is the edition you want to buy. There's a newer one and maybe your instructor has adopted that one instead.

Author : Amie Lynn Thomasson
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 361 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2015
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780199385119

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Ontology Made Easy by Amie Lynn Thomasson Pdf

This volume aims to develop the easy approach to ontology, showing how it leads to both a first-order simple realism about the disputed entities and a form of metaontological deflationism that takes ontological disputes themselves to be misguided, since existence questions may be answered by straightforward conceptual and/or empirical work. It also aims to defend the easy approach against a range of objections and to show it to be a viable and attractive alternative to hard ontology.

Author : J. Wilkins,M. Ebach
Publisher : Springer
Page : 329 pages
File Size : 50,9 Mb
Release : 2013-11-27
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781137318121

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The Nature of Classification by J. Wilkins,M. Ebach Pdf

Discussing the generally ignored issue of the classification of natural objects in the philosophy of science, this book focuses on knowledge and social relations, and offers a way to understand classification as a necessary aspect of doing science.

Author : David M. Williams,Malte C. Ebach
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 453 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2020-08-06
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781107008106

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Cladistics by David M. Williams,Malte C. Ebach Pdf

This new edition of a foundational text presents a contemporary review of cladistics, as applied to biological classification. It provides a comprehensive account of the past fifty years of discussion on the relationship between classification, phylogeny and evolution. It covers cladistics in the era of molecular data, detailing new advances and ideas that have emerged over the last twenty-five years. Written in an accessible style by internationally renowned authors in the field, readers are straightforwardly guided through fundamental principles and terminology. Simple worked examples and easy-to-understand diagrams also help readers navigate complex problems that have perplexed scientists for centuries. This practical guide is an essential addition for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in taxonomy, systematics, comparative biology, evolutionary biology and molecular biology.

Author : Thomas Bénatouïl,Katerina Ierodiakonou
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 405 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2018-11-15
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781108676250

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Dialectic after Plato and Aristotle by Thomas Bénatouïl,Katerina Ierodiakonou Pdf

Ancient dialectic started as an art of refutation and evolved into a science akin to our logic, grammar and linguistics. Scholars of ancient philosophy have traditionally focused on Plato's and Aristotle's dialectic without paying much attention to the diverse conceptions and uses of dialectic presented by philosophers after the classical period. To bridge this gap, this volume aims at a comprehensive understanding of the competing Hellenistic and Imperial definitions of dialectic and their connections with those of the classical period. It starts from the Megaric school of the fourth century BCE and the early Peripatetics, via Epicurus, the Stoics, the Academic sceptics and Cicero, to Sextus Empiricus and Galen in the second century CE. The philosophical foundations and various uses of dialectic are closely analysed and systematically examined together with the numerous objections that were raised against them.

Author : Jögge Sundqvist
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2018-03-03
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 0997870281

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Slöjd in Wood by Jögge Sundqvist Pdf

Author : Frank E. Zachos
Publisher : Springer
Page : 220 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2016-10-05
Category : Science
ISBN : 9783319449661

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Species Concepts in Biology by Frank E. Zachos Pdf

Frank E. Zachos offers a comprehensive review of one of today’s most important and contentious issues in biology: the species problem. After setting the stage with key background information on the topic, the book provides a brief history of species concepts from antiquity to the Modern Synthesis, followed by a discussion of the ontological status of species with a focus on the individuality thesis and potential means of reconciling it with other philosophical approaches. More than 30 different species concepts found in the literature are presented in an annotated list, and the most important ones, including the Biological, Genetic, Evolutionary and different versions of the Phylogenetic Species Concept, are discussed in more detail. Specific questions addressed include the problem of asexual and prokaryotic species, intraspecific categories like subspecies and Evolutionarily Significant Units, and a potential solution to the species problem based on a hierarchical approach that distinguishes between ontological and operational species concepts. A full chapter is dedicated to the challenge of delimiting species by means of a discrete taxonomy in a continuous world of inherently fuzzy boundaries. Further, the book outlines the practical ramifications for ecology and evolutionary biology of how we define the species category, highlighting the danger of an apples and oranges problem if what we subsume under the same name (“species”) is in actuality a variety of different entities. A succinct summary chapter, glossary and annotated list of references round out the coverage, making the book essential reading for all biologists looking for an accessible introduction to the historical, philosophical and practical dimensions of the species problem.

Author : William V. Harris
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 530 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2013-03-15
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9789004249875

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Mental Disorders in the Classical World by William V. Harris Pdf

The historians, classicists and psychiatrists who have come together to produce Mental Disorders in the Classical World aim to explain how the Greeks and their Roman successors conceptualized, diagnosed and treated mental disorders. The Greeks initiated the secular understanding of mental illness, and have left us a large body of penetrating and thought-provoking writing on the subject, ranging in time from Homer to the sixth century AD. With the conceptual basis of modern psychiatry once again under intense debate, we need to learn from other rational approaches even when they lack modern scientific underpinnings. Meanwhile this volume adds a rich chapter to the cultural and medical history of antiquity. The contributors include a high proportion of the best-regarded scholars in this field, together with papers by some of its rising stars.