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Author : D. M. Walsh
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 292 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2001-08-30
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780521003735
This volume examines the impact of concepts from evolutionary biology on the philosophy of mind.
Author : Jillian Scott McIntosh
Publisher : Calgary : University of Calgary Press
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : UOM:49015002804343
A collection of essays concerning the mind that explores the prospects for, and limits of, appealing to facts about evolutionary history and current environment-organism interaction in explaining the nature and workings of the mental. Includes papers in ethology, psychology, neuroscience. Each paper contributes to the discussion of what discoveries in this field can tell us about particular issues in the philosophy of mind. Some of the papers in this issue have had a high profile: Mel Goodale was recently on the CBC talking about how each of us has two types of vision (it was a fascinating piece that is not actually written by a philosopher ).
Author : Robert Leonard Carneiro
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2010
Category : Brain
ISBN : 0979773121
This is the first single book to document the evolution in human thinking from a belief in supernaturalism to a belief in naturalism.
Author : Roy Wood Sellars
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 394 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 1969
Category : Naturalism
ISBN : UOM:39015003739599
Author : Jim Slagle
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2021-06-17
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781350173125
Contemporary discussions in metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of mind are dominated by the presupposition of naturalism. Arguing against this established convention, Jim Slagle offers a thorough defence of Alvin Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism (EAAN) and in doing so, reveals how it shows that evolution and naturalism are incompatible. Charting the development of Plantinga's argument, Slagle asserts that the probability of our cognitive faculties reliably producing true beliefs is low if ontological naturalism is true, and therefore all other beliefs produced by these faculties, including naturalism itself, are self-defeating. He critiques other well-known epistemological approaches, including those of Descartes and Quine, and deftly counters the many objections against the EAAN to conclude that metaphysical naturalism should be rejected on the grounds of self-defeat. By situating Plantinga's argument within a wider context and showing that science and evolution cannot entail naturalism, Slagle renders this most common metaphysical view irrational. As such, the book advocates an important reconsideration of contemporary thought at the intersection of philosophy, science and religion.
Author : James K. Beilby
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0801487633
Plantinga's argument is aimed at metaphysical naturalism or roughly the view that no supernatural beings exist. Naturalism is typically conjoined with evolution as an explanation of the existence and diversity of life. Plantinga's claim is that one who holds to the truth of both naturalism and evolution is irrational in doing so. More specifically, because the probability that unguided evolution would have produced reliable cognitive faculties is either low or inscrutable, one who holds both naturalism and evolution acquires a "defeater" for every belief he/she holds, including the beliefs associated with naturalism and evolution.
Author : Jim Slagle
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2021
Category : Evolution (Biology)
ISBN : 1350173142
"Contemporary discussions in metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of mind are dominated by the presupposition of naturalism. Arguing against this established convention, Jim Slagle offers a thorough defence of Alvin Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism (EAAN) and in doing so, reveals how it shows that evolution and naturalism are incompatible. Charting the development of Plantinga's argument, Slagle asserts that the probability of our cognitive faculties reliably producing true beliefs is low if ontological naturalism is true, and therefore all other beliefs produced by these faculties, including naturalism itself, are self-defeating. He critiques other well-known epistemological approaches, including those of Descartes and Quine, and deftly counters the many objections against the EAAN to conclude that metaphysical naturalism should be rejected on the grounds of self-defeat. By situating Plantinga's argument within a wider context and showing that science and evolution cannot entail naturalism, Slagle renders this most common metaphysical view irrational. As such, the book advocates an important reconsideration of contemporary thought at the intersection of philosophy, science and religion."--
Author : Peter Godfrey-Smith
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 1998-09-28
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0521646243
The book examines the relationship between intelligence and environmental complexity.
Author : Charles Taliaferro,Jil Evans
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2013-06-06
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781441148827
A philosophical inquiry into the strengths and weaknesses of theism and naturalism in accounting for the emergence of consciousness, the visual imagination and aesthetic values. The authors begin by offering an account of modern scientific practice which gives a central place to the visual imagination and aesthetic values. They then move to test the explanatory power of naturalism and theism in accounting for consciousness and the very visual imagination and aesthetic values that lie behind and define modern science. Taliaferro and Evans argue that evolutionary biology alone is insufficient to account for consciousness, the visual imagination and aesthetic values. Insofar as naturalism is compelled to go beyond evolutionary biology, it does not fare as well as theism in terms of explanatory power.
Author : Paul F. Boller
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 298 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 1969
Category : Naturalism
ISBN : UOM:39015008602529
Author : Michael Ruse
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 275 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 1995-02-02
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781134877621
This is a collection of essays on the history and philosophy of evolutionary biology by the well-known Canadian scholar, Michael Ruse. Much has been written newly for the collection, as the author explores themes of evolutionary naturalism, putting the theory of knowledge and of moral behaviour on a philosophical basis informed by contemporary evolutionary biology. Divided into three parts, the first set of essays considers issues in the history of science - Darwin, population biology, and the new paleontological theory of `punctuated equilibria' - attempting to find a path between the crude objectivity espoused by many working scientists, and the rank relativism of post-modernist critiques of science. The second set of essays turns directly to the theory of knowledge (epistemology), arguing that the fact that we are evolved beings rather than objects of special creation, must and does inform our thinking about the external world. The third set of essays, the most controversial, turns to questions of morality, arguing that ethical systems are ultimately no more than collective illusions put in place by our biology, because humans are essentially social animals. Written in a clear and non-technical fashion, this collection carries forward debate on a number of controversial issues, showing that the time has now come to take philosophy from the hands of academic theorists and to embrace fully the findings and consequences of modern science.
Author : Thomas Nagel
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 141 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2012-11-22
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780199919758
The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.
Author : José Ignacio Galparsoro,Alberto Cordero
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 168 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2013-09-04
Category : Education
ISBN : 9789462092969
To naturalists, there is no such thing as complete justification for any claim, and so requiring complete warrant for naturalist proposals is an unreasonable request. The proper guideline for naturalist proposals seems thus clear: develop it using the methods of science; if this leads to a fruitful stance, then explicate and reassess. The resulting offer will exhibit virtuous circularity if its explanatory feedback loop involves critical reassessment as the explanations it encompasses play out. So viewed, naturalism is a philosophical perspective that seeks to unite in a virtuous circle the natural sciences and non-foundationalist, broadly-based empiricism. Other common lines of antinaturalist complaint are that naturalization efforts seem fruitful only in some areas, also that several endeavors outside the sciences serve as sources of knowledge into human life and the human condition, especially in areas where science does not reach terribly far as yet. It seems hard not to grant some truth to many allegories from literature, art and some religions. Naturalism has room for knowledge gathered outside science, provided the imported claims satisfy also by naturalistic methods. Naturalism and the debate about its scope and limits thrive on discrepancy. We hope that, collectively, the selected essays that follow will give a fair view of the vitality and tribulations of naturalism as a variegated contemporary philosophical perspective.
Author : Guido O. Perez, MD
Publisher : Xlibris Corporation
Page : 112 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2011-09-30
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781465371935
This book reviews a Naturalistic worldview based on a scientifi c understanding of the world and the broad perspective of cosmic evolution. We are the product of a long evolutionary process that has been marked by four pivotal events: the Big-Bang, the appearance of life, the emergence of mind and the evolution of culture. The issue of whether or not the universe had a beginning remains undefi ned. The origin of life from inanimate matter also remains undefi ned, but the evolution of life forms by natural selection is supported by many lines of evidence. The origin of mind and consciousness can be traced to the evolution of neurons in multicellular animals. These cells have numerous extensions capable of forming connections and infl uencing the function of distantly located cells. Most scientists adopt a monist physicalist view and reject the existence of substance dualism. Evolutionary psychology holds that human nature is the result of our genes and their interaction with the environment. Aided by their superior cognitive abilities, and by the transmission of knowledge, modern humans have created a rich culture. Because we can not prove that everything is physical, it is better to reject Ontologic Naturalism and embrace Methodological Naturalism. This worldview has an ethical, social and political dimension, best described by Planetary Humanism, a form of humanism that is not anthropocentric and is global and ecologic in scope.
Author : Michael A. Flannery,Alfred Russel Wallace
Publisher : Erasmus Press
Page : 243 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2020-08-12
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781645427056
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913), co-discoverer of natural selection, was second only to Charles Darwin as the 19th century’s most noted English naturalist. Yet his belief in spiritualism caused him to be ridiculed and dismissed by many, leaving him a comparatively obscure and misunderstood figure. In this volume Wallace is finally allowed to speak in his own defense through his grand evolutionary synthesis The World of Life published over a century ago in 1910. More than just a reprinting of a near-forgotten work, Michael A. Flannery places Wallace in historical context and includes the very latest historiography relating to both Darwin and Wallace in his detailed introduction. Flannery exposes Charles Darwin’s now-famous theory of evolution as little more than a naturalistic cover for an extreme philosophical materialism borrowed as a youth from Edinburgh radicals. This is juxtaposed by his sympathetic account of what he calls Wallace’s intelligent evolution, a thoroughly teleological alternative to Darwin’s stochastic processes. Though based upon very different formulations of natural selection, the Wallace/Darwin dispute as presented by Flannery shows a metaphysical clash of worldviews coextensive with modern evolutionary theory itself—design and purpose versus randomness and chance. This book is for anyone seeking to understand the historical and philosophical roots of a controversy that still rages today. This book contains an abridgement of Alfred Russel Wallace's The World of Life and Reverend John Magens Mello's essay, “The Mystery of Life and Mind.” Michael A. Flannery is Professor Emeritus, UAB Libraries, University of Alabama at Birmingham. Professor Flannery has published extensively in medical history and bioethics, winning the prestigious Edward Kremers Award in 2001 for distinguished writing by an American from the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, the Murray Gottlieb Prize in history by the Medical Library Association in 2002, and the 2006 Publishers Award of the Archivists and Librarians in the History of Health Sciences. This is his tenth book.