The Bounds of Possibility
The Bounds of Possibility

Author: Cian Dorr

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-11-01

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 0192661957

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In general, a given object could have been different in certain respects. For example, the Great Pyramid could have been somewhat shorter or taller; the Mona Lisa could have had a somewhat different pattern of colours; an ordinary table could have been made of a somewhat different quantity of wood. But there seem to be limits. It would be odd to suppose that the Great Pyramid could have been thimble-sized; that the Mona Lisa could have had the pattern of colours that actually characterizes The Scream; or that the table could have been made of the very quantity of wood that in fact made some other table. However, there are puzzling arguments that purport to show that so long as an object is capable of being somewhat different in some respect, it is capable of being radically different in that respect. These arguments rely on two tempting thoughts: first, that an object's capacity for moderate variation is a non-contingent matter, and second, that what is possibly possible is simply possible. The Bounds of Possibility systematically investigates competing strategies for resolving these puzzles, and defends one of them. Along the way it engages with foundational questions about the metaphysics of modality.

Bounds of Possibility
Bounds of Possibility

Author: N. Barney Pityana

Publisher:

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

It is now almost forty years since Steve Biko died in detention and the major Black Consciousness organizations were banned. Now forty years later, the face of black politics and indeed the whole balance of power in South Africa, has changed almost beyond recognition - and yet the memory of Biko and the imprint of Black Consciousness remain indelibly with us. In this book a number of Biko’s colleagues and friends have come together to reassess the achievements of Biko and Black Consciousness, and to examine the rich legacy they have left us. In their chapters they reflect on the many ways in which the Black Consciousness Movement succeeded in transforming black minds and politics by freeing people to take their destiny into their own hands - encouraging them to press the very limits and redefine what had been accepted as the bounds of possibility. Black Consciousness left a legacy of defiance in action and inspired a culture of fearlessness which was carried forward by the township youth in 1976 and sustained throughout the 1980s. For it is in South Africa’s township that there has been an awakening of the people, people who finally made the politicians move.

Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds
Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds

Author: Edouard Machery

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 019880752X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds, Edouard Machery argues that resolving many traditional and contemporary philosophical issues is beyond our epistemic reach and that philosophy should re-orient itself toward more humble, but ultimately more important intellectual endeavors. Any resolution to many of these contemporary issues would require an epistemic access to metaphysical possibilities and necessities, which, Machery argues, we do not have. In effect, then, Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds defends a form of modal skepticism. The book assesses the main philosophical method for acquiring the modal knowledge that the resolution of modally immodest philosophical issues turns on: the method of cases, that is, the consideration of actual or hypothetical situations (which cases or thought experiments describe) in order to determine what facts hold in these situations. Canvassing the extensive work done by experimental philosophers over the last 15 years, Edouard Machery shows that the method of cases is unreliable and should be rejected. Importantly, the dismissal of modally immodest philosophical issues is no cause for despair - many important philosophical issues remain within our epistemic reach. In particular, reorienting the course of philosophy would free time and resources for bringing back to prominence a once-central intellectual endeavor: conceptual analysis.

Novel Definitions
Novel Definitions

Author: Cheryl L. Nixon

Publisher: Broadview Press

Published: 2008-12-30

Total Pages: 438

ISBN-13: 1460401492

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Novel Definitions captures the lively critical debate surrounding the invention of the English novel, showing how the rise of the novel is accompanied by a rise in popular literary criticism. The over 135 pieces here, many newly-discovered, include essays, prefaces, reviews, and sermons written by authors ranging from Aphra Behn to Walter Scott. Novel Definitions brings together authors' commentary on their work; debates concerning the novel’s formal qualities and cultural position, including who should read novels; reviewers' definitions of the qualities that make a novel successful; and literary historians' first attempts to write the history of the novel.

English-German Dictionary of Idioms
English-German Dictionary of Idioms

Author: Hans Schemann

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 576

ISBN-13: 9780415172547

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Containing 15,000 headwords, each entry in this dictionary provides the German equivalents, variants and contexts, as well as the degree of currency/rarity of the idiomatic expression.

The Bounds of Agency
The Bounds of Agency

Author: Carol Rovane

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2019-03-26

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 0691655057

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The subject of personal identity is one of the most central and most contested and exciting in philosophy. Ever since Locke, psychological and bodily criteria have vied with one another in conflicting accounts of personal identity. Carol Rovane argues that, as things stand, the debate is unresolvable since both sides hold coherent positions that our common sense, she maintains, is conflicted; so any resolution to the debate is bound to be revisionary. She boldly offers such a revisionary theory of personal identity by first inquiring into the nature of persons. Rovane begins with a premise about the distinctive ethical nature of persons to which all substantive ethical doctrines, ranging from Kantian to egoist, can subscribe. From this starting point, she derives two startling metaphysical possibilities: there could be group persons composed of many human beings and muliple persons within a single human being. Her conclusions supports Locke's distinction between persons and human beings, but on altogether new grounds. These grounds lie in her radically normative analysis of the condition of personal identity, as the condition in which a certain normative commitment arises, namely, the commitment to achieve overall rational unity within a rational point of view. It is by virtue of this normative commitment that individual agents can engage one another specifically as persons, and possess the distinctive ethical status of persons. Carol Rovan is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. Originally published in 1997. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Probability and Statistical Models with Applications
Probability and Statistical Models with Applications

Author: CH. A. Charalambides

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2000-09-21

Total Pages: 665

ISBN-13: 1420036084

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This monograph of carefully collected articles reviews recent developments in theoretical and applied statistical science, highlights current noteworthy results and illustrates their applications; and points out possible new directions to pursue. With its enlightening account of statistical discoveries and its numerous figures and tables, Probabili

Computational Logic
Computational Logic

Author: Dov M. Gabbay

Publisher: Newnes

Published: 2014-12-09

Total Pages: 737

ISBN-13: 0080930670

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Handbook of the History of Logic brings to the development of logic the best in modern techniques of historical and interpretative scholarship. Computational logic was born in the twentieth century and evolved in close symbiosis with the advent of the first electronic computers and the growing importance of computer science, informatics and artificial intelligence. With more than ten thousand people working in research and development of logic and logic-related methods, with several dozen international conferences and several times as many workshops addressing the growing richness and diversity of the field, and with the foundational role and importance these methods now assume in mathematics, computer science, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, linguistics, law and many engineering fields where logic-related techniques are used inter alia to state and settle correctness issues, the field has diversified in ways that even the pure logicians working in the early decades of the twentieth century could have hardly anticipated. Logical calculi, which capture an important aspect of human thought, are now amenable to investigation with mathematical rigour and computational support and fertilized the early dreams of mechanised reasoning: "Calculemus. The Dartmouth Conference in 1956 – generally considered as the birthplace of artificial intelligence – raised explicitly the hopes for the new possibilities that the advent of electronic computing machinery offered: logical statements could now be executed on a machine with all the far-reaching consequences that ultimately led to logic programming, deduction systems for mathematics and engineering, logical design and verification of computer software and hardware, deductive databases and software synthesis as well as logical techniques for analysis in the field of mechanical engineering. This volume covers some of the main subareas of computational logic and its applications. - Chapters by leading authorities in the field - Provides a forum where philosophers and scientists interact - Comprehensive reference source on the history of logic

The Bounds of Reason
The Bounds of Reason

Author: Herbert Gintis

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-04-20

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 0691160848

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Game theory is central to understanding human behavior and relevant to all of the behavioral sciences—from biology and economics, to anthropology and political science. However, as The Bounds of Reason demonstrates, game theory alone cannot fully explain human behavior and should instead complement other key concepts championed by the behavioral disciplines. Herbert Gintis shows that just as game theory without broader social theory is merely technical bravado, so social theory without game theory is a handicapped enterprise. This edition has been thoroughly revised and updated. Reinvigorating game theory, The Bounds of Reason offers innovative thinking for the behavioral sciences.

Beyond the Bounds
Beyond the Bounds

Author: John Piper

Publisher: Crossway

Published: 2003-01-30

Total Pages: 491

ISBN-13: 143351625X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Everyone who believes in God at all believes that He knows what you and I are going to do tomorrow." –C. S. Lewis This understanding of God's foreknowledge has united the church for twenty centuries. But advocates of "open theism" are presenting a different vision of God and a different view of the future. The rise of open theism within evangelicalism has raised a host of questions. Was classical theism decisively tainted by Greek philosophy? How should we understand passages that tell us that God repents? Are essentials of biblical Christianity–like the inerrancy of Scripture, the trustworthiness of God, and the Gospel of Christ–at stake in this debate? Where, when, and why should we draw new boundaries–and is open theism beyond them? Beyond the Bounds brings together a respected team of scholars to examine the latest literature, address these questions, and give guidance to the church in this time of controversy. Contributors include: John Piper Wayne Grudem Michael S. Horton Bruce A. Ware Mark R. Talbot A. B. Caneday Stephen J. Wellum Justin Taylor Paul Kjoss Helseth Chad Brand William C. Davis Russell Fuller "We have prepared this book to address the issue of boundaries and, we pray, bring some remedy to the present and impending pain of embracing open theism as a legitimate Christian vision of God. . . . As a pastor, who longs to be biblical and God-centered and Christ-exalting and eternally helpful to my people, I see open theism as theologically ruinous, dishonoring to God, belittling to Christ, and pastorally hurtful. My prayer is that Christian leaders will come to see it this way, and thus love the church by counting open theism beyond the bounds of orthodox Christian teaching." –From the Foreword by John Piper