The Philosopher's Annual
Author:
Publisher:
Published: 2002
Total Pages: 342
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPosts
Supersizing the Mind
Author: Andy Clark
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2010-12-31
Total Pages: 317
ISBN-13: 0199831041
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhen historian Charles Weiner found pages of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman's notes, he saw it as a "record" of Feynman's work. Feynman himself, however, insisted that the notes were not a record but the work itself. In Supersizing the Mind, Andy Clark argues that our thinking doesn't happen only in our heads but that "certain forms of human cognizing include inextricable tangles of feedback, feed-forward and feed-around loops: loops that promiscuously criss-cross the boundaries of brain, body and world." The pen and paper of Feynman's thought are just such feedback loops, physical machinery that shape the flow of thought and enlarge the boundaries of mind. Drawing upon recent work in psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, robotics, human-computer systems, and beyond, Supersizing the Mind offers both a tour of the emerging cognitive landscape and a sustained argument in favor of a conception of mind that is extended rather than "brain-bound." The importance of this new perspective is profound. If our minds themselves can include aspects of our social and physical environments, then the kinds of social and physical environments we create can reconfigure our minds and our capacity for thought and reason.
Logic, Language, and Mathematics
Author: Alexander Miller
Publisher:
Published: 2020
Total Pages: 465
ISBN-13: 0199278342
DOWNLOAD EBOOKCrispin Wright is widely recognised as one of the most influential analytic philosophers of his generation. This volume collects essays which explore the major themes of his work in philosophy of language, philosophy of mathematics, metaphysics, and epistemology, along with four substantial responses from Wright.
Universals, Concepts and Qualities
Author: P.F. Strawson
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-03-02
Total Pages: 369
ISBN-13: 1351876708
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAre there universal properties grounding our sense of resemblance or qualitative identity among a number of distinct things or events which appear to form a class, a type or a kind of some other sort? Do universals such as humanness, triangularity, or being an oak exist? Is being a laptop computer a universal which has only recently come into existence? Do predicate expressions, adjectives or abstract nouns refer to objective properties or cognitive contents called concepts? The problem of universals has been at the centre of ancient, medieval, Western and Indian metaphysics. After the logico-linguistic turn in philosophy, this problem re-surfaced in the discourse on the meaning of predicate expressions on the one hand and in the theories of concepts on the other. By introducing newly commissioned essays written by the leading metaphysicians, epistemologists, philosophers of language and philosophers of mathematics, this anthology evinces current analytic philosophy's healthy re-engagement with this perennial problem. Issues raised include: Do properties and other abstract entities exist independently of human language and thought? Can we be in direct perceptual touch with properties or particular qualities? Is a higher order quantification over predicated properties intelligible or indispensable? Insights from current Western thought are compared with recent work in analytic Indian philosophy on such issues. No serious researcher or teacher of contemporary and comparative analytical metaphysics can afford to ignore the essays of this collection.
The Philosophy of Information
Author: Luciano Floridi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2011-01-27
Total Pages: 426
ISBN-13: 0199232385
DOWNLOAD EBOOKExamines the conceptual nature and basic principles of information.
Cross-sectoral Policy Developments in Forestry
Author: Yves C. Dubé
Publisher: CABI
Published: 2007-01-01
Total Pages: 282
ISBN-13: 1845932501
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book, containing 31 chapters grouped into two parts, provides rich and multi-faceted documentation of current progress being made in creating the political, economic and social conditions indispensable for sustainable and multi-functional use of forest resources, and notes the obstacles that needs to be removed to reach this goal. The first part (chapters 1-9) introduces general and global aspects that have to be considered in the context of cross sectoral policy coordination. This include discussions on the impact of external shocks such as a sudden oil price increase on forest management, the impact of energy or trade policies on global wood markets and the role of decentralization in integrating multiple demands on forests. The second part of the book deals with regional, national and local issues of cross-sectoral policy linkages. The chapters on Africa (chapters 10-15) focus largely on the improvement of land management practices such as agroforestry, land tenure and gender issues, more integrative policies in promoting reforestation and afforestation, multiple stakeholder planning processes and external policy impacts in protecting and managing Miombo forests. In Asia (chapters 16-20), important subjects appearing in several chapters are the need to develop environmental and economic accounts for forestry, and to demonstrate more clearly the great importance of non-timber forest product linkages, road construction and population effects of forest conversion, community forest management contributions to the local and national economy, and cross-sectoral policy links in the development of mountainous areas are other issues addressed. In the Europe part (chapters 21-24); both environmental problems as well as strong trends towards developing a competitive forest and wood-processing sector determine public policy development to a considerable extent. This can be seen from leading policy scenarios that have been identified from the changes in perceptions with regard to the forest sector and from the policy issues at national level that are presented. A somewhat similar pattern of competing policy demands between resource use, industrial expansion and strong environmental demands emerges from the contributions dealing with the Americas (chapters 25-31). These chapters contain the experiences of the USA in cross-sectoral impact analysis, the lessons to be learned from the long and confliction history in managing the national forests, as well as from the resource conflicts described between forestry uses, oil and gas development and environmental protection in the boreal regions of Canada.
The Crisis of Method in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy
Author: Avner Baz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2017-12-08
Total Pages: 248
ISBN-13: 0192522086
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAvner Baz offers a critique of leading work in mainstream analytic philosophy, and in particular challenges assumptions underlying recent debates concerning philosophical method. In the first part of The Crisis of Method, Baz identifies fundamental confusions about what the widely-employed philosophical "method of cases" is supposed to accomplish, and how. He then argues that the method, as commonly employed by both "armchair" and "experimental" philosophers, is underwritten by substantive, and poorly supported, "representationalist" assumptions about languageassumptions to which virtually all of the participants in the recent debates over philosophical method have shown themselves committed. In the second part of the book, Baz challenges those assumptions, both philosophically and empirically. Drawing on Austin, Wittgenstein, and Merleau-Ponty, as well as on empirical studies of first language acquisition, he presents and motivates a broadly pragmatist conception of language on which the method of cases as commonly practiced is fundamentally misguidedmore misguided than even its staunchest critics have hitherto recognized.
The Philosophy of Sri Chinmoy
Author: Kusumita P. Pedersen
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2021-06-28
Total Pages: 169
ISBN-13: 1793618992
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis is the first book-length study of the thought of Sri Chinmoy (1931-2007), who became well known during his lifetime as the exponent of a dynamic spirituality of integral transformation, which he set forth in an extensive body of writings in both prose and poetry, mostly in English but also in his native Bengali. He held that all fields of human endeavor can be venues of spiritual transformation when founded in aspiration and contemplative practice. He is noted not only as a spiritual teacher but also as an advocate of peace, a composer and musician, an artist and a sportsman who created innovative programs promoting self-transcendence and understanding between people of all cultures and walks of life. This study of Sri Chinmoy’s philosophy refers to these diverse activities, especially in the biographical first chapter, but is mainly based on his written works. The book’s aim is to give to the reader a straightforward and unembroidered account of Sri Chinmoy’s philosophy. It makes every attempt to allow Sri Chinmoy to speak for himself in his own words, and thus provides ample quotation and draws on his poetic works as much as on his other writings.
The SAGE Handbook of the Philosophy of Social Sciences
Author: Ian C Jarvie
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2011-03-14
Total Pages: 773
ISBN-13: 1847874002
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this exciting Handbook, Ian Jarvie and Jesús Zamora-Bonilla have put together a wide-ranging and authoritative overview of the main philosophical currents and traditions at work in the social sciences today. Starting with the history of social scientific thought, this Handbook sets out to explore that core fundamentals of social science practice, from issues of ontology and epistemology to issues of practical method. Along the way it investigates such notions as paradigm, empiricism, postmodernism, naturalism, language, agency, power, culture, and causality.
The Philosophy of Information Quality
Author: Luciano Floridi
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2014-08-01
Total Pages: 315
ISBN-13: 3319071211
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis work fulfills the need for a conceptual and technical framework to improve understanding of Information Quality (IQ) and Information Quality standards. The meaning and practical implementation of IQ are addressed, as it is relevant to any field where there is a need to handle data and issues such as accessibility, accuracy, completeness, currency, integrity, reliability, timeliness, usability, the role of metrics and so forth are all a part of Information Quality. In order to support the cross-fertilization of theory and practice, the latest research is presented in this book. The perspectives of experts from beyond the origins of IQ in computer science are included: library and information science practitioners and academics, philosophers of information, of engineering and technology, and of science are all contributors to this volume. The chapters in this volume are based on the work of a collaborative research project involving the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Google and led by Professor Luciano Floridi, University of Oxford. This work will be of interest to anyone handling data, including those from commercial, public, governmental and academic organizations. The expert editors’ contributions introduce issues of interest to scientists, database curators and philosophers, even though the issues may be disguised in the language and examples common to a different discipline.
