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Issues in Evolutionary Epistemology
This book provides the fullest philosophical examination of theories of evolutionary epistemology now available. Here for the first time are found major statements of new theories, new applications, and many new critical explorations. The book is divided into four parts: Part I introduces several new approaches to evolutionary epistemology; Part II attempts to widen the scope of evolutionary epistemology, either by tackling more traditional epistemological issues, or by applying evolutionary models to new areas of inquiry such as the evolution of culture or of intentionality; Part III critically discusses specific problems in evolutionary epistemology; and Part IV deals with the relationship of evolutionary epistemology to the philosophy of mind. Because of its intellectual depth and its breadth of coverage, Issues in Evolutionary Epistemology will be an important text in the field for many years to come.
Mapping Reality
Using the insights of evolutionary epistemology, the author develops a new naturalist realist methodology of science, and applies it to the conceptual, practical, and ethical problems of the social sciences.
Special Sciences and the Unity of Science
Science is a dynamic process in which the assimilation of new phenomena, perspectives, and hypotheses into the scientific corpus takes place slowly. The apparent disunity of the sciences is the unavoidable consequence of this gradual integration process. Some thinkers label this dynamical circumstance a ‘crisis’. However, a retrospective view of the practical results of the scientific enterprise and of science itself, grants us a clear view of the unity of the human knowledge seeking enterprise. This book provides many arguments, case studies and examples in favor of the unity of science. These contributions touch upon various scientific perspectives and disciplines such as: Physics, Computer Science, Biology, Neuroscience, Cognitive Psychology, and Economics.
Biology and Political Science
This book demonstrates the increasing interest of some social scientists in the theories, research and findings of life sciences in building a more interdisciplinary approach to the study of politics. It discusses the development of biopolitics as an academic perspective within political science, reviews the growing literature in the field and presents a coherent view of biopolitics as a framework for structuring inquiry across the current subfields of political science.
Relativism and Realism in Science
The institutionalization of History and Philosophy of Science as a distinct field of scholarly endeavour began comparatively earl- though not always under that name - in the Australasian region. An initial lecturing appointment was made at the University of Melbourne immediately after the Second World War, in 1946, and other appoint ments followed as the subject underwent an expansion during the 1950s and 1960s similar to that which took place in other parts of the world. Today there are major Departments at the University of Melbourne, the University of New South Wales and the University of Wollongong, and smaller groups active in many other parts of Australia and in New Zealand. "Australas...
Evolutionary Analogies
“Advocates of the evolutionary analogy claim that mechanisms governing scientific change are analogous to those at work in organic evolution – above all, natural selection. By referring to the works of the most influential proponents of evolutionary analogies (Toulmin, Campbell, Hull and, most notably, Kuhn) the authors discuss whether and to what extent their use of the analogy is appropriate. A careful and often illuminating perusal of the theoretical scope of the terms employed, as well as of the varying contexts within which the analogy is appealed to in contemporary debates, leads to the conclusion that such general theories of selective processes are either too sketchy or eventuall...
The Evolution of Darwinism
No other scientific theory has had as tremendous an impact on our understanding of the world as Darwin's theory as outlined in his Origin of Species, yet from the very beginning the theory has been subject to controversy. The Evolution of Darwinism, first published in 2004, focuses on three issues of debate - the nature of selection, the nature and scope of adaptation, and the question of evolutionary progress. It traces the varying interpretations to which these issues were subjected from the beginning and the fierce contemporary debates that still rage on and explores their implications for the greatest questions of all: Where we come from, who we are and where we might be heading. Written in a clear and non-technical style, this book will be of use as a textbook for students in the philosophy of science who need to become familiar with the background to the debates about evolution.
Reason, Regulation, and Realism
This book develops a new naturalist theory of reason and scientific knowledge from a synthesis of philosophy and the new sciences of complex adaptive systems. In particular, the theory of partially self-organizing regulatory systems is now emerging as central to all the life and social sciences, and this book shows how these ideas can be used to illuminate and satisfyingly reconstruct our basic philosophical concepts and principles. Evolutionary epistemology provides a unifying subject for the book. It is taken as proposing some important commonality between cognitive biological and cognitive epistemic processes. Here, that commonality is found by embedding both in a common model of complex adaptive system dynamics. New reconstructions are offered on the theories of Jean Piaget, Karl Popper, and Nicholas Rescher which show how their ideas are more deeply illuminated from this perspective in contrast to the formal rationalist interpretations standard among philosophers and scientists.
Scientific Discovery
Kantorovich analyzes the notion of discovery. He views the process as inference and questions whether there is logic or method to discovery. He provides an alternative perspective on scientific discovery that explains the difficulties in finding a satisfactory method of discovery. Within the framework of evolutionary epistemology, discovery is treated as a phenomenon in its own right having psychological and social dimensions. Science is viewed as a continuation of the evolutionary process whereby creative discovery plays a role similar to blind mutation in biological evolution. From this perspective, serendipity and tinkering are key notions in understanding the creative process.
