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By investigating a simple question, a philosopher of science and a molecular biologist offer an accessible understanding of microbial communities and a motivating theory for future research in community ecology. Microorganisms, such as bacteria, are important determinants of health at the individual, ecosystem, and global levels. And yet many aspects of modern life, from the overuse of antibiotics to chemical spills and climate change, can have devastating, lasting impacts on the communities formed by microorganisms. Drawing on the latest scientific research and real-life examples such as attempts to reengineer these communities through microbial transplantation, the construction of syntheti...
This volume showcases the best of recent research in the philosophy of science. A compilation of papers presented at the EPSA 13, it explores a broad distribution of topics such as causation, truthlikeness, scientific representation, gender-specific medicine, laws of nature, science funding and the wisdom of crowds. Papers are organised into headings which form the structure of the book. Readers will find that it covers several major fields within the philosophy of science, from general philosophy of science to the more specific philosophy of physics, philosophy of chemistry, philosophy of the life sciences, philosophy of psychology, and philosophy of the social sciences and humanities, amongst others. This volume provides an excellent overview of the state of the art in the philosophy of science, as practiced in different European countries and beyond. It will appeal to researchers with an interest in the philosophical underpinnings of their own discipline, and to philosophers who wish to explore the latest work on the themes explored.
This book traces the history of life-concepts, with a focus on the vegetable souls of Aristotle, investigating how they were interpreted and eventually replaced by evolutionary biology. Philosophers have long struggled with the relationship between physics, physiology, and psychology, asking questions of organization, purpose, and agency. For two millennia, the vegetable soul, nutrition, and reproduction were commonly used to understand basic life and connect it to “higher” animal and vegetable life. Cartesian dualism and mechanism destroyed this bridge and left biology without an organizing principle until Darwin. Modern biology parallels Aristotelian vegetable life-concepts, but remains incompatible with the animal, rational, subjective, and spiritual life-concepts that developed through the centuries. Recent discoveries call for a second look at Aristotle’s ideas – though not their medieval descendants. Life remains an active, chemical process whose cause, identity, and purpose is self-perpetuation.
The specialization thesis—the idea that nineteenth-century science fragmented into separate forms of knowledge that led to the creation of modern disciplines—has played an integral role in the way historians have described the changing disciplinary map of nineteenth-century British science. This volume critically reevaluates this dominant narrative in the historiography. While new disciplines did emerge during the nineteenth century, the intellectual landscape was far muddier, and in many cases new forms of specialist knowledge continued to cross boundaries while integrating ideas from other areas of study. Through a history of Victorian interdisciplinarity, this volume offers a more complicated and innovative analysis of discipline formation. Harnessing the techniques of cultural and intellectual history, studies of visual culture, Victorian studies, and literary studies, contributors break out of subject-based silos, exposing the tension between the rhetorical push for specialization and the actual practice of knowledge sharing across disciplines during the nineteenth century.
The idea of regeneration -- Observations and experiments -- Mechanisms of regeneration -- Living systems and different scales.
A new international business text for a new and ever-changing global environment.
International Business: Perspectives from Developed and Emerging Markets provides students with a balanced perspective on business in a global environment, exploring implications for multinational companies in developed and emerging markets. This is the first text of its kind to emphasize strategic decision-making as the cornerstone of its approach while focusing on emerging markets. Traditional topics, like foreign exchange markets and global competition, are contrasted with emerging operations, like Chinese market intervention and Islamic finance, to provide students with an understanding of successful business strategy. Readers learn to develop and implement these strategies across cultur...
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