From a Biological Point of View

Essays in Evolutionary Philosophy
Erscheinungsjahr 2003
ISBN: 978-0-521-47753-6
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 267 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 440 g

Reihe: Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology

Elliott Sober is one of the leading philosophers of science and is a former winner of the Lakatos Prize, the major award in the field. This new collection of essays will appeal to a readership that extends well beyond the frontiers of the philosophy of science. Sober shows how ideas in evolutionary biology bear in significant ways on traditional problems in philosophy of mind and language, epistemology, and metaphysics. Amongst the topics addressed are psychological egoism, solipsism, and the interpretation of belief and utterance, empiricism, Ockham's razor, causality, essentialism, and scientific laws. The collection will prove invaluable to a wide range of philosophers, primarily those working in the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind, and epistemology.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sober, Elliott

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Wissenschaften: Theorie, Epistemologie, Methodik
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Wissenschaftstheorie, Wissenschaftsphilosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sozialphilosophie, Politische Philosophie
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Zeit: Philosophische, Psychologische, Soziale Aspekte
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction; 1. Did evolution make us psychological egoists?; 2. Why not solipsism?; 3. The adaptive advantage of learning and a priori prejudice; 4. The primacy of truth-telling and the evolution of lying; 5. Prospects for an evolutionary ethics; 6. Contrastive empiricism; 7. Let's razor Ockham's razor; 8. The principle of the common cause; 9. Explanatory presupposition; 10. Apportioning casual responsibility; 11. Evolution, population thinking, and essentialism; 12. Temporally oriented laws; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Sober, Elliott
Elliott Sober is Hans Reichenbach Professor of Philosophy and William F. Vilas Research Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison where he has taught since 1974. His research is in philosophy of science, especially in the philosophy of evolutionary biology. Sober's books include The Nature of Selection - Evolutionary Theory in Philosophical Focus (1984), Reconstructing the Past - Parsimony, Evolution, and Inference (1988), Philosophy of Biology (1993), From a Biological Point of View - Essays in Evolutionary Philosophy (1994), and Unto Others - The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior (1998), coauthored with David Sloan Wilson.