Information and Meaning in Evolutionary Processes

Klappentext William Harms develops the conceptual foundations and tools for a science of knowledge through the application of evolutionary theory! thus allowing us to acknowledge the legacy of skepticism while denying its relativistic offspring. The most significant legacy of philosophical skepticism is the realization that our concepts! beliefs and theories are social constructs. This belief has led to epistemological relativism! or the thesis that! since there is no ultimate truth about the world! theory preferences are only a matter of opinion. Zusammenfassung This book is intended to help transform epistemology - the traditional study of knowledge - into a rigorous discipline by removing conceptual roadblocks and developing formal tools required for a fully naturalized epistemology. Inhaltsverzeichnis Acknowledgements; Introduction; Part I. Generalizing Evolutionary Theory: 1. Replicator theories; 2. Ontologies of evolution and cultural transmission; Part II. Modeling Information Flow in Evolutionary Processes: 3. Population dynamics; 4. Information theory; 5. Selection as an information-transfer process; 6. Multilevel information transfer; 7. Information in internal states; Part III. Meaning Conventions and Normativity: 8. Primitive content; 9. Is and ought; Epilogue: Paley's Watch and other stories; Notes; Appendix: proof of information gain under frequency-independent discrete replicator dynamics for population of n types; References; Index.

Product details

• Authors: William F. Harms, William F. (University of British Columbia Harms
• Assisted by: Michael Ruse (Editor)
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 26.04.2004
• EAN: 9780521815147
• ISBN: 978-0-521-81514-7
• No. of pages: 282
• Series: Cambridge Studies in Philosoph
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > General, dictionaries; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Natural sciences (general); Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; PHILOSOPHY / Epistemology