From a Biological Point of View - Essays in Evolutionary Philosophy

Informationen zum Autor 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. Zusammenfassung 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. 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.

Product details

• Authors: Elliott Sober, Sober Elliott
• Assisted by: Michael Ruse (Editor)
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.09.1994
• EAN: 9780521477536
• ISBN: 978-0-521-47753-6
• Dimensions: 154 mm x 230 mm x 18 mm
• Series: Cambridge Studies in Philosoph; Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Medicine; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: antiquity to present day; PHILOSOPHY / Social, PHILOSOPHY / Political, SCIENCE / Philosophy & Social Aspects, Philosophy of Science, Social & political philosophy, social and political philosophy