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Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Philosophy of Science

Know Thyself, Raam P. Gokhale Sep 2010

Know Thyself, Raam P. Gokhale

Raam P Gokhale

An Imagined Dialog on Eastern and Western Philosophy and the Nature of Knowledge


What We Talk About When We Talk About The Soul, Stephen Asma May 2010

What We Talk About When We Talk About The Soul, Stephen Asma

Stephen T Asma

The author discusses the popularity among college students of the concept of the soul, and attempts to place it in its proper context. He dispenses with orthodox theological arguments and New Age arguments as scientifically untenable. He takes a so-called Wittgensteinian approach, noting soul's linguistic significance. He analyzes expressions which use the concept of soul and concludes that they are qualitatively different from testable factual expressions. He notes that soul talk is about hopes and aspirations, inspiration, or feelings deeper than friendship. He assigns it meaning outside of scientific concepts. He likens expressions of soul to creative and ethical acts, …


Rethinking Mechanistic Explanation, Stuart Glennan Apr 2010

Rethinking Mechanistic Explanation, Stuart Glennan

Stuart Glennan

Philosophers of science typically associate the causal-mechanical view of scientific explanation with the work of Railton and Salmon. In this paper I shall argue that the defects of this view arise from an inadequate analysis of the concept of mechanism. I contrast Salmon's account of mechanisms in terms of the causal nexus with my own account of mechanisms, in which mechanisms are viewed as complex systems. After describing these two concepts of mechanism, I show how the complex-systems approach avoids certain objections to Salmon's account of causal-mechanical explanation. I conclude by discussing how mechanistic explanations can provide understanding by unification.


Mechanisms, Causes, And The Layered Model Of The World, Stuart Glennan Jan 2010

Mechanisms, Causes, And The Layered Model Of The World, Stuart Glennan

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

Most philosophical accounts of causation take causal relations to obtain between individuals and events in virtue of nomological relations between properties of these individuals and events. Such views fail to take into account the consequences of the fact that in general the properties of individuals and events will depend upon mechanisms that realize those properties. In this paper I attempt to rectify this failure, and in so doing to provide an account of the causal relevance of higher-level properties. I do this by critiquing one prominent model of higher-level properties – Kim’s functional model of reduction – and contrasting it …


Pain And Human Dependence (Dolor Y Dependencia Humana), Fernando Estrada Jan 2010

Pain And Human Dependence (Dolor Y Dependencia Humana), Fernando Estrada

Fernando Estrada

This paper is a study of medical philosophy. The subject is studied from the author's own experience. On the basic sources of inspiration the works of Fernando Pessoa, Karl Kraus and Friedrich Nietzsche, raise the limits and scope of medical knowledge and experience of pain and disease.


The Flow Of Nectar And Blood: Maya Philosophy And World Vision, Juan Ferret Dec 2009

The Flow Of Nectar And Blood: Maya Philosophy And World Vision, Juan Ferret

Juan Ferret

No abstract provided.