Causation, coherence, and concepts : a collection of essays / Wolfgang Spohn.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Spohn, Wolfgang.

Contributor:

Alumni and Friends Memorial Book Fund.

Series:

Boston studies in the philosophy of science ; v. 256.

Boston studies in the philosophy of science ; v. 256

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Causation.

Physical Description:

xvi, 386 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

[Dordrecht] : Springer, [2009]

Summary:

The series Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science was conceived in the broadest framework of interdisciplinary and international concerns. Natural scientists, mathematicians, social scientists and philosophers have contributed to the series, as have historians and sociologists of science, linguists, psychologists, physicians, and literary critics.

Along with the principal collaboration of Americans, the series has been able to include works by authors from many other countries around the world. As European science has become world science, philosophical, historical, and critical studies of that science have become of universal interest as well.

The editors believe that philosophy of science should itself be scientific, hypothetical as well as self-consciously critical, humane as well as rational, sceptical and undogmatic while also receptive to discussion of first principles. One of the aims of Boston Studies, therefore, is to develop collaboration among scientists and philosophers. However, because of this merging, not only has the neat structure of classical physics changed, but, also, a variety of wide-ranging questions have been encountered. As a result, philosophy of science has become epistemological and historical: once the identification of scientific method with that of physics had been queried, not only did biology and psychology come under scrutiny, but so did history and the social sciences, particularly economics, socilogy, and anthropology. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science looks into and reflects on all these interactions in an effort to understand the scientific enterprise from every viewpoint.

Contents:

Ordinal conditional functions: a dynamic theory of epistemic states

Direct and indirect causes

Causation: an alternative

Bayesian nets are all there is to causal dependence

Causal laws are objectifications of inductive schemes

Laws, ceteris paribus conditions, and the dynamics of belief

Enumerative induction and lawlikeness

Chance and necessity: from Humean supervenience to Humean projection

A reason for explanation: explanations provide stable reasons

Two coherence principles

How to understand the foundations of empirical belief in a coherentist way

A priori reasons: a fresh look at disposition predicates

The character of color terms: a materialist view

Concepts are beliefs about essences

Changing concepts

The intentional versus the propositional structure of contents.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Alumni and Friends Memorial Book Fund.

ISBN:

9781402054730

1402054734

1402054742

9781402054747

OCLC:

280332015