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This 2nd edition Handbook of Spinoza retains a unique focus on the biographical details of Spinoza's life, as well as essential scholarship on his influences and early critics. A glossary of key Latin Spinozan terms with English translations remains a key feature alongside short synopses of Spinoza's writings. Adding to the updated contemporary scholarship on Spinoza from across Europe and the US is the recognition of Spinoza's influence more ...

This volume is a logical sequel of Volume I, The Search for System: indeed, it concerns the ways theoretical systems are put to work and subjected to test. Yet it can be read independently by anyone familiar with some factual theories, referring back to Volume I when necessary. Special Symbols AS, B the set A is included in the set B AvB the union of the sets A and B AnB the common part of the sets A and B aEB the individual a is in (or belong...

The present volume collects some of the talks given at the Bertrand Russell Colloquium on Exact Philosophy, attached to the McGill University Foundations and Philosophy of Science Unit. It also includes a paper, on Bertrand Russell's method of philosophizing, read at the memorial symposium held at Sir Gorge Williams University shortly after the philosopher's death. All the papers appear here for the first time. Unlike many a philosophy of scie...

of Epistemology III.- 3. Life Science: From Biology to Psychology.- 1. Life and its Study.- 1.1. Life.- 1.2. Biology.- 2. Two Classics.- 2.1. Teleology.- 2.2. Systematics.- 3. Two Moderns.- 3.1. Genetics.- 3.2. Evolution.- 4. Brain and Mind.- 4.1. Neuroscience.- 4.2. Neuropsychology.- 5. Strife Over Mind.- 5.1. Alternative Approaches.- 5.2. Types of Psychological Explanation.- 6. From Biology to Sociology.- 6.1. Social Psychology.- 6.2. Sociob...

of Ontology II.- 1. System.- 1. Basic Concepts.- 1.1. Aggregate and System.- 1.2. Concrete System: Definition.- 1.3. More of the Same.- 1.4. Subsystem.- 1.5. Level.- 1.6. Systems Association.- 1.7. Other Kinds of System: Property and Functional.- 1.8. Concluding Remarks.- 2. System Representations.- 2.1. Coupling Graphs and Matrices.- 2.2. The State Space Representation.- 3. Basic Assumptions.- 3.1. Structural Matters.- 3.2. Assembly and Emerg...

In this Introduction' we shall sketch the business of ontology, or metaphysics, and shall locate it on the map of learning. This has to be done because there are many ways of construing the word 'ontology' and because of the bad reputation metaphysics has suffered until recently - a well deserved one in most cases. 1. ONTOLOGICAL PROBLEMS Ontological (or metaphysical) views are answers to ontological ques­ tions. And ontological (or metaphysic...

The word 'materialism' is ambiguous: it designates a moral doc­ trine as well as a philosophy and, indeed, an entire world view. Moral materialism is identical with hedonism, or the doctrine that humans should pursue only their own pleasure. Philosophical ma­ terialismis the view that the real worId is composed exclusively of material things. The two doctrines are logically independent: hedonism is consistent with immaterialism, and materialis...

The purpose of this Introduction is to sketch our approach to the study of value, morality and action, and to show the place we assign it in the system of human knowledge. 1. VALUE, MORALITY AND ACTION: FACT, THEORY, AND METATHEORY We take it that all animals evaluate some things and some processes, and that some of them learn the social behavior patterns we call 'moral principles', and even act according to them at least some of the time. An ...

In this Introduction we shall state the business of both descriptive and normative epistemology, and shall locate them in the map oflearning. This must be done because epistemology has been pronounced dead, and methodology nonexisting, and because, when acknowledged at all, they are often misplaced. 1. DESCRIPTIVE EPISTEMOLOGY The following problems are typical of classical epistemology: (i) What can we know? (ii) How do we know? (iii) What, i...

Of Semantics II.- 6. Interpretation.- 1. Kinds of Interpretation.- 2. Mathematical Interpretation.- 2.1. Abstract Theory.- 2.2. Model.- 2.3. Intensional Models and Extensional Models.- 2.4. Insufficiency of Extensional Models.- 3. Factual Interpretation.- 3.1. The Need for Factual Interpretation in Science.- 3.2. How Interpretations are Assigned and What They Accomplish.- 3.3. The Factual Interpretation Maps.- 3.4. Factual Interpretation: Full...

In this Introduction we shall sketch a profile of our field of inquiry. This is necessary because semantics is too often mistaken for lexicography and therefore dismissed as trivial, while at other times it is disparaged for being concerned with reputedly shady characters such as meaning and allegedly defunct ones like truth. Moreover our special concern, the semantics of science, is a newcomer - at least as a systematic body - and therefore i...

This collection of essays deals with three clusters of problems in the philo­ sophy of science: scientific method, conceptual models, and ontological underpinnings. The disjointedness of topics is more apparent than real, since the whole book is concerned with the scientific knowledge of fact. Now, the aim of factual knowledge is the conceptual grasping of being, and this understanding is provided by theories of whatever there may be. If the t...

The Tum of the Tide During centuries physicists were supposed to be studying the physical world. Since the turn of the century this assumption has often been challenged as naive: it was proclaimed that physics is not about the external world but about observers and their manipUlations: that it is meaningless to talk of anything else than observation devices and opera­ tions: that the laws of physics concern our knowledge rather than the extern...

This is a collection of technical papers in the foundations and the philoso­ It takes both "foundations" phy of physics with emphasis on the former. and "philosophy" in their narrow technical senses but it construes "physics" lato sensu, as including all the sciences of nonliving systems. All eleven papers constituting this volume were written for it. The problems tackled in this book concern certain basic concepts, hypotheses, theories, and r...

I Approach and Tools.- 1. The Scientific Approach.- 1.1 Knowledge: Ordinary and Scientific.- 1.2 Scientific Method.- 1.3 Scientific Tactics.- 1.4 Branches of Science.- 1.5 Goal and Scope of Science.- 1.6 Pseudoscience.- 2. Concept.- 2.1 Scientific Languages.- 2.2 Term and Concept.- 2.3 Extension and Intension.- 2.4 Partition, Ordering and Systematics.- 2.5 From Pretheoretical to Theoretical Systematics.- 2.6 Systematics of Concepts.- 3. Elucid...

The purpose of this Introduction is to sketch our approach to the study of value, morality and action, and to show the place we assign it in the systemof human knowledge. 1. VALUE, MORALITY AND ACTION: FACT, THEORY, AND METATHEORY We take it that all animals evaluate some things and some processes, and that some of them learn the social behavior patterns we call 'moral principles', and even act according to them at least some of the time. An a...

This collection of essays deals with three clusters of problems in the philo­ sophy of science: scientific method, conceptual models, and ontological underpinnings. The disjointedness of topics is more apparent than real, since the whole book is concerned with the scientific knowledge of fact. Now, the aim of factual knowledge is the conceptual grasping of being, and this understanding is provided by theories of whatever there may be. If the t...

The papers that follow were read and discussed at the first Symposium on Exact Philosophy. This conference was held at Montreal on November 4th and 5th, 1971, to celebrate the sesquicentennial of McGill University and establish the Society for Exact Philosophy. The expression 'exact philosophy' is taken to signify mathematical phi­ losophy, i.e., philosophy done with the explicit help of mathematical logic and mathematics. So far the expressio...

The aims of this Introduction are to characterize the philosophy of science and technology, henceforth PS & T, to locate it on the map ofiearning, and to propose criteria for evaluating work in this field. 1. THE CHASM BETWEEN S & T AND THE HUMANITIES It has become commonplace to note that contemporary culture is split into two unrelated fields: science and the rest, to deplore this split - and to do is some truth in the two cultures thesis, a...

This book deals with some of the current issues in the philosophy, methodology and foundations of physics. Some such problems are: - Do mathematical formalisms interpret themselves or is it necessary to adjoin them interpretation assumptions, and if so how are these as­ sumptions to be framed? - What are physical theories about: physical systems or laboratory operations or both or neither? - How are the basic concepts of a theory to be introdu...