Philosophy of Science

It is a commonplace that scientific inquiry makes extensive use of probabilities, many of which seem to be objective chances, describing features o...

This book presents a study of the various feelings of awe and wonder experienced by astronauts during space flight. It summarizes the results of tw...

Ockham's razor, the principle of parsimony, states that simpler theories are better than theories that are more complex. It has a history dating ba...

The Cavendish Laboratory is arguably the most famous physics laboratory in the world. Founded in 1874, it rapidly gained a leading international re...

First published in 1985, D. M. Armstrong's original work on what laws of nature are has continued to be influential in the areas of metaphysics and...

This book is about structural relations between phenomenological and neurophysiological aspects of consciousness and time. Focusing on auditory per...

The advent of sensitive high-resolution observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation and their successful interpretation in terms of t...

The advent of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) in the early 1970s was one of the most important events in twentieth-century science. This book examines...

Bringing together the latest scientific advances and some of the most enduring subtle philosophical puzzles and problems, this book collects origin...

Who owns your genes? What does climate science imply for policy? Do corporations conduct honest research? Should we teach intelligent design? Human...

The conceptualization of the vital force of living beings as a kind of breath and heat is at least as old as Homer. The assumptions that life and l...

What are the humanities for? The question has perhaps never seemed more urgent. While student numbers have grown in higher education, universities ...

Biological anthropology is a diverse field, with countless research methods and techniques in different sub-disciplines. This book takes a critical...

Levels of Analysis in Psychopathology draws research from psychiatry, philosophy, and psychology to explore the variety of explanatory approaches f...

The large-scale structure of the Universe is dominated by vast voids with galaxies clustered in knots, sheets, and filaments, forming a great 'cosm...

The biological functions debate is a perennial topic in the philosophy of science. In the first full-length account of the nature and importance of...

After the development of manifolds and algebraic varieties in the previous century, mathematicians and physicists have continued to advance concept...

Dispositionalism is the view that causal powers are among the irreducible properties of nature. It has long been among the core competing positions...

Who is the 'Devil'? And what is he due? The Devil is anyone who disagrees with you. And what he is due is the right to speak his mind. He must have...

This is the first single volume about the collapse theories of quantum mechanics, which is becoming a very active field of research in both physics...

Sets are central to mathematics and its foundations, but what are they? In this book Luca Incurvati provides a detailed examination of all the majo...

Why do the debates about evolution persist, despite the plentiful evidence for it? Breaking down the notion that public resistance to evolution is ...

Newton's Opticks is the most influential optical and experimental work of the eighteenth century. This final volume of The Optical Papers of Isaac ...

Is the universe fine-tuned for complexity, life, or something else? This comprehensive overview of fine-tuning arguments in physics, with contribut...

Why do the debates about evolution persist, despite the plentiful evidence for it? Breaking down the notion that public resistance to evolution is ...

If the laws of nature are fine-tuned for life, can we infer other universes with different laws? How could we even test such a theory without empir...

Following a long-term international collaboration between leaders in cosmology and the philosophy of science, this volume addresses foundational qu...

Carnap, Quine, and Putnam held that in our pursuit of truth we can do no better than to start in the middle, relying on already-established beliefs...

In 1956, the New York Times prophesied that once global warming really kicked in, we could see parrots in the Antarctic. In 2010, when science deni...

Modern biological classification is based on the system developed by Linnaeus, and interpreted by Darwin as representing the tree of life. But desp...

Combining physics and philosophy, this is a uniquely interdisciplinary examination of quantum information science which provides an up-to-date exam...

This volume is part of the definitive edition of letters written by and to Charles Darwin, the most celebrated naturalist of the nineteenth century...

The complete story of the devastating BP oil spill of 2010. The author puts forward an objective account of what happened, a documentation of the t...

For decades, cigarette companies helped to promote the impression that there was no scientific consensus concerning the safety of their product. Th...

This exploration of the newly emerging, diverse, and controversial area of animal lawpresents a basic survey of the laws designed to protect animal...

From self-help to medication, therapy, and cognitive neuroscience, this book traces the uses and limits of psychology. Offering a systematic explor...

Heilberufler, d.h. Ärzt*innen, Pflegende und Vertreter anderer Professionen, die in der Versorgung sterbender Menschen und deren Angehöriger tätig ...

Posthuman Personhood takes up the ethical challenge posed by Francis Fukuyamas work, Our Posthuman Future. Daryl J. Wennemann argues that the tradi...

Theres a well-known story about an older fish who swims by two younger fish and asks, Hows the water? The younger fish are puzzled. Whats water? th...

Organism and Environment performs an examination into the way the contemporary life sciences are heralding a revolution of the most basic philosoph...

The essays in Strange Science examine marginal, fringe, and unconventional forms of scientific inquiry, as well as their cultural representations, ...

In her 1860 book Lichen Tufts, from the Alleghanies, Elizabeth C. Wright weaves together environmental philosophy, lyrical nature writing, and soci...

What does it mean to say that mutation is random? How does mutation influence evolution? Are mutations merely the raw material for selection to sha...

What does it mean to say that mutation is random? How does mutation influence evolution? Are mutations merely the raw material for selection to sha...

For many of us, the great scientific discoveries of the modern age--the Big Bang, evolution, quantum physics, relativity--point to an existence tha...