". . . an admirably chosen set of selections, and the only anthology I know of which pulls together so many diverse strands of the recent attacks on traditional empiricist views."
—Richard Rorty, University of Virginia
North American rights only.
Learn More“This volume assembles twelve texts published between 1892 and 1915 . . . . The editors allow one to see the genesis of the ideas of Duhem, philosopher and historian, of the variety of his styles, and sometimes also the limits of his work . . . . A useful index, probably unique in the field of Duhemian studies, completes the book . . . . The English-language public may be assured an exemplary translation and a reliable critical apparatus.”
—Jean Gayon, Revue d’Histoire des Sciences
“The overall standard of the volume is extraordinarily high, and I have no doubt that this will be the text in philosophy of science for a couple of decades. The coverage is remarkable both in breadth and depth. . . . an amazingly good book. . . . written by an all-star team. . . . “
—Philip Kitcher, Columbia University
“An excellent selection. There is nothing else like it available in print, and the price makes it very attractive for use in courses. . . . overall the editors did a superb job of choosing those excerpts from Darwin’s published works and his correspondence and notebooks that will give the reader a sense of the full range of his interests and the substance of his ideas. The editorial remarks are . . . perceptive and directly relevant to the content.”
—Gene Cittadino, New York University
"Ellington has made Kant's writings seem clear and elegant. Indeed, he has produced one of this most readable translations of any of Kant's works. His essay 'The unity of Kant's thought in his philosophy of corporeal nature' appearing after the main text is a masterly interpretation of the Foundations."
—Choice, in review of Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science
“The availability of a paperback version of Boyle’s philosophical writings selected by M. A. Stewart will be a real service to teachers, students, and scholars with seventeenth-century interests. The editor has shown excellent judgment in bringing together many of the most important works and printing them, for the most part, in unabridged form. The texts have been edited responsibly with emphasis on readability. . . . Of special interest in connection with Locke and with the reception of Descarte’s Corpuscularianism, to students of the Scientific Revolution and of the history of mechanical philosophy, and to those interested in the relations among science, philosophy, and religion. In fact, given the imperfections in and unavailability of the eighteenth-century editions of Boyle’s works, this collection will benefit a wide variety of seventeenth-century scholars.”
—Gary Hatfield, University of Pennsylvania
Through a collection of works from key thinkers in natural philosophy, the second edition of The Scientific Background to Modern Philosophy illuminates the central role scientific writing played in developing modern philosophical thought. This revised and expanded edition includes many new translations and incorporates works by foundational eighteenth- and nineteenth-century thinkers not in the first edition, including selections from works by Jean-Baptiste, le Rond d’Alembert, Denis Diderot, Émilie Du Châtelet, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Joseph Priestley, Immanuel Kant, Carl Linnaeus, William Paley, and Charles Robert Darwin. These new additions provide students with a more comprehensive understanding of the scientific context in which the major philosophical works of the modern era were written and complement the selections from works by Nicolaus Copernicus, Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, René Descartes, Robert Boyle, Christiaan Huygens, and Isaac Newton that are retained from the first edition.
Learn More"Ernest Nagel's work, The Structure of Science, has earned for itself the status of an outstanding standard work in its field. It offers an exceptionally thorough and comprehensive methodological and philosophical exploration encountered in those diverse fields. Nagel's discussion is distinguished by the lucidity of its style, the incisiveness of its reasoning, and the solidity of its grounding in all the major branches of scientific inquiry. The Structure of Science has become a highly influential work that is widely invoked in the methodological and philosophical literature. Recent controversies between analytics and historic-sociological approaches to the philosophy of science have not diminished its significance; in fact, it seems to me that the pragmatist component in Nagel's thinking may be helpful for efforts to develop a rapprochement between the contending schools."
—Carl G. Hempel
Includes an introduction, bibliography, On the Sects for Beginners, An Outline of Empiricism, On Medical Experience, an index of the persons mentioned in the text, and an index of the subjects mentioned in the texts.
Learn More“Donald Zeyl’s fresh and faithful translation and his lucid, comprehensive commentary will bring the sublime Timaeus to life for contemporary students of cosmology, metaphysics, history of science, and philosophy.”
—Sarah Broadie, Princeton University
Time brings together philosophical and literary works representing the many ways—metaphysical, scientific, analytic, phenomenological, literary—in which philosophers and others have reflected on questions about time. North American Rights Only.
Learn MoreIn addition to overall improvements and updates inspired by Chalmers’s experience as a teacher, comments from his readers, and recent developments in the field, this fourth edition features an extensive chapter-long postscript that draws on his research into the history of atomism to illustrate important themes in the philosophy of science. Identifying the qualitative difference between knowledge of atoms as it figures in contemporary science and metaphysical speculations about atoms common in philosophy since the time of Democritus offers a revealing and instructive way to address the question at the heart of this groundbreaking work: What is this thing called science? (Co-published with the University of Queensland Press. HPC holds rights in North America and U. S. Dependencies)
Learn MoreThese essays lead the reader through the land of the wonderful shrinking genie to the warehouse where the “infinity machines” are kept. By careful examination of a lamp that is switched on and off infinitely many times, or the workings of a machine that prints out an infinite decimal expansion of pi, we begin to understand how it is possible for Achilles to overtake the tortoise. The concepts that form the basis of modern science—space, time, motion, change, infinity—are examined and explored in this edition. Includes an updated bibliography.
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