Dans un contexte où le recueil de données est devenu massif, l'analyse de ces dernières a pour ambition de mieux décrire et cerner l'imbrication multifactorielle de phénomènes complexes. En ce sens, l'étude des systèmes complexes est aujourd'hui omniprésente, notamment dans les sciences humaines et sociales et celles du vivant. D'ailleurs, l'établissement d'une science de la complexité, visant à regrouper les champs d'étude mobilisant des systèmes complexes, s'est développé depuis les années 1970. En rassemblant des philosophes des sciences, des historiens et (...) des écologues, l'objectif de ce livre est donc de présenter la diversité des perspectives ayant cours dans les développements les plus récents en termes de sources historiques, d'épistémologie, de méthodologie ou d'applications pratiques de la science de la complexité. En réfléchissant à la variété des manières d'aborder cette dernière, cet ouvrage vise à fournir un état des lieux de la pluralité de cette science pour contribuer à l'édification d'un cadre épistémique unifié. L'ouvrage se compose de trois parties : une mise au point épistémologique de la notion de complexité, et en particulier de la controverse autour de la notion d'émergence ("Complexité et émergence"); une analyse des applications des outils de l'approche de la complexité à une pluralité des systèmes, allant de l'écologie aux sociétés humaines ("Enjeux de la complexité"); une analyse des épisodes de l'histoire des sciences de la vie qui ont marqué le développement de l'approche des sciences de la complexité ("Parcours pluridisciplinaires d'épistémologie historique")."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Most authors who work with moral status automatically dismiss the possibility that plants are the kinds of entities that have moral status. This dismissal coheres with our intuitions about common-sense morality: if plants do not have moral status then we do not have any direct moral obligations to plant life. An implication of such a view is that any suggestion otherwise commits one to be in favour of an absurd conclusion. However, given the recent literature and empirical evidence on plant (...) minds, there are reasons to accept a different perspective that finds the absurd conclusion plausible. (shrink)

Although students of the fifth century A.D. have not been slow to recognize the merits of the ͉στορα Βυζαντιακ of Priscus, few efforts seem to have been made to under-stand this historian's methods of composition. The purpose of the present note is to indicate that the literary fashions of his time have exercised an unfortunate influence on at least one part of Priscus' work.

Rescher has presented a proof that a completed science is logically impossible; not every truth can be known. I show that the proof is valid only if it is read de re. One of its premises, however, is an obvious truth only on a de dicto reading; read de re it is false. What the proof shows, therefore, is that science has no limits and any true proposition can be known. We can, however, know it only in the meagre de (...) re, and not in the informationally rich de dicto, sense of 'know'. (shrink)

This is a progressive text that explores the relationship between psychology, science and morality, to address fundamental questions about the foundations of psychological research and its relevance for the development of these disciplines.

Epistemological issues associated with Cantorian set theory were at the center of the foundational debates from 1900 onward. Hermann Weyl, as a central actor, saw this as a smoldering crisis that burst into flames after World War I. The historian Herbert Mehrtens argued that this “foundations crisis” was part of a larger conflict that pitted moderns, led by David Hilbert, against various counter-moderns, who opposed the promotion of set theory and trends toward abstract theories. Among counter-moderns, L.E.J. Brouwer went a (...) step further by proposing new foundational principles based on his philosophy of intuitionism. Meanwhile, Felix Hausdorff emerged as a leading proponent of the new modern style. In this essay, I offer a reassessment of the foundations crisis that stresses the marginal importance of the various intellectual issues involved. Instead, I offer an interpretation that focuses on tensions within the German mathematical community that led to a dramatic power struggle for control of the journal Mathematische Annalen. (shrink)

Across a wide range of legal contexts, E. Thomas Sullivan and Richard S. Frase identify three basic ways that government measures and private remedies have been ...

An awareness of the wide scope of medieval logic and the role it played in university education at all levels, together with the way it was used in writings on both science and theology, is crucial for the historian of medieval thought. The growth of this awareness since the mid-twentieth century is shown by the ongoing expansion of editorial work, together with the discussion of the logic actually found in such prominent authors as Aquinas and Scotus. It has gone hand (...) in hand with the use of developments in modern logic. First came the realization that medieval logic extended beyond basic Aristotelian syllogistic, and could be related to modern developments in propositional and quantificational logic in... (shrink)