This volume presents both a historical and a systematic examination of the philosophy of classical Confucianism. Taking into account newly unearthed materials and the most recent scholarship, it features contributions by experts in the field, ranging from senior scholars to outstanding early career scholars. The book first presents the historical development of classical Confucianism, detailing its development amidst a fading ancient political theology and a rising wave of creative humanism. It examines the development of the philosophical ideas of Confucius as (...) well as his disciples and his grandson Zisi, the Zisi-Mencius School, Mencius, and Xunzi. Together with this historical development, the book analyzes and critically assesses the philosophy in the Confucian Classics and other major works of these philosophers. The second part systematically examines such philosophical issues as feeling and emotion, the aesthetic appreciation of music, wisdom in poetry, moral psychology, virtue ethics, political thoughts, the relation with the Ultimate Reality, and the concept of harmony in Confucianism. The Philosophy of Classical Confucianism offers an unparalleled examination to the philosophers, basic texts and philosophical concepts and ideas of Classical Confucianism as well as the recently unearthed bamboo slips related to Classical Confucianism. It will prove itself a valuable reference to undergraduate and postgraduate university students and teachers in philosophy, Chinese history, History, Chinese language and Culture. (shrink)

This is a truly groundbreaking work that examines today’s notions of folk psychology. Bringing together disciplines as various as cognitive science and anthropology, the authors analyze and question key assumptions about the nature, scope and function of folk psychology.

Bermejo-Luque, Lilian. Giving Reasons. A Linguistic-Pragmatic Approach to Argumentation Theory Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-6 DOI 10.1007/s10503-011-9258-z Authors C. Andone, Department of Speech Communication, Argumentation Theory and Rhetoric, University of Amsterdam, Spuistraat 134, 1012 VB Amsterdam, The Netherlands Journal Argumentation Online ISSN 1572-8374 Print ISSN 0920-427X.

Galileo’s lessons on critical reasoning Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-3 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9541-5 Authors Luciano Boschiero, Campion College, PO Box 3052, Toongabbie East, NSW 2146, Australia Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

Friedrich Stadler (ed.): The present situation in the philosophy of science. Dordrecht: Springer, 2010, 422pp, €139,95 HB Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9461-9 Authors Stathis Psillos, Department of Philosophy and History of Science, University of Athens, University Campus, 15771 Athens, Greece Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

The central thesis of this book is that the argument that probability is insufficient to handle uncertainty in artificial intelligence (AI) is metaphysical in nature. Piscopo calls this argument against probability the non-adequacy claim and provides this summary of it [which first appeared in (Piscopo and Birattari 2008)]:Probability theory is not suitable to handle uncertainty in AI because it has been developed to deal with intrinsically stochastic phenomena, while in AI, uncertainty has an epistemic nature. (Piscopo (3))Piscopo uses the term (...) “metaphysical” in the Popperian sense: the non-adequacy claim is metaphysical (rather than scientific) since it cannot be disproved (much less established) by observation or experiment.In Chapter 2, Piscopo recounts some of the relevant history and issues in philosophy of science. There is little that is controversial here. One problem is that when addressing the question of how a particular probabilistic model is tested, Piscopo limits herself .. (shrink)

From the Ninth Circle of hell in Dante’s Inferno to the idea of human cryogenic storage, cold has been an important part of human life and imagination. In History of Artificial Cold, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Issues, editor Kostas Gavroglu has brought together a well-balanced and very readable collection of essays on the history of the investigation and use of “cold.” There is something here for a broad range of readers, with articles ranging from fundamental physics to industrial refrigeration and (...) the international politics of frozen meat.Cold is a very relative term, and this book looks at a broad range of coldness. On the laboratory side, there was a competition starting in the late part of the nineteenth century to create the lowest temperature possible. The effort to transform gases into liquids and solids had serious implications for material science and laboratory practice, but it also contributed to the experimental understanding of quantum physics. At about the sa .. (shrink)

This volume includes nineteen articles by scholars from Asia, North America, and Europe on Chinese thinkers from the eleventh to the eighteenth centuries. Included here are intellectual biographies of literati such as Zhou Dunyi, the Cheng brothers, Zhu Xi, Zhang Shi, Hu Hong, Wang Yangming, and Dai Zhen. Essays are arranged chronologically, and most begin with a biographical sketch of their subject. They provide variety rather than uniformity of approach, but all in all these essays are remarkably rich and offer (...) much new material on both familiar and lesser-known thinkers. (shrink)

Galileo’s impractical science Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-3 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9534-4 Authors David Marshall Miller, Department of Philosophy, Duke University, 201 West Duke, Durham, NC 27708, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

The essay review summarizes the intention as well as some of the major topics from the book of A. Moreno and M. Mossio and discusses them against the background of recent considerations on the general understanding of organisms. The authors see themselves in the organicist tradition in biology and propose that a new understanding of living beings can be developed around the notion of organismic autonomy, which enables biological systems to maintain themselves in an environment through directed behavior.

This is an exposition of what the author calls ‘non-classical epistemology’ in close relationship with the emergence and development of quantum mechanics. Guiding the reader along the meandering routes taken by the theory’s founders, Plotnitsky unfolds a nuanced presentation of the so-called ‘Copenhagen spirit’ or, more precisely, of the ideas of his central hero, Niels Bohr, taken to their logical conclusion. -/- Bohr’s inception and elaboration of his concept of complementarity, in conflict with his nemesis, Einstein, and alongside the other (...) pioneers of the quantum revolution is meticulously laid out in a thought-provoking narrative, punctuated with references to philosophers ranging from Aristotle and Hegel to Nietzsche and Deleuze, and to modern ground-breaking mathematical approaches to quantum mechanics. -/- Plotnitsky repeatedly stresses that he offers only ‘an’ interpretation, one among many, and a minority view at that. Nevertheless, it can arguably be said to constitute a most coherent ... (shrink)