The sense of touch informs us of the physical properties of our surroundings and is a critical aspect of communication. Before touches are perceived, mechanical signals are transmitted quickly and reliably from the skin's surface to mechano‐electrical transduction channels embedded within specialized sensory neurons. We are just beginning to understand how soft tissues participate in force transmission and how they are deformed. Here, we review empirical and theoretical studies of single molecules and molecular ensembles thought to be involved in mechanotransmission (...) and apply the concepts emerging from this work to the sense of touch. We focus on the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans as a well‐studied model for touch sensation in which mechanics can be studied on the molecular, cellular, and systems level. Finally, we conclude that force transmission is an emergent property of macromolecular cellular structures that mutually stabilize one another. (shrink)

Rudolf Eucken (1846-1926) war Philosophieprofessor in Jena, der einen lebensphilosophisch angehauchten Neoidealismus vertrat und dessen Schriften im gebildeten Bürgertum breite Resonanz fanden. 1908 erhielt er den Nobelpreis für Literatur und galt seitdem als einer der renommiertesten deutschen Intellektuellen mit internationaler Ausstrahlungskraft. Eucken sammelte in den Jahren vor 1914 einen Kreis von Anhängern und Gleichgesinnten um sich, der sich als geistig-moralische - "kulturkritische" - Sammlungsbewegung verstand. Während des Ersten Weltkriegs trat Rudolf Eucken als unermüdlicher Propagandist der deutschen Sache im Inland wie (...) im neutralen Ausland auf. Nach dem Krieg gab sich die von ihm ins Leben gerufene Bewegung mit der Gründung des "Euckenbunds" eine feste organisatorische Gestalt mit 20-25 Ortsgruppen und mehr als 1000 Mitgliedern (darunter auch Gustav Stresemann). Der Euckenbund und die vierteljährlich erscheinende Zeitschrift des Bundes ("Die Tatwelt") existierten auch nach dem Tod Rudolf Euckens 1926 weiter. Seit 1928 betrieben die Witwe des Philosophen, Irene Eucken, und ihre Tochter Ida zudem ein "Rudolf-Eucken-Haus" als internationale Begegnungsstätte der Universität Jena. Auch der Sohn Euckens, der heute viel bekanntere Nationalökonom Walter Eucken, war zeitweise in der "Eucken-Bewegung" stark engagiert. Euckenbund, Euckenhaus und "Die Tatwelt" bestanden auch nach 1933 weiter und betätigten sich, subventioniert vom Auswärtigen Amt, in der deutschen Kulturpropaganda, ohne sich aber vom Regime im Sinne der NS-Ideologie,,gleichschalten" zu lassen. Im Jenaer Rudolf-Eucken-Haus fanden seit Mitte der 1930er Jahren philosophisch-wissenschaftliche Tagungen statt, an der eine ganze Reihe bekannter Geistes- und Naturwissenschaftler teilnahmen (u. a. Helmut Schelsky, Carl-Friedrich von Weizsäcker, Gotthard Günther, Pascual Jordan, Gerhard Ritter, Walter Eucken). Erst nach dem Tod Irene und Ida Euckens 1941/43 löste sich der Euckenbund auf. Die Studie verfolgt den Werdegang Rudolf Euckens, setzt sich mit seiner Philosophie und Weltanschauung auseinander und zeigt die programmatische und organisatorische Entwicklung der,,Eucken-Bewegung" und deren Aktivitäten auf. Allgemein beschäftigt sich die Arbeit mit den geistigen und politischen Befindlichkeiten des kulturkritisch gesinnten liberal-konservativen Bildungsbürgertums zwischen dem wilhelminischen Kaiserreich, der Weimarer Republik und dem Nationalsozialismus. (shrink)

Soll der Freizeitkonsum von Drogen wie Marihuana, Kokain, Heroin und LSD einem gesetzlichen Verbot unterliegen? Drogengegner sagen ja. Sie behaupten für gewöhnlich, Drogenkonsum sei sowohl für den Nutzer als auch für die Gesellschaft allgemein äußerst schädlich – vielleicht sogar unmoralisch, und sie glauben, diese Tatsachen seien als Verbotsgrund ausreichend. Freigabebefürworter sagen nein und berufen sich dabei für gewöhnlich auf eines oder mehrere von drei Argumenten: Erstens behaupten einige, Drogenkonsum sei nicht so schädlich, wie Drogengegner meinen, und sei gelegentlich sogar nützlich. (...) Zweitens behaupten einige, Drogenverbote „funktionierten“ nicht, d. h. sie verhinderten den Drogenkonsum nicht besonders wirksam und hätten eine Reihe sehr nachteiliger Folgewirkungen. Schließlich behaupten einige, Drogenverbote seien Unrecht oder verletzten Rechte. -/- Ich unternehme an dieser Stelle nicht den Versuch, all diese Argumente zu besprechen. Stattdessen beschränke ich mich auf die drei Hauptargumente der Drogendebatte: Erstens demjenigen, Drogen solle man aufgrund der Schädigung der Konsumenten verbieten; zweitens, man solle sie verbieten, weil sie außer den Konsumenten noch anderen schadeten; und drittens, man solle sie legalisieren, weil Drogenverbote Rechte verletzten. Ich richte mein Augenmerk auf die moralphilosophischen Fragen, welche diese Argumente aufwerfen, statt auf medizinische oder gesellschaftliche Fragen und werde zeigen, dass die beiden Verbotsargumente scheitern, wogegen das dritte Argument für die Freigabe greift. -/- [This is a German translation of "America's Unjust Drug War". In The New Prohibition, ed. Bill Masters (St. Louis, Mo.: Accurate Press, 2004), p. 133-144.]. (shrink)

Michael Schippan legt mit seiner Studie die erste umfassende deutschsprachige Darstellung der russischen Aufklarung (prosvescenie) vor. Vor allem in der zweiten Halfte des 18. Jahrhunderts nahm das Russische Zarenreich teil an der europaischen Emanzipationsbewegung des "Siecle des Lumieres", eignete sich durch Ubersetzung und Spracherwerb das Gedankengut des "lateinischen Europa" an und formte es den Bedurfnissen des euro-asiatischen Landes entsprechend um. Unter prosve'enie wurden sowohl Bildung, Zivilisation, Europaisierung und menschliche Selbstvervollkommnung als auch die Teilhabe an der europaischen Geistesbewegung der Aufklarung (...) verstanden. Zwei herausragende Herrscher gaben entscheidende Anstosse: Zar Peter I., der nach 1700 vor allem aus militarischen Grunden heraus umfassende Reformen einleitete, und Katharina II., die zum inneren Zirkel der aufgeklarten europaischen Monarchen gezahlt wurde. Nicht nur in den beiden "Hauptstadten" St. Petersburg und Moskau, sondern auch in einigen Gouvernementszentren Zentralrusslands sowie in Sibirien wurde ein reges kulturelles und geistiges Leben begrundet.Schippan untersucht in institutions- und personengeschichtlicher Perspektive, welche neuen weltlichen Bildungs- und Wissenschaftseinrichtungen geschaffen wurden und wie zunehmend private Vereinigungen gebildeter Adliger und Vertreter anderer Stande entstanden. Zudem werden zentrale Debatten der Aufklarung in Russland in ihrer Wechselwirkung mit den Diskursen der europaischen "Republique des lettres" beleuchtet, so die Diskussionen uber Russland und Asien, Krieg und Frieden, okonomische Landeserschliessung und Aufhebung der Leibeigenschaft, Theologie und Religion sowie Geschichtsschreibung. (shrink)

A recently reconstructed text written by Rousseau is obviously the first part of a broader work he had intended to write on the Principles of War. Although the opus remained incomplete, Rousseau integrated most of the insights he had gained from this early analysis on war into his later political thought. The two main premisses of Rousseau′s analysis are that war does not exist between human beings in the state of nature, but only between artificial bodies, i. e. societies consolidated (...) into states, and that therefore war must be regarded as being solely the consequence of the social state. On the international level, the competition between the already constituted wills of the states, who strive to weaken and eventually annihilate each of the other state′s general will, leads to the sheer impossibility of construing a permanent international order based either on force or on law. However, as war has this aporetic nature, for it threatens and at the same time consolidates the constituted civil order, Rousseau will henceforth concentrate on how to strenghten the general will against private interests while, by the same token, enabling it to curb the ambitions of the sovereign. (shrink)

Michael Walzer, der im westlichen Diskurs wohl als der bekannteste Theoretiker in Sachen »gerechter Krieg« angesehen werden kann, plädiert in aller Entschiedenheit für eine Ethik der humanitären Intervention. Obwohl es ohne Zweifel besser ist, wenn ein tyrannisches Regime durch das eigene Volk vertrieben wird, so gibt es nach Walzer dennoch Fälle extremer Gewalt, wie z.B. die Killing Fields der Roten Khmer, die Anarchie in Sierra Leone oder die »ethnischen Säuberungen« im Kosovo, wo militärische Interventionen zur Rettung der Opfer (...) auch ohne Beschluss des UN-Sicherheitsrates gerechtfertigt werden können. Zwar bestehe keine moralische Pflicht zur Intervention, dennoch zögert Walzer, humanitäre Interventionen bloß den »unvollkommenen Pflichten« zuzuordnen. Nach Walzer sollte im Fall von massenhaften Tötungen jeder handeln, der dazu in der Lage ist, d. h. Staaten, nicht Einzelne. Dass Staaten immer auch Interessen verfolgen, ist nach Walzer kein zwingendes Argument gegen humanitäre Interventionen. Denn absolute Reinheit der moralischen Motive sei weder im privaten noch im politischen Handlungsfeld vollkommen verwirklichbar. Wichtige Klärungen sind allerdings in der Frage der Auswahl der Mittel vorzunehmen, in denen die Risken der intervenierenden Soldaten und der Zivilbevölkerung abzuwägen sind. (shrink)

Eduard Spranger, führender Theoretiker der geisteswissenschaftlichen Pädagogik, hat - vom Kaiserreich bis in die Bundesrepublik - die Erziehungswissenschaft in Deutschland entscheidend mitgeprägt. Diese Untersuchung geht der Frage nach, inwieweit es einen inneren Zusammenhang zwischen der politischen Biographie Sprangers und seinem erziehungswissenschaftlichen Werk gibt und ob dieser Zusammenhang zwar potentiell angelegt, jedoch nicht zwingend ist. Dabei werden Sprangers theoretische Grundlegung der Erziehungswissenschaft, seine deutschnationale Staatspädagogik, seine Haltung zu «Deutschtum», Militär und Krieg sowie seine politischen Positionen kritisch beleuchtet. Das Hauptaugenmerk des (...) Autors liegt auf Sprangers Unterstützung des NS-Regimes und seinem Umgang damit nach 1945. (shrink)

Zu den bedeutendsten Leistungen der Friedensschrift Kants für die Entwicklung der Völkerrechtsidee gehört die Zurückweisung der bisherigen Leitvorstellung eines ius ad bellum. Unmißverständlich formuliert er: „Bei dem Begriffe des Völkerrechts, als eines Rechts zum Kriege, läßt sich eigentlich gar nichts denken“ . Eine internationale Rechtsordnung müsse dem Ziele dauerhafter Friedenssicherung dienen, und in einem Bund freier Völker soll dieser zwischenstaatliche Konsens institutionalisiert werden.

Review of Hartmut Gieselmann: Der virtuelle Krieg. Zwischen Schein und Wirklichkeit im Computerspiel. Hannover: Offizin-Verlag 2002. The topic of this book is the genre of war game. The author focuses on three main directions, each of which is dealt with by way of exemplary representatives. In this respect his main interest is in the question of how media are able to contribute to making real violence disappear for perception. In this respect his critical analysis aims at the staging of (...) war as a technological rumpus without any victims. This book is particularly worth recommending as the author succeeds in viewing at the genre of the first-person-shooter within a wider context. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Nach dem Ende des Kalten Krieges kam es über Ländergrenzen hinweg zu internationalen Initia­tiven gegen Doping, an deren Ende 1999 die Gründung einer unabhängigen, sowohl vom Sport als auch den Regierungen getragenen Welt Anti-Doping Agentur, der WADA, stand. Grundlage dieses vermehrten Engagements der Politik war das über Jahrzehnte erkennbare Versagen des organisierten Sports, einer wachsenden Verbreitung von Doping effizient entgegenzutreten. Im Ergebnis führte dies zu einem fundamentalen Wandel des Verhältnisses zwischen Sport und Politik: Die Politik ge­wann Einfluss in bisherige (...) Domänen des Sports. In Deutschland führte die Gründung der WADA zu einer Umstrukturierung der Anti-Dopingpolitik. Maßgebliches Ziel der NADA-Gründung 2002 war die Zentralisierung von Anti-Dopingmaßnah­men in einer Organisation, die von Sport und Staat unabhängig sein sollte. Die Bundesregierung hielt jedoch an ihrer Grundposition fest, die Dopingbekämpfung dem organisierten Sport zu über­antworten und selbst nur im Rahmen der ihr durch völkerrechtliche Verträge auferlegten Gewähr­leistungsverantwortung tätig zu werden. Wiederholt aufkommenden Debatten über ein deutsches Anti-Dopinggesetz stand sie ablehnend gegenüber; sie beschränkte sich auf Verschärfungen des Arzneimittelrechts. (shrink)

The monograph Drei Wurzeln des Krieges. Und warum nur eine nicht ins Verderben führt by Bernhard Taureck was published in 2019. It is one of the few current philosophical contributions on the theory of war that is not limited to the question of the moral justification of war (such as Michael Walzer’s work). Instead, the book contains not only various references to the war discourses of antiquity and their multiple references to actuality, but also a detailed examination of the (...) question of how radically war determines our history, present and future. In this book, interdisciplinary statements on Taureck’s concisely summarised approach make critical reference to this question in the common interest of finding ways out of this situation. With contributions by Lothar Brock, Hans-Georg Ehrhart, Martin Kahl, Wolfgang Knöbl, Barbara Kuchler, Ishay Landa, Burkhard Liebsch, Herfried Münkler, Max Mutschler, Norman Paech, Christopher Pollmann, Bernhard H. F. Taureck and Pascal Weitmann. (shrink)

Einleitung.--Kausale Denkweise und Ethik.--Entwicklung als gefällebedingter Vorgang.--Natürliche Wurzein der Ästhetik.--Über einige Naturgesetzlichkeiten im Leben der Menschen und Völker.

This book defends a form of ethical intuitionism, according to which (i) there are objective moral truths; (ii) we know some of these truths through a kind of immediate, intellectual awareness, or "intuition"; and (iii) our knowledge of moral truths gives us reasons for action independent of our desires. The author rebuts all the major objections to this theory and shows that the alternative theories about the nature of ethics all face grave difficulties.

Part I: The representation of life -- Can life be given a real definition? -- The representation of the living individual -- The representation of the life-form itself -- Part II: Naive action theory -- Types of practical explanation -- Naive explanation of action -- Action and time -- Part III: Practical generality -- Two tendencies in practical philosophy -- Practices and dispositions as sources of the goodness of individual actions -- Practice and disposition as sources of individual action.

The first edition of The Scientific Background to Modern Philosophy took the dialogue of science and philosophy from Aristotle through to Newton. This second edition adds eight chapters, taking the dialogue through the Enlightenment and up to Darwin. This anthology is an attempt to help bridge the gap between the history of science and the history of philosophy.

I wish to propose a new doctrine called epistemological pacifism. According to the doctrine, our objective knowledge concerning hard facts about a given war and its context is far too poor to justify entering that war. Our best and most informative accounts of any pre-war situation are value-laden; the same is true of counterfactual claims about any event during, or after, war. Here we have three new types of what has been discussed under the label of fact/value entanglement. Realizing this (...) helps us understand why pacifists and their opponents never agree about so-called facts. Both parties bring to bear different values in their descriptions. Although this is legitimate for both sides, the values of the pacifist are more attractive than those of the bellicist. The recent war in Mali is a case in point, as I’ll sketch at the end of the paper. (shrink)

Virtually all philosophers agree that for a belief to be epistemically justified, it must satisfy certain conditions. Perhaps it must be supported by evidence. Or perhaps it must be reliably formed. Or perhaps there are some other "good-making" features it must have. But does a belief's justification also require some sort of awareness of its good-making features? The answer to this question has been hotly contested in contemporary epistemology, creating a deep divide among its practitioners. Internalists, who tend to focus (...) on scientific or theoretical beliefs as the ideal, insist that such awareness is required for justification. Externalists, who think children's ordinary beliefs in obvious facts are paradigm cases of justified belief, say it isn't required. Michael Bergmann's book offers a decisive refutation of internalism and a sustained defense of externalism. (shrink)

Externalist theories of justification create the possibility of cases in which everything appears to one relevantly similar with respect to two propositions, yet one proposition is justified while the other is not. Internalists find this difficult to accept, because it seems irrational in such a case to affirm one proposition and not the other. The underlying internalist intuition supports a specific internalist theory, Phenomenal Conservatism, on which epistemic justification is conferred by appearances.

At the University of Sheffield during 2011 and 2012, a leading group of philosophers, psychologists, and others gathered to explore the nature and significance of implicit bias. The two volumes of Implicit Bias and Philosophy emerge from these workshops. Each volume philosophically examines core areas of psychological research on implicit bias as well as the ramifications of implicit bias for core areas of philosophy. Volume I: Metaphysics and Epistemology is comprised of two parts: “The Nature of Implicit Attitudes, Implicit Bias, (...) and Stereotype Threat,” and “Skepticism, Social Knowledge, and Rationality.” The first part contains chapters examining the relationship between implicit attitudes and “dual process” models of the mind; the role of affect in the formation and change of implicit associations; the unity (or disunity) of implicit attitudes; whether implicit biases are mental states at all; and whether performances on stereotype-relevant tasks are automatic and unconscious or intentional and strategic. The second part contains chapters examining implicit bias and skepticism; the effects of implicit bias on scientific research; the accessibility of social stereotypes in epistemic environments; the effects of implicit bias on the self-perception of members of stigmatized social groups as rational agents; the role of gender stereotypes in philosophy; and the role of heuristics in biased reasoning. (shrink)

In this engaging and spirited text, Michael Lynch argues that truth does matter, in both our personal and political lives. He explains that the growing cynicism over truth stems in large part from our confusion over what truth is.

Dignity plays a central role in current thinking about law and human rights, but there is sharp disagreement about its meaning. Combining conceptual precision with a broad historical background, Michael Rosen puts these controversies in context and offers a novel, constructive proposal. “Penetrating and sprightly...Rosen rightly emphasizes the centrality of Catholicism in the modern history of human dignity. His command of the history is impressive...Rosen is a wonderful guide to the recent German constitutional thinking about human dignity...[Rosen] is in (...) general an urbane and witty companion, achieving his aim of accessibly written philosophy.” —Samuel Moyn, The Nation “[An] elegant, interesting and lucid exploration of the concept of dignity...Drawing on classical, liberal and Catholic traditions, Rosen hopes to rehabilitate dignity to its rightful place near the centre of moral thought...Rosen's admirable book deserves wide attention from political theorists, jurisprudes and political philosophers.” —Simon Blackburn, Times Higher Education “Dignity deserves to be widely read, not only for its intrinsic interest, but also as a corrective to the habit of discussing such topics in abstraction from their social context. Whether or not one agrees with Rosen's arguments, there can be no doubt he has widened our horizons.” —Rae Langton, Times Literary Supplement. (shrink)

edition (unseen), $12.95. traditions, bringing into being new modes of understanding. Paper Anthropology, and particularly ethnography, is torn between two quests, one to capture the diversity of social life and the other to discover universal principles structuring that diversity. Jackson examines these quests within the context of ethnographic fieldwork, focusing on the relationship between ethnographers and the people they study. He is concerned with defining the anthropological project as something more than the projection of the anthropologist's traditions and concerns onto (...) an alien culture. Rather, he would have the project open a genuine dialogue between people from different cultures or Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

At the heart of ethics reside the concepts of good and bad; they are at work when we assess whether a person is virtuous or vicious, an act right or wrong, a decision defensible or indefensible, a goal desirable or undesirable. But there are many varieties of goodness and badness. At their core lie intrinsic goodness and badness, the sort of value that something has for its own sake. It is in virtue of intrinsic value that other types of value (...) may be understood, and hence that we can begin to come to terms with questions of virtue and vice, right and wrong, and so on. This book investigates the nature of intrinsic value: just what it is for something to be valuable for its own sake, just what sort of thing can have such value, just how such a value is to be computed. In the final chapter, the fruits of this investigation are applied to a discussion of pleasure, pain, and displeasure and also of moral virtue and vice, in order to determine just what value lies within these phenomena. (shrink)

While philosophers hold that it is patently absurd to blame robots or hold them morally responsible [1], a series of recent empirical studies suggest that people do ascribe blame to AI systems and robots in certain contexts [2]. This is disconcerting: Blame might be shifted from the owners, users or designers of AI systems to the systems themselves, leading to the diminished accountability of the responsible human agents [3]. In this paper, we explore one of the potential underlying reasons for (...) robot blame, namely the folk's willingness to ascribe inculpating mental states or "mens rea" to robots. In a vignette-based experiment (N=513), we presented participants with a situation in which an agent knowingly runs the risk of bringing about substantial harm. We manipulated agent type (human v. group agent v. AI-driven robot) and outcome (neutral v. bad), and measured both moral judgment (wrongness of the action and blameworthiness of the agent) and mental states attributed to the agent (recklessness and the desire to inflict harm). We found that (i) judgments of wrongness and blame were relatively similar across agent types, possibly because (ii) attributions of mental states were, as suspected, similar across agent types. This raised the question - also explored in the experiment - whether people attribute knowledge and desire to robots in a merely metaphorical way (e.g., the robot "knew" rather than really knew). However, (iii), according to our data people were unwilling to downgrade to mens rea in a merely metaphorical sense when given the chance. Finally, (iv), we report a surprising and novel finding, which we call the inverse outcome effect on robot blame: People were less willing to blame artificial agents for bad outcomes than for neutral outcomes. This suggests that they are implicitly aware of the dangers of overattributing blame to robots when harm comes to pass, such as inappropriately letting the responsible human agent off the moral hook. (shrink)

In previous work I have argued against internalism by means of a dilemma intended to force all internalists to accept one of two undesirable options: either their internalism is unmotivated or it is saddled with vicious regress problems. Recently it has been argued that Phenomenal Conservatism—a theory of justification according to which justification depends on seemings—is a kind of internalism that can escape this dilemma. In this paper, I argue that Phenomenal Conservatism cannot escape my dilemma for internalism. In order (...) to do this, it is helpful to get clear on what Phenomenal Conservatism is saying, and for that reason I begin, in section I, by examining in some detail what seemings are. I then argue, in the remainder of the paper, that, whichever horn of the dilemma for internalism they take, Phenomenal Conservatives are in trouble. (shrink)

Can an ugly experiment be a good experiment? Philosophers have identified many beautiful experiments and explored ways in which their beauty might be connected to their epistemic value. In contrast, the present chapter seeks out (and celebrates) ugly experiments. Among the ugliest are those being designed by AI algorithms. Interestingly, in the contexts where such experiments tend to be deployed, low aesthetic value correlates with high epistemic value. In other words, ugly experiments can be good. Given this, we should conclude (...) that beauty is not generally necessary or sufficient for epistemic value, and increasing beauty will not generally tend to increase epistemic value. (shrink)

Radical skepticism endorses the extreme claim that large swaths of our ordinary beliefs, such as those produced by perception or memory, are irrational. The best arguments for such skepticism are, in their essentials, as familiar as a popular science fiction movie and yet even seasoned epistemologists continue to find them strangely seductive. Moreover, although most contemporary philosophers dismiss radical skepticism, they cannot agree on how best to respond to the challenge it presents. In the tradition of the 18th century Scottish (...) philosopher, Thomas Reid, Radical Skepticism and Epistemic Intuition joins this discussion by taking up four main tasks. First, it identifies the strongest arguments for radical skepticism, namely, underdetermination arguments, which emphasize the gap between our evidence and our ordinary beliefs based on that evidence. Second, it rejects all inferential or argument-based responses to radical skepticism, which aim to lay out good noncircular reasoning from the evidence on which we base our ordinary beliefs to the conclusion that those beliefs are probably true. Third, it develops a commonsense noninferential response to radical skepticism with two distinctive features: it consciously and extensively relies on epistemic intuitions, which are seemings about epistemic goods, such as knowledge and rationality, and it can be endorsed without difficulty by both internalists and externalists in epistemology. Fourth, and finally, it defends this commonsense epistemic-intuition-based response to radical skepticism against a variety of objections, including those connected with underdetermination worries, epistemic circularity, disagreement problems, experimental philosophy, and concerns about whether it engages skepticism in a sufficiently serious way. (shrink)

A paradigm-shifting work that revolutionizes our understanding of the origins and structure of science. Captivatingly written, interwoven with tantalizing illustrations and historical vignettes ranging from Newton's alchemy to quantum mechanics to the storm surge of Hurricane Sandy, Michael Strevens's wholly original investigation of science asks two fundamental questions: Why is science so powerful? And why did it take so long, two thousand years after the invention of philosophy and mathematics, for the human race to start using science to learn (...) the secrets of nature? The Knowledge Machine's radical answer is that science calls on its practitioners to do something irrational: by willfully ignoring religion, theoretical beauty, and, especially, philosophy-essentially stripping away all previous knowledge-scientists embrace an unnaturally narrow method of inquiry, channeling unprecedented energy into observation and experimentation. Like Yuval Harari's Sapiens or Thomas Kuhn's 1962 classic, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The Knowledge Machine overturns much of what we thought we knew about the origins of the modern world. (shrink)

Imagination is important for many things in science: solving problems, interpreting data, designing studies, etc. Philosophers of imagination typically account for the productive role played by imagination in science by focusing on how imagination is constrained, e.g., by using self-imposed rules to infer logically, or model events accurately. But the constraints offered by these philosophers either constrain too much, or not enough, and they can never account for uses of imagination that are needed to break today’s constraints in order to (...) make progress tomorrow. Thus, epistemology of imagination needs to make room for an element of epistemological anarchy. (shrink)