Big Data : An Art of Decision Making
Manipulating and processing masses of digital data is never a purely technical activity. It requires an interpretative and exploratory outlook - already well known in the social sciences and the humanities - to convey intelligible results from data analysis algorithms and create new knowledge. Big Data is based on an inquiry of several years within Proxem, a software publisher specializing in big data processing. The book examines how data scientists explore, interpret and visualize our digital traces to make sense of them, and to produce new knowledge. Grounded in epistemology and science and technology studies, Big Data offers a reflection on data in general, and on how they help us to better understand reality and decide on our daily actions.
Logic, Thought and Action
Contribute to our understanding of this dynamic process by clearly presenting and discussing the most important hypotheses, issues and theories in philosophical and logical study of language, thought and action. Among the fundamental issues discussed are the rationality and freedom of agents, theoretical and practical reasoning, individual and collective attitudes and actions, the nature of cooperation and communication, the construction and conditions of adequacy of scientific theories, propositional contents and their truth conditions, illocutionary force, time, aspect and presupposition in meaning, speech acts within dialogue, the dialogical approach to logic and the structure of dialogues and other language games, as well as formal methods needed in logic or artificial intelligence to account for choice, paradoxes, uncertainty and imprecision.
Leibniz and the natural world : Activity, passivity and corporeal substances in Leibniz's Philosophy
In the present book, Pauline Phemister argues against traditional Anglo-American interpretations of Leibniz as an idealist who conceives ultimate reality as a plurality of mind-like immaterial beings and for whom physical bodies are ultimately unreal and our perceptions of them illusory. Re-reading the texts without the prior assumption of idealism allows the more material aspects of Leibniz's metaphysics to emerge. Leibniz is found to advance a synthesis of idealism and materialism. His ontology posits indivisible, living, animal-like corporeal substances as the real metaphysical constituents of the universe; his epistemology combines sense-experience and reason; and his ethics fuses confused perceptions and insensible appetites with distinct perceptions and rational choice. In the light of his sustained commitment to the reality of bodies, Phemister re-examines his dynamics, the doctrine of pre-established harmony and his views on freedom.
Leibniz and the English-Speaking World
These essays comprise a first attempt to assess overall the attention awarded to Leibniz’s philosophy in the English-speaking world in his own time and up to the present day. In addition to an introductory overview there are fourteen original and previously unpublished essays considering Leibniz’s connections with his English-speaking contemporaries and near contemporaries as well as the later reception of his thought in Anglo-American philosophy.
Leibniz : What Kind of Rationalist?
The chapters of the book are the result of intense discussion in the course of an international conference focused on the title question of this book, and were selected in view of their contribution to this topic. They are clustered in thematically organized parts. No effort has been made to hide the controversies underlying the different interpretations of Leibniz’s “rationalism” – in each particular domain and as a whole. On the contrary, the editor firmly believes that only through a variety of conflicting interpretive perspectives can the multi-faceted nature of an oeuvre of such a magnitude and variety as Leibniz’s be brought to light and understood as it deserves.
Knowledge from a Human Point of View
Explores some of the historical roots and epistemological ramifications of perspectivism. Perspectivism has recently emerged in philosophy of science as an interesting new position in the debate between scientific realism and anti-realism.
Knowledge and Reality : Essays in Honor of Alvin Plantinga
Comprises essays presented to Alvin Plantinga on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Plantinga is one of the leading figures in Anglo-American metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of religion; his work in these areas has been the focus of wide scholarly attention. This collection of essays, all of which were written specifically for this volume in honor of Plantinga’s 70th birthday, ranges broadly over topics in metaphysics and epistemology and includes contributions by some of the best philosophers writing today. The volume will be of particular interest to metaphysicians, epistemologists, philosophers of religion and theologians as it includes important recent work by some of the leading thinkers in these fields.
Knowledge and Critical Pedagogy : An Introduction
Knowledge and Critical Pedagogy: An Introduction takes scholars through a critical review of the issues facing researchers and educators in the last years of the first decade of the twenty-first century. Refusing to assume the reader’s familiarity with such issues but concurrently rebuffing the tendency to dumb down such complex issues, the book serves as an excellent introduction to one of the most important and complicated issues of our time.
Knowing, Knowledge and Beliefs : Epistemological Studies across Diverse Cultures
Bringing together prominent educators and researchers, this book focuses on conceptual and methodical issues and state-of-the-art theoretical understanding on epistemological beliefs from educational and psychological perspectives. It is a critical and specialized source that describes recent advances in conceptualization and epistemological studies across diverse cultures.
Knowing Art : Essays in Aesthetics and Epistemology
Knowing Art collects ten original essays written by leading philosophers who distill and build upon recent work at the intersection of aesthetics and epistemology. Specific topics addressed include the objectivity of critical knowledge, the quality of critical testimony, the roles of principles and perception in critical reasoning, phenomenal knowledge of what a work of art is like, the acquisition of factual information and psychological understanding from fictions, and the limits of images as sources of historical evidence. In addressing these topics, the volume also explores the challenges that art poses for theories of knowledge as well as the challenges that artistic knowledge poses to traditional views about art.
Causation, Coherence and Concepts : A Collection of Essays
the papers cover epistemology, general philosophy of science, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. The section titles Belief, Causation, Laws, Coherence, and Concepts and the paper titles give a more adequate impression of the topics dealt with.
Body and Practice in Kant
This book argues that this standard image of the great German philosopher is radically wrong. Not only does Kant reflect constantly upon the fact that human life is embodied, but the Critique of pure reason itself may be read as a critical reflection aimed at exploring some significant philosophical implications of this fact.
Blameworthy Belief : A Study in Epistemic Deontologism
Believing the wrong thing may sometimes have drastic consequences. The question as to when a person is not only ill-guided, but genuinely at fault for holding a particular belief is an important one: It touches upon the roots of our understanding of such notions as criminal negligence and moral responsibility. The answer to this question may influence the extent to which we are willing to submit each other to punishments ranging from mild resentment to harsh prison terms. This book presents an extensive effort to shed light on the conditions under which we may appropriately deem someone blameworthy for holding a particular belief. It regiments and unifies several debates within contemporary epistemology, ethics and legal scholarship. Finally, the book brings a new philosophical look on issues like our power to control beliefs and the extent and nature of foresight.
Argumentation in Science Education : Perspectives from Classroom-Based Research
This book brings together the work of leading experts in argumentation in science education. It presents research combining theoretical and empirical perspectives relevant for secondary science classrooms. Since the 1990s, argumentation studies have increased at a rapid pace, from stray papers to a wealth of research exploring ever more sophisticated issues. This volume constitutes a unique collection and covers fundamental issues in argumentation such as cognitive, methodological and epistemological aspects; classroom-based research in teaching and learning of argumentation in science classrooms; and argumentation in context such as in socio-scientific and moral contexts. The book’s underlying premise is that argumentation is a significant aspect of scientific inquiry and plays an important role in teaching and learning of science.
Approaches to Metaphysics
Today, when systematic philosophy - and reason itself - are challenged both outside of and within philosophy, is it still possible to do metaphysics? This volume provides a broad perspective on contemporary approaches to the nature and the fundamental questions of metaphysics. Drawing on scholars from continental Europe, Asia, Canada, the United States, and Great Britain, and representing a variety of philosophical cultures and traditions, this volume surveys and extends work in metaphysics and its implications for broader philosophical concerns (e.g., in ethics and social philosophy, in mathematics and logic, and in epistemology). It also addresses such questions as the role of history and historicity in undertaking metaphysics, the nature of metaphysics, the priority of metaphysics over epistemology, and the challenges of empiricism and postmodernism.
Applying reflective equilibrium : Towards the justification of a precautionary principle
This book provides the first explicit case study for an application of the method of reflective equilibrium (RE), using it to develop and defend a precautionary principle. It thereby makes an important and original contribution to questions of philosophical method and methodology. The book shows step-by-step how RE is applied, and develops a methodological framework which will be useful for everyone who wishes to use reflective equilibrium. With respect to precautionary principles, the book demonstrates how a rights-based precautionary principle can be constructed and defended.
Aesthetics and philosophy of art ; Vol. 9
The present volume is a continuation of the series Contemporary Philosophy (International Institute of Philosophy). As with the earlier volumes in the series, the present chronicles purport to give a survey of significant trends in contemporary philosophy. This volume on Aesthetics, containing nineteen surveys, shows the variety of approaches to Aesthetics in various cultures. The close connection between aesthetics and religion and between aesthetics and ethics is emphasized in several contributions.
Activity and Sign : Grounding Mathematics Education
This volume provides new sources of knowledge based on Michael Otte’s fundamental insight that understanding the problems of mathematics education – how to teach, how to learn, how to communicate, how to do, and how to represent mathematics – depends on means, mainly philosophical and semiotic, that have to be created first of all, and to be reflected from the perspectives of a multitude of diverse disciplines.
Abductive Reasoning : Logical Investigations into Discovery and Explanation
Abductive Reasoning: Logical Investigations into Discovery and Explanation is a much awaited original contribution to the study of abductive reasoning, providing logical foundations and a rich sample of pertinent applications.
A Logical Approach to Philosophy : Essays in Honour of Graham Solomon
The papers in this collection are united by an approach to philosophy. They illustrate the manifold contributions that logic makes to philosophical progress, both by the application of formal methods to traditional philosophical problems and by opening up new avenues of inquiry as philosophers sort out the implications of new and often surprising technical results. Contributions include new technical results rich with philosophical significance for contemporary metaphysics, attempts to diagnose the philosophical significance of some recent technical results, philosophically motivated proposals for new approaches to negation, investigations in the history and philosophy of logic, and contributions to epistemology and philosophy of science that make essential use of logical techniques and results.



















