33,188 research outputs found
Overcoming the Newtonian Paradigm: The Unfinished Project of Theoretical Biology from a Schellingian Perspective
Defending Robert Rosenâs claim that in every confrontation between physics and biology it is physics that
has always had to give ground, it is shown that many of the most important advances in mathematics
and physics over the last two centuries have followed from Schellingâs demand for a new physics that
could make the emergence of life intelligible. Consequently, while reductionism prevails in biology, many
biophysicists are resolutely anti-reductionist. This history is used to identify and defend a fragmented but
progressive tradition of anti-reductionist biomathematics. It is shown that the mathematicoephysico
echemical morphology research program, the biosemiotics movement, and the relational biology of
Rosen, although they have developed independently of each other, are built on and advance this antireductionist tradition of thought. It is suggested that understanding this history and its relationship to the broader history of post-Newtonian science could provide guidance for and justify both the integration of these strands and radically new work in post-reductionist biomathematics
The Fruits of the Unseen: A Jamesian Challenge to Explanatory Reductionism in Accounts of Religious Experience
In Religious Experience, Wayne Proudfoot argued that a tout court rejection of reductionism in accounts of religious experience was not viable. According to Proudfoot, itâs possible to distinguish between an illegitimate practice of descriptive reductionism and the legitimate practice of explanatory reductionism. The failure to distinguish between these two forms of reductionism resulted in a protective strategy, or an attempt to protect religious experience from the reach of scientific explanation. Among the theorists whom he accused of deploying this illegitimate strategy Proudfoot included William James and his work in The Varieties of Religious Experience. In this article, I argue that while James does occasionally deploy a protective strategy in Varieties, this is not the only nor most important method of treating religious experience James developed. Implicit in his rejection of medical materialism, James not only deploys the protective strategy Proudfoot criticizes, but the pragmatic method with which he treats all claims. I argue that Jamesâs pragmatic method leads to what James called noetic pluralism, or the view that there is no privileged knowledge practice, but a plurality of knowledge practices, and that this method puts pressure on the explanatory reductionist, who is implicitly committed to noetic monism
Emergent processes as generation of discontinuities
In this article we analyse the problem of emergence in its diachronic
dimension. In other words, we intend to deal with the generation of
novelties in natural processes. Our approach aims at integrating some
insights coming from Whiteheadâs Philosophy of the Process with the
epistemological framework developed by the âautopoieticâ tradition.
Our thesis is that the emergence of new entities and rules of interaction
(new âfields of relatednessâ) requires the development of discontinuous
models of change. From this standpoint natural evolution can be
conceived as a succession of emergences â each one realizing a novel
âextendedâ present, described by distinct models â rather than as a
single and continuous dynamics. This theoretical and epistemological
framework is particularly suitable to the investigation of the origin of
life, an emblematic example of this kind of processes
Psychophysical Nature
There are two quite distinct ways in which events that we normally think of as âphysicalâ relate in an intimate way to events that we normally think of as âpsychologicalâ. One intimate relation occurs in exteroception at the point where events in the world become events as-perceived. The other intimate relationship occurs at the interface of conscious experience with its neural correlates in the brain. The chapter examines each of these relationships and positions them within a dual-aspect, reflexive model of how consciousness relates to the brain and external world. The chapter goes on to provide grounds for viewing mind and nature as fundamentally psychophysical, and examines similar views as well as differences in previously unpublished writings of Wolfgang Pauli, one of the founders of quantum mechanics
Psychophysical Nature
There are two quite distinct ways in which events that we normally think of as âphysicalâ relate in an intimate way to events that we normally think of as âpsychologicalâ. One intimate relation occurs in exteroception at the point where events in the world become events as-perceived. The other intimate relationship occurs at the interface of conscious experience with its neural correlates in the brain. The chapter examines each of these relationships and positions them within a dual-aspect, reflexive model of how consciousness relates to the brain and external world. The chapter goes on to provide grounds for viewing mind and nature as fundamentally psychophysical, and examines similar views as well as differences in previously unpublished writings of Wolfgang Pauli, one of the founders of quantum mechanics
Communal and Institutional Trust: Authority in Religion and Politics
Linda Zagzebskiâs book on epistemic authority is an impressive and stimulating treatment of an important topic. 1 I admire the way she manages to combine imagination, originality and argumentative control. Her work has the further considerable merit of bringing analytic thinking and abstract theory to bear upon areas of concrete human concern, such as the attitudes one should have towards moral and religious authority. The book is stimulating in a way good philosophy should be -- provoking both disagreement and emulation. I agree with much of what she says, and have been instructed by it, but it will be of more interest and relevance here if I concentrate upon areas of disagreement. Perhaps they are better seen as areas, at least some of them, where her emphases suggest a position that seems to me untenable, but that she may not really intend. In that event, I will be happy to have provoked a clarification or the dispelling of my misunderstanding. My focus will be upon problems in her account of communal authority and autonomy, especially with respect to religious and political authority. Here my worry is that she places too much trust in trust and not enough in what I call selective mistrust
Psychophysical Nature
There are two quite distinct ways in which events that we normally think of as âphysicalâ relate in an intimate way to events that we normally think of as âpsychologicalâ. One intimate relation occurs in exteroception at the point where events in the world become events as-perceived. The other intimate relationship occurs at the interface of conscious experience with its neural correlates in the brain. The chapter examines each of these relationships and positions them within a dual-aspect, reflexive model of how consciousness relates to the brain and external world. The chapter goes on to provide grounds for viewing mind and nature as fundamentally psychophysical, and examines similar views as well as differences in previously unpublished writings of Wolfgang Pauli, one of the founders of quantum mechanics
Reflexive Monism
Reflexive monism is, in essence, an ancient view of how consciousness relates to the material world that has, in recent decades, been resurrected in modern form. In this paper I discuss how some of its basic features differ from both dualism and variants of physicalist and functionalist reductionism, focusing on those aspects of the theory that challenge deeply rooted presuppositions in current Western thought. I pay particular attention to the ontological status and seeming âout-therenessâ of the phenomenal world and to how the âphenomenal worldâ relates to the âphysical worldâ, the âworld itselfâ, and processing in the brain. In order to place the theory within the context of current thought and debate, I address questions that have been raised about reflexive monism in recent commentaries and also evaluate competing accounts of the same issues offered by âtransparency theoryâ and by âbiological naturalismâ. I argue that, of the competing views on offer, reflexive monism most closely follows the contours of ordinary experience, the findings of science, and common sense
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