In this groundbreaking new study, Lowell Nissen explores the use of teleological language in the study of subjects such as behaviorism, negative feedback, and natural selection. He argues that all existing analyses fail to explain how teleological language can be used legitimately, and provides his own analysis in terms of intentionality.

This comprehensive and up-to-date textbook gives a clear account of the different philosophical and theoretical approaches to psychology and discusses major philosophical questions such as free will and the relation between mind and body.

Since the beginning of philosophy, philosophers have sought objective knowledge: knowledge of things whose existence does not depend on one's conceiving of them. This book uses lessons from debates over objective knowledge to characterize the kinds of reasons pertinent to philosophical and other theoretical views. It argues that we cannot meet skeptics' typical demands for nonquestion-begging support for claims to objective truth, and that therefore we should not regard our supporting reasons as resistant to skeptical challenges. One key lesson is that a constructive, explanatory approach to philosophy must change the subject from skeptic-resistant reasons to perspectival reasons arising from variable semantic commitments and instrumental, purpose-relative considerations. The book lays foundations for such a reorientation of philosophy, treating fundamental methodological issues in ontology, epistemology, the theory of meaning, the philosophy of mind, and the theory of practical rationality. It explains how certain perennial debates in philosophy rest not on genuine disagreement, but on conceptual diversity: talk about different matters. The book shows how acknowledgment of conceptual diversity can resolve a range of traditional disputes in philosophy. It also explains why philosophers need not anchor their discipline in the physicalism of the natural sciences.

I was encouraged to read in the Introduction that it treated philosophy of medicine as part of the philosophy of science. But I was a little sceptical on reading that as such it is comprehensive. Couldn’t a comprehensive account be written only by an amazing polymath? But it turns out that you are that amazing polymath. You seem to have read everything and succeeded in producing an encyclopedia of all the issues. It will establish itself as an essential guide to the field. Professor Jonathan Glover

Aristotle's reliance on dialectic as a method of philosophy appears to conflict with his metaphysical realist view of his conclusions. This book explores Aristotle's philosophical method and the merits of his conclusions, and shows how he defends dialectic against the objection that it cannot justify a metaphysical realist's claims. The author does not presuppose extensive previous acquaintance with Aristotle. Greek texts are translated, and Greek words transliterated.

No detailed description available for "Legal science, philosophy".

Originally published in 1983, this title is a determined attack on personality theories current at the time. It critically examines their basic motivational constructs and rejects any that invoke goal-seeking as being inescapably teleological and therefore unacceptable as natural science. Dr Maze argues the necessity for an unqualified determinism in psychology, yet one that incorporates the role of cognitive processes in the formation of behaviour. However, action theories which profess to offer a causal account of apparently goal-seeking or voluntarist behaviour by reference to the internal states of desire for a goal and a belief about how to get it are also dismissed. For the concept of belief as an internal state is argued to be a relativistic one, defined as being intrinsically related to its object. This is an incoherent notion and one which cannot specify anything acceptable as a causal state. The one motivational theory in dynamic psychology which offered a solution to these problems was Sigmund Freud’s formulation of his instinctual drive concept, defined as an innate physiological driving mechanism with preformed consummatory behaviours: his ‘specific actions’. But his hydraulic models have been patronisingly dismissed by modern neurologists, arguing that there are no ‘flush-toilets’ in the central nervous system. This book argues that such a glib dismissal is shallow minded, and that a reformulation of Freud’s concept in terms of modern neuroscience is readily available, though the problem of identifying the relevant structures remains formidable. The book is of immediate interest to all those seriously concerned with the springs and meanings of human behaviour, whether they be psychologists, psychoanalysts, philosophers or those generally interested in social and ethical theory.

`...interesting, instructive and eminently readable.' - Mary J. Seller, The Expository Times The book shows how development in the biological sciences has been influenced by ethical, religious, social and philosophical assumptions as to the nature of life and mankind's place in the world. These beliefs have been presupposed in experimental investigations as well as in biological theories. The book is not intended as a comprehensive history of biology, rather some of that history is used as evidence of external influences. To this end there are accounts of past investigations (from the time of Aristotle to the present day).

Since the main principles of applied information theory were formulated in the 1940s, the science has been greatly developed and today its areas of application range from traditional communication engineering problems to humanities and the arts. Interdisciplinary in scope, this book is a single-source reference for all applications areas, including engineering, radar, computing technology, television, the life sciences (including biology, physiology and psychology) and arts criticism. A review of the current state of information theory is provided; the author also presents several generalized and original results, and gives a treatment of various problems. This is a reference for both specialists and non-professionals in information theory and general cybernetics.