Beautiful Structures argues that structure, mathematics, aesthetics, teleology, and personhood belong together rather than existing as separate domains requiring subsequent integration. The world is necessarily structured, and structure possesses an aesthetic character as a condition of its existence rather than becoming aesthetic only through human response. Mathematics, on this account, is not an abstract language imposed upon reality but the articulation of the relations constitutive of...

The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through...

Actuality and potentiality, substantial form and prime matter, efficient causality and teleology are among the fundamental concepts of Aristotelian philosophy of nature. Aristotle's Revenge argues that these concepts are not only compatible with modern science, but are implicitly presupposed by modern science. Among the many topics covered are the metaphysical presuppositions of scientific method; the status of scientific realism; the metaphysics of space and time; the metaphysics of quant...

In his long-awaited new edition of Philosophy of Mathematics, James Robert Brown tackles important new as well as enduring questions in the mathematical sciences. Can pictures go beyond being merely suggestive and actually prove anything? Are mathematical results certain? Are experiments of any real value?This clear and engaging book takes a unique approach, encompassing non-standard topics such as the role of visual reasoning, the importance of notation, and the place of ...

Why absolute certainty is impossible in scienceIn today's unpredictable and chaotic world, we look to science to provide certainty and answers—and often blame it when things go wrong. The Blind Spot reveals why our faith in scientific certainty is a dangerous illusion, and how only by embracing science's inherent ambiguities and paradoxes can we truly appreciate its beauty and harness its potential.Crackling with insights into our most perplexing c...

This volume, originally a special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies, uses the recent writings of Philip Goff as a jumping-off point for discussions of panpsychism — the idea that consciousness is a fundamental and pervasive aspect of our universe that cannot be understood in other, more basic, terms. The contributors to this book explore various issues of panpsychism from the perspectives of science, philosophy, and theology. Some papers focus on further motivating and developi...

PHILOSOPHY of MIND“Philosophy of mind is an incredibly active field thanks in part to the recent explosion of work in the sciences of the mind. Jaworski’s book is a well-written, comprehensive, and sophisticated primer on all the live positions on the mind–body problem, including various kinds of physicalism, emergentism, and his own favorite, hylomorphism. This is a serious and responsible book for philosophy students, philosophers, and mind scientists who want to underst...

This introduction to the philosophy of mathematics focuses on contemporary debates in an important and central area of philosophy. The reader is taken on a fascinating and entertaining journey through some intriguing mathematical and philosophical territory, including such topics as the realism/anti-realism debate in mathematics, mathematical explanation, the limits of mathematics, the significance of mathematical notation, inconsistent mathematics and the applications of mathematics. Each...

The idea that time does not exist is, for many, unthinkable: time must exist. Almost every experience we have tells us so. There has been plenty of debate around what time is like, but not whether it exists. The goal of this book is to make the absence of time thinkable. Time might not exist. Beginning with an empirically flavoured examination of the 'folk' concept of time, the book explores the implications this has for our understanding of agency, and the extent to which our bes...

Until quite recently, almost no philosophers trained in the continental tradition saw anything of value in realism. The situation in analytic philosophy was always different, but in continental philosophy realism was usually treated as a pseudo-problem. That is no longer the case.In this provocative new book, two leading philosophers examine the remarkable rise of realism in the continental tradition. While exploring the similarities and differences in their own positions, they als...

Models and theories are of central importance in science, and scientists spend substantial amounts of time building, testing, comparing and revising models and theories. It is therefore not surprising that the nature of scientific models and theories has been a widely debated topic within the philosophy of science for many years.The product of two decades of research, this book provides an accessible yet critical introduction to the debates about models and theories within analytic...

Panpsychism is the philosophical view that consciousness, mentality, or 'mindedness' in some form is fundamental in the universe. The idea has existed for centuries, but only recently has it had a serious resurgence.Galen Strawson has been on the front line of the battlefield on the topic of panpsychism since the 1990s. His paper on ‘realistic monism’, contained in this volume and originally published in 2006, is now considered something of a classic and a catalyst for panpsychism’s recent...