This is Volume V of a series of six on the Philosophy of Science. Originally published in 1923, this study offers an enquiry into the character and validity of natural laws- to state what kind of reasons there can be for holding any scientific theories whatever, whether they are those of Pythagoras, of Newton or of Einstein.

David Bohm was one of the foremost scientific thinkers and philosophers of our time. Although deeply influenced by Einstein, he was also, more unusually for a scientist, inspired by mysticism. Indeed, in the 1970s and 1980s he made contact with both J. Krishnamurti and the Dalai Lama whose teachings helped shape his work. In both science and philosophy, Bohm's main concern was with understanding the nature of reality in general and of consciousness in particular. In this classic work he de...

Adrian Bardon's A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time is a short introduction to the history, philosophy, and science of the study of time-from the pre-Socratic philosophers through Einstein and beyond. A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time covers subjects such as time and change, the experience of time, physical and metaphysical approaches to the nature of time, the direction of time, time travel, time and freedom of the will, and scientific and philosophical approaches to eternit...

THE ABSTRACT NATURE OF MATHEMATICSThe study of mathematics is apt to commence in disappointment. The important applications of the science, the theoretical interest of its ideas, and the logical rigor of its methods, all generate the expectation of a speedy introduction to processes of interest. We are told that by its aid the stars are weighed and the billions of molecules in a drop of water are counted. Yet, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, this great science eludes the efforts...

Time and again, when studying the history of scientific and philosophical thought in the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries-they are, indeed, so closely interrelated and linked together that, separated, they become ununderstandable-I have been forced to recognize, as many others have before me, that during this period human, or at least European, minds underwent a deep revolution which changed the very framework and patterns of our thinking and of which modern science and modern philo...

Three essays on mathematics, logic, and philosophy from the Noble Prize–winning author of A History of Western Philosophy.The essays in this little volume, published here for the first time in book form, were written by Bertrand Russell during the Second World War when he was less concerned with the stormy issues of nuclear warfare and the containment of Communist aggression and more with "the art of reckoning" in the fields of mathematics, logic and philos...

Geometry defines the world around us, helping us make sense of everything from architecture to military science to fashion. And for over two thousand years, geometry has been equated with Euclid's Elements, arguably the most influential book in the history of mathematics In The King of Infinite Space, renowned mathematics writer David Berlinski provides a concise homage to this elusive mathematician and his staggering achievements. Berlinski shows that, for centuries, sci...

Richard Dawkins recently claimed that 'no theologian has ever produced a satisfactory response to his arguments'. Well-known broadcaster and author Keith Ward is one of Britain's foremost philosopher-theologians. This is his response. Ward welcomes all comers into philosophy's world of clear definitions, sharp arguments, and diverse conclusions. But when Dawkins enters this world, his passion tends to get the better of him, and he descends into stereotyping, pastiche, and mockery. In this ...

"Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness" is Henri Bergson's doctoral thesis which was first published in 1889. In the work Bergson introduces us to his theory of duration, a response to Kant's ideas regarding free will as something only possible outside of time and space. Bergson argues that the traditional concept of free will is merely confusion among philosophers caused by an illegitimate translation of the unextended into the extended. Bergson was one of th...

More than any other writer of the twentieth century, Henri Poincaré brought the elegant, but often complicated, ideas about science and mathematics to the general reader. A genius who throughout his life solved complex mathematical calculations in his head, and a writer gifted with an inimitable style, Poincaré rose to the challenge of interpreting the philosophy of science to scientists and nonscientists alike. His lucid and welcoming prose made him the Carl Sagan of his time. This volume...

"Isaac Newton was a shy, quiet boy growing up on a farm in England 300 years ago. He was not a very good student and nobody paid much attention to him. Nobody that is, except the school bully. One day the bully punched Isaac in the stomach. That hurt, and that got Isaac very mad! He pulled himself up straight and fought back. Isaac pushed the bully onto the ground and rubbed his face in the mud. All the other kids hated the bully and came and cheered for Isaac.So Isaac taught the bully a l...

It might, perhaps, be advisable to say here,—since the reader may havebeen glancing ahead,—that this is not a book about “occultism,” and not a book about what is called “psycho-analysis.”It is merely the account of an extremely cautious reconnaissance in a rather novel direction,—an account presented in the customary form of a narrative of the actual proceedings concerned, coupled with a statement of the theoretical considerations believed to be involved,—and the dramatic, ...