Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2007 16:02:00 +0200
From: "John Collier" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Subject: Every Thing Must Go: metaphysics naturalized
Folks,
The book on naturalized metaphysics that I have been promising is now out.
I don't want to defend everything in the book (hence "with"), and I hope
Cliff Hooker and I have a book out on dynamical realism before too long.
Dynamical realism is a similar view, but takes systems theory as the
fundamental theory, and gives a more fundamental role to information.
John
http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780199276196
Every Thing Must Go
Metaphysics Naturalized
<http://www.oup.com/uk/catalogue/?ci=9780199276196#authors>James Ladyman
and Don Ross
with David Spurrett and John Collier
Price: £45.00 (Hardback)
ISBN-13: 978-0-19-927619-6
Publication date: 5 July 2007
Clarendon Press
358 pages, 234x156 mm
Ordering
Individual customers:
<http://www.oup.co.uk/bookshop/individual/>order by phone, post, or fax
Teachers in UK and European schools (and FE colleges in the UK):
<http://www.oup.com/oxed/info/howtoorder/>order by phone, post, or fax
Description
* Powerful critique of analytic metaphysics
* Bold, controversial thesis with far-reaching implications for key
areas of philosophy
* Informed by the latest developments in physics and the special sciences
* Opens the door for further research in naturalistic metaphysics
Every Thing Must Go argues that the only kind of metaphysics that can
contribute to objective knowledge is one based specifically on contemporary
science as it really is, and not on philosophers' a priori intuitions,
common sense, or simplifications of science. In addition to showing how
recent metaphysics has drifted away from connection with all other serious
scholarly inquiry as a result of not heeding this restriction, they
demonstrate how to build a metaphysics compatible with current fundamental
physics ('ontic structural realism'), which, when combined with their
metaphysics of the special sciences ('rainforest realism'), can be used to
unify physics with the other sciences without reducing these sciences to
physics itself. Taking science metaphysically seriously, Ladyman and Ross
argue, means that metaphysicians must abandon the picture of the world as
composed of self-subsistent individual objects, and the paradigm of
causation as the collision of such objects.
Everything Must Go also assesses the role of information theory and complex
systems theory in attempts to explain the relationship between the special
sciences and physics, treading a middle road between the grand synthesis of
thermodynamics and information, and eliminativism about information. The
consequences of the author's metaphysical theory for central issues in the
philosophy of science are explored, including the implications for the
realism vs. empiricism debate, the role of causation in scientific
explanations, the nature of causation and laws, the status of abstract and
virtual objects, and the objective reality of natural kinds.
Readership: Professional philosophers and advanced students working in
metaphysics, philosophy of physics or philosophy of science
Contents
Preface
1. In Defence of Scientism , with David Spurrett
2. Scientific Realism, Constructive Empiricism and Structuralism
3. Ontic Structural Realism and the Philosophy of Physics
4. Rainforest Realism and the Unity of Science , with John Collier
5. Causation in a Structural World , with David Spurrett
6. Conclusion - Philosophy Enough
Bibliography
Authors, editors, and contributors
James Ladyman, University of Bristol and
Don Ross, University of Alabama at Birmingham and University of Cape Town
with David Spurrett and John Collier
Contributors:
with John Collier
with David Spurrett
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