Member: mcaution

I hope you enjoy it, be careful to leave newspapers out when you read it in case your brain explodes.

posted by unlucky at 8:47 pm (EST) on Aug 17, 2009

I recommend The Ethics by Spinoza, a 15th Century (give or take a few centuries but, you know really old) philosopher who tries to mathematisize ethics, he uses a mathematical like formula to reach logical conclusions to base ethics and God on. Who know the New Age "God is in everything" thought? Well, it comes from him. If you do decide to get it you might want to look at it a bit before you check it out of the library/buy it because it's very dense and hard to read. But I thought you might be interested.

posted by unlucky at 1:22 am (EST) on May 15, 2009

Actually I'm just in the process of cataloging my pre-existing library here, so most of the books I add aren't new acquisitions but rather have been acquired over a period of the last decade or so. I figure I'm about a third of the way through right now. I actually spent much of that past decade working at bookstores, and at a large local used&rare bookstore for the last couple of years (until recently) where I was the receiving department, so I saw all of the new inventory that came into the store. I had to learn to be pretty selective in my book buying, because even though 99% of the books out there these days are garbage, due to the sheer quantity of what's available I couldn't have afforded even the remaining 1% if I wanted to. Still, every week a few books crossed my desk that I just couldn't resist, so I have been adding to my collection faster than I could actually read them for a while. But I do intend to read them all eventually.

Most of the "reading" I actually do these days is checking out audiobooks from the library to listen to while I work, and I get through three or four books a week that way. However, the library's selection is rather limited. I long ago exhausted the books I actually own that are available on audio from the library. Part of the reason is that audiobooks are really only good for fiction, popular biographies and history, etc., so a lot of the philosophy and science books I have just aren't available on audio, and you really couldn't read them that way anyway.

As for real reading (not audiobooks), I try to read only two or three books at a time, maybe one fiction and one non-fiction, and not start a new one until I've finished the one I'm already working on. But I'm only getting through a couple books a month that way at the moment. I don't have nearly as much time to read as I did, say, five years ago. I do have a little more than I did five months ago, however, so hopefully I'll be able to start catching up soon.

posted by AshRyan at 2:19 am (EST) on May 13, 2009

I've been looking around the net regarding your search for contemporary or historical philosophy of science, and stumbled across the Wilkipedia article on this topic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_...
While I think that this piece is a bit unfocused and likely to include anything into the field of philosophy of science that called itself "science," it has some useful references and starting points.

posted by lawecon at 10:09 am (EST) on Apr 13, 2009

I believe Mayr's opinion of Aristotle hinged on the issue of teleology. Of course, Aristotle did extend final causation to entities to which it is not in fact applicable, but Gotthelf has argued convincingly that within the realm of biology, it captures something essential to the nature of living things and integrates very nicely with a Darwinian, evolutionary worldview. After considering that paper, Mayr became an outspoken teleologist. He was also critical of Dawkins's pet theory of "gene selectionism," arguing (good Aristotelian that he had become) that it is the individual organism and its attributes that are the object of selection pressure, and the underlying genes only indirectly so. He also had a very Aristotelian approach to the species problem.

For more fun reading on this subject, definitely check out Harry Binswanger's The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts, if you haven't already. And, just for kicks, here's a link to an article by James Lennox entitled "Darwin was a Teleologist":

http://www.philosophy.ubc.ca/faculty/bea...

posted by AshRyan at 2:49 am (EST) on Apr 11, 2009

Hi,

I don't know if you're interested in the philosophy of particular sciences (such as biology) or just the philosophy of science in general, but if you're not already familiar with the works of Ernst Mayr, I would definitely recommend them. He was one of the greatest biologists of the 20th century, and just passed away a couple of years ago, and a few of his books (such as his last, What Makes Biology Unique?) deal more with the philosophy of biology than just with the subject matter of biology itself. Studying Mayr might also be relevant to your interest in how philosophy has had an impact on the development of science, for instance in Mayr's early dismissal of Aristotle and his conversion to Aristotelianism upon reading an essay of Allan Gotthelf's (which is available in Philosophical Issues in Aristotle's Biology, edited by Gotthelf and Lennox, from Cambridge University Press---another great book to read, if you haven't already, if you're interested in the history and philosophy of science).

Oh, and I just saw the comment left for you yesterday by lawecon recommending The Invention of Air by Steven Johnson, which is kind of funny because that's the last book that I just entered into my own library. I haven't read it yet, though based on what lawecon says I would say there's something to that thesis, though of course science to some degree was happening going back to the medieval and ancient Greek periods, and even ancient Egypt if you want to count primitive geometry for agricultural purposes, though that might be stretching the definition of "science" somewhat. Incidentally, I disagree with lawecon's implication that epistemology as a subject of study originated before any of the special sciences, nor do I think it could have. And I think Popper, Kuhn and Quine (I haven't heard of the other one) are all dubious in terms of their theories of the philosophy of science, though they are all influential figures and worth studying if you are interested in the direction that the field is taking (but in that case, you might as well throw in, say, Ian Hacking). But I am not particularly well-read in any of them, so take that for what it's worth.

Anyway, if I think of any other recommendations for you, I'll post them here.

Best,

Ash

posted by AshRyan at 4:49 am (EST) on Apr 10, 2009

There are, of course, all sorts of speculations about "right knowledge" and how it can be obtained, stretching back to the Pre-Socratics. The issue is, I suppose, what is "science" and when did people start doing science, rather than just doing epistemology....

A recent book I am aware of that argues that people really didn't start doing science until around the time of Josephy Priestly is The Invention of Air by Steven Johnson. Frankly, I am unconvinced by that thesis and would suggest that you take a look at Karl Popper's The World of Parminedes for an argument that science-like thought emerged a long time ago, even if it did not triumph until more recently.

posted by lawecon at 8:22 pm (EST) on Apr 9, 2009

Start here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kuhn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Lakato...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W.V._Quine

posted by lawecon at 9:52 pm (EST) on Mar 27, 2009