Modern empiricism has been conditioned in large part by two dogmas. One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of matters of fact, and truth which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience. Both dogmas, I shall argue, are ill founded. One effect of abandoning them is, as (...) we shall see, a blurring of the supposed boundary between speculative metaphysics and natural science. Another effect is a shift toward pragmatism. (shrink)

Paul Horwich gives the definitive exposition of a prominent philosophical theory about truth, `minimalism'. His theory has attracted much attention since the first edition of Truth in 1990; he has now developed, refined, and updated his treatment of the subject, while preserving the distinctive format of the book. This revised edition appears simultaneously with a new companion volume, Meaning; the two books demystify central philosophical issues, and will be essential reading for all who work on the philosophy of language.

Laudan constructs a fresh approach to a longtime problem for the philosopher of science: how to explain the simultaneous and widespread presence of both agreement and disagreement in science. Laudan critiques the logical empiricists and the post-positivists as he stresses the need for centrality and values and the interdependence of values, methods, and facts as prerequisites to solving the problems of consensus and dissent in science.

Toward theory a homuncular of believing For years and years, philosophers took thoughts and beliefs to be modifications of incorporeal Cartesian egos. ...

In _Matter and Consciousness_, Paul Churchland presents a concise and contemporary overview of the philosophical issues surrounding the mind and explains the main theories and philosophical positions that have been proposed to solve them. Making the case for the relevance of theoretical and experimental results in neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence for the philosophy of mind, Churchland reviews current developments in the cognitive sciences and offers a clear and accessible account of the connections to philosophy of mind. For this (...) third edition, the text has been updated and revised throughout. The changes range from references to the iPhone's "Siri" to expanded discussions of the work of such contemporary philosophers as David Chalmers, John Searle, and Thomas Nagel. Churchland describes new research in evolution, genetics, and visual neuroscience, among other areas, arguing that the philosophical significance of these new findings lies in the support they tend to give to the reductive and eliminative versions of materialism. Matter and Consciousness, written by the most distinguished theorist and commentator in the field, offers an authoritative summary and sourcebook for issues in philosophy of mind. It is suitable for use as an introductory undergraduate text. (shrink)

"This book is an attempt at a not too technical scientists' philosophy of science" - Preface.

QUINE'S PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS are for the most part contained in two collections of essays, From a Logical Point of View and recently The Ways of Paradox, and in an important book, Word and Object. The present survey will be restricted to views expressed in these three volumes, although Quine's work in logic is continuous with his work in philosophy. The present Part One describes and defends Quine's views about meaning. The following Part Two does the same for his views on (...) other subjects, especially ontology and epistemology. The two parts are related in a way to be explained in Part Two. (shrink)

A central premise in eliminativist arguments is that terms like “belief” and “desire” can be viewed as theoretical terms, in a tacit or unconscious theory of the mind, often called “folk psychology.” But the term “folk psychology” has been used as a label for a number of different sorts of things, and on some interpretations of the term, folk psychology could not turn out to be a false theory. Some philosophers, notably David Lewis, unpack the idea of folk psychology by (...) appealing to the platitudes about the mind that everyone knows. Other philosophers unpack the idea by appeal to tacit principles that underlie the capacity to attribute mental states to other people and oneself. On this latter account, it could turn out that folk psychology consists entirely of procedural rules, or that it is encoded in a connectionist network that does not map onto a set of propositions in a unique and well‐motivated way. If things do turn out this way, then eliminativist arguments will not work, because folk psychology does not make claims that can be true or false. The chapter begins with a brief history of the idea that ordinary claims about mental states – both our own and those of other people – are subserved by a tacit theory. The basic idea is traced to the work of Wilfred Sellars. Noam Chomsky's work in linguistics made it plausible that we could use a complex theory, without having any conscious access to the principles of the theory. (shrink)