From a Biological Point of View: Essays in Evolutionary Philosophy

Elliott Sober

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511624940

Elliott Sober is one of the leading philosophers of science and is a former winner of the Lakatos Prize, the major award in the field. This new collection of essays will appeal to a readership that extends well beyond the frontiers of the philosophy of science. Sober shows how ideas in evolutionary biology bear in significant ways on traditional problems in philosophy of mind and language, epistemology, and metaphysics. Amongst the topics addressed are psychological egoism, solipsism, and the interpretation of belief and utterance, empiricism, Ockham's razor, causality, essentialism, and scientific laws. The collection will prove invaluable to a wide range of philosophers, primarily those working in the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind, and epistemology.

Winner of the Lakatos Prize

"The arguments in each essay are cogent and presented in a clear style....For those biologists interested in these basic issues (and that should be most of us!) and with an adequate background this book offers rich material." Patrick W. Colgan, The Canadian Field-Naturalist

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From a Biological Point of View

Essays in Evolutionary Philosophy

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-vi

Contents
pp vii-viii

Acknowledgments
pp ix-x

Introduction
pp 1-7

1 - Did evolution make us psychological egoists?
pp 8-27

2 - Why not solipsism?
pp 28-49

3 - The adaptive advantage of learning and a priori prejudice
pp 50-70

4 - The primacy of truth-telling and the evolution of lying
pp 71-92

5 - Prospects for an evolutionary ethics
pp 93-113

6 - Contrastive empiricism
pp 114-135

7 - Let's razor Ockham's razor
pp 136-157

8 - The principle of the common cause
pp 158-174

9 - Explanatory presupposition
pp 175-183

10 - Apportioning causal responsibility
pp 184-200

11 - Evolution, population thinking, and essentialism
pp 201-232

12 - Temporally oriented laws
pp 233-252

Index
pp 253-255

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From a Biological Point of View

Essays in Evolutionary Philosophy

Book description

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Contents

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