biology philosophy

Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 2nd pr., 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, black cloth with silver lettering, 199 pages. This radical book by Nobel laureate Monod is an important intellectual event. Chance and Necessity is a philosophical statement whose intention is to sweep away as both false and dangerous the animist conception of man that has dominated virtually all Western worldviews from primitive cultures to those of dialectical materialists. He bases his argument on the evidence of modern biology, which indisputably shows, that man is the product of chance genetic mutation. With the unrelenting logic of the scientist, he draws upon what we now know (and can theorize) of genetic structure to suggest an new way of looking at ourselves. He argues that objective scientific knowledge, the only reliable knowledge, denies the concepts of destiny or evolutionary purpose that underlie traditional philosophies. He contends that the persistence of those concepts is responsible for the intensifying schizophrenia of a world that accepts, and lives by, the fruits of science while refusing to face its moral implications. Name on inside front cover, otherwise clean. No dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY, Penguin Press, 1st, 2023, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 511 pages. Determined offers a marvelous synthesis of what we know about consciousness--the tight weave between reason and emotion and between stimulus and response in the moment and over a life. One by one, Sapolsky takes out all the major arguments for free will, cutting a path through the thickets of chaos theory and quantum physics. But as Sapolsky acknowledges, it's sometimes impossible to uncouple from our zeal to judge people, including ourselves. Determined applies this new understanding to some of our most essential questions around punishment, morality, and living well together. Most of all, Sapolsky argues that while accepting the reality about free will is monumentally difficult, it will make for a much more humane world. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Routledge, 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 289 pages. Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) is one of the most important philosophers of the seventeenth century after Descartes. A pioneer of rationalism, he was one of the first to champion and to further Cartesian ideas. Andrew Pyle places Malebranche's work in the context of Descartes and other philosophers, and also in its relation to ideas about faith and reason. He examines the entirety of Malebranche's writings, including the famous The Search After Truth, which was admired and criticized by both Leibniz and Locke. Pyle presents an integrated account of Malebranche's central theses, occasionalism and 'vision in God', before exploring and assessing Malebranche's contribution to debates on physics and biology, and his views on the soul, self-knowledge, grace and the freedom of the will. This penetrating and wide-ranging study will be of interest to not only philosophers, but also to historians of science and philosophy, theologians, and students of the Enlightenment or seventeenth century thought.

Hardcover. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 287 pages. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket.

Softcover. Rochester NY, University of Rochester Press, reprint, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 539 pages. The essays in this collection illustrate the interdisciplinary approach to the history of ideas fostered by the Journal of the History of Ideas. Science, philosophy and religion were closely connected in the 17th and 18th centuries, and common threads run through all the articles. A number of essays revolve around Locke: the implications of his doctrines for religion, and their relation to and support of the new science; several of these articles refer to Descartes, Leibniz andHume. There are essays on optics and vision in the work of Berkeley, Reid and Newton, and on the relation between biology and physiology, especially as these disciplines contribute to the science of man. The authors include HENRY GUERLAC, MARGARET C. JACOB, SHIRLEY ROE, L. LAUDAN, NICHOLAS JOLLEY, JAMES FORCE, G. A. J. ROGERS and CATHERINE WILSON. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Softcover. Oxford UK, Clarendon Press , 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 475 pages, What is reduction? Must all discussions of the mind, value, color, biological organisms, and persons aim to reduce these to objects and properties that can be studied by more basic, physical science? Conversely, does failure to achieve a reduction undermine the legitimacy of higher levels of description or explanation? Though reduction has long been a favorite method of analysis in all areas of philosophy, in recent years philosophers have attempted to avoid these traditional alternatives by developing an account of higher-level phenomena which shows them to be grounded in, but not reducible to, basic physical objects and properties. The contributors to this volume examine the motivations for such anti-reductionist views, and assess their coherence and success, in a number of different fields, including moral and mental philosophy, psychology, organic biology, and the social sciences. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise a clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, pages, profusely illustrated in color and b/w. Written by an international team of scientists, The Enchanted Loom offers a sweeping look at the history of neuroscience from the philosophy of Aristotle to the advent of Artificial Intelligence. This collection of accessible, intriguing essays is supplemented by over 350 spectacularillustrations, many in color, with thorough and informative captions written by the scientists themselves. The authors discuss Descartes's contributions to thought about the brain, alongside brilliant artistic studies of the central nervous system that he and masters like da Vinci executed. Theyshow how phrenology--the long discredited study of skull shape and mental faculties--actually represented a breakthrough in thinking about localized brain functions, and how the advent of the microscope and other equipment led to new discoveries. The contributors bring the story up to the present day, unfolding the emergence of the modern neurosciences, advances in molecular biology, and the debate over how infants learn language. In addition, the book offers a short history of computers and recent thought about whether the mind works like computer software. Noted contributors include; Larry Squire, writing on memory; Solomon Snyder, discussing psychopharmacology; and John Dowling on vision. Colorful, intelligent, informative, The Enchanted Loom offers an authoritative and enjoyable look at the history of a complex and fascinating science.

Hardcover. NY, Liveright Publishing, 1st, 1938, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth with gilt lettering, 418 pages. In this important and challenging book, Wolfgang Kohler's subject is value, or what he calls the "requiredness" of an object or activity. Starting with a descriptive account of values as we become aware of them, he finds that, inside certain contexts, parts of such structures do not appear as indifferent facts. They are experienced as belonging there intrinsically or, also, as being out of place in their contexts. Kohler's closely reasoned analysis, drawing on the fields of psychology, biology, and physics, centers around this concept of requiredness. Clean copy. No dust jacket.

Hardcover. Berlin/London, Springer International, reprint, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 597 pages. The relation between body and mind is one of the oldest riddles that has puzzled mankind. That material and mental events may interact is accepted even by the law: our mental capacity to concentrate on the task can be seriously reduced by drugs. Physical and chemical processes may act upon the mind; and when we are writing a difficult letter, our mind acts upon our body and, through a chain of physical events, upon the mind of the recipient of the letter. the authors of this book stress that they cannot solve the body mind problem; but they hope that they have been able to shed new light on it. B&w illustrations, clean copy. This is a heavy and oversized book and will require extra shipping. International customers please ask for a shipping quote before purchasing.

Softcover. Cambridge MA, MIT Press, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 277 pages. A look at the human sense of time, a biological rhythm that may follow a different beat from that dictated by external, "official," "objective" timepieces. Time and Place-Timeplace-is a continuum of the mind, as fundamental as the spacetime that may be the ultimate reality of the material world.