Research Catalog

Title

Philosophy and the origin and evolution of the universe / edited by Evandro Agazzi and Alberto Cordero.

Publication

Dordrecht ; Boston : Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Agazzi, Evandro.
• Cordero, Alberto.
• Académie internationale de philosophie des sciences. Meeting (1989 : Lima, Peru)

Description

xii, 466 pages : illustrations; 23 cm.

Summary

Modern cosmology, though a confluence of relativity theory and elementary particle physics, and with the help of very sophisticated mathematical models, tries to encompass the Universe as a whole, and to propose theories regarding its origin and evolution. But this cannot work without the evolution of several philosophical issues, concerning the epistemological status of this enterprise, its implicit or explicit extra-scientific presuppositions, as well as the real sense and interpretation of the theories and principles involved. This book provides a survey of these different aspects, for it gives some essential elements of the scientific background necessary for understanding the main issues of modern cosmology, and at the same time offer a discussion of the problems arising in it; problems which are never purely scientific, nor purely philosophical. Science and philosophy are therefore again deeply interrelated, at the moment where man tries to understand the Universe and his place in it. And this not only because the legitimacy of calling cosmology a science implies the acceptance of intellectual approaches which overstep the usual criteria of physical science and have a deep philosophical connotation, but also because the evolutionary way of thinking, strongly backed by cosmology, reinforces the role of this approach in the philosophy of science and in philosophy in general.

Series Statement

Synthese library ; v. 217

Uniform Title

Synthese library ; v. 217.

Subject

• Cosmology
• Astronomy > Philosophy
• Science > Philosophy
• cosmology
• Astronomie
• Erkenntnistheorie
• Evolutionstheorie
• Kosmologie
• Philosophie
• Weltall
• Aufsatzsammlung
• Kosmologie
• Univers > Expansion > Congrès
• Philosophie des sciences > Congrès
• Cosmologie > Congrès

Note

• Papers from the Annual Meeting of the International Academy of Philosophy of Science, held in Lima, Peru, Aug. 1988.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Introduction / E. Agazzi & A. Cordero -- The universe as a scientific and philosophical problem / E. Agazzi -- The geometric structure of the universe / R. Torretti -- Superstring unification and the existence of gravity / B. Zwiebach -- The universe of modern science and its philosophical exploration / D. Shapere -- From molecules to life / R. Engel -- Meta-neuroanatomy: the myth of the unbounded main/brain / C. Cherniak -- Emergence and reduction in morphogenetic theories / M. Artigas -- What can we know about the universe? / J. Mosterin -- The universe as a scientific object / M. Pauri -- General laws of nature and the uniqueness of the universe / E. Scheibe -- The anthropic principle and its epistemological status in modern physical cosmology / B. Kanitscheider -- Evolutionary ideas and contemporary naturalism / A. Cordero -- Origin and evolution of the universe and mankind / F. Miro Quesada.

ISBN

• 0792313224
• 9780792313229

LCCN

91021391

OCLC

• ocm23900636
• 23900636
• SCSB-1929425

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library