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I am a philosophy post-doc at Unesp and a poet who has always felt that politics is not the exclusive business of politicians; that violence is not the exclusive business of warfare or of “vulgar” people, say, drunkards in bars. Violence, I have felt while doing philosophy in the USA, Brazil, Germany, and France, is likewise expressed by well-educated and apparently “peaceful” philosophers who are engaged in implicit politics and practice “subtle” violence. To handle the relation between politics and metaphysics is to do justice to this feeling. The Politics of Metaphysics, I hope, does that. I believe that though more tacitly, the same is done by this list’s books.
What I love about this book is the fact that it indicates that an apparently apolitical metaphilosophical assumption agrees with an upfront right-wing policy.
The assumption is that when tackling disputes in metaphysics, philosophers should aim to achieve consensus. The policy is that of pressing one to respect the allegedly rationally undeniable standards of a “herd,” as Nietzsche puts it. While problematizing this view, Nietzsche argues that libertarian tendencies of expressing one’s uniqueness are more valuable than more egalitarian tendencies of following herds; to provoke dissensus would then be more valuable than to reach consensus.
This stance has influenced me, even though while problematizing Nietzsche’s works through Carnap’s (and vice-versa), I claim that libertarian and egalitarian tendencies are equally valuable so that one should aim for a balance between them.
Unabridged English value reproduction of Beyond Good And Evilby Friedrich Nietzsche and translated by Helen Zimmern. This philosophical classic is a must read because of its fearless approach to how knowledge is formed.
Beyond Good And Evil asks, is truth absolute? Do humans invent ways to fortify already held views or truly seek the truth? Are the powerful more ‘right’ than the weak? Or is Nietzsche writing down page after page to hear himself talk?
Let the reader decide in this slim volume with full text and footnotes, produced at an affordable price.
I am a philosophy post-doc at Unesp and a poet who has always felt that politics is not the exclusive business of politicians; that violence is not the exclusive business of warfare or of “vulgar” people, say, drunkards in bars. Violence, I have felt while doing philosophy in the USA, Brazil, Germany, and France, is likewise expressed by well-educated and apparently “peaceful” philosophers who are engaged in implicit politics and practice “subtle” violence. To handle the relation between politics and metaphysics is to do justice to this feeling. The Politics of Metaphysics, I hope, does that. I believe that though more tacitly, the same is done by this list’s books.
This book strikes me as being a very lovely one. Despite countless right-wing readings, Cardenal indicates that the Gospels can be persuasively read as providing evidence that Christian metaphysics may reinforce left-wing practices of liberation (and vice-versa)
Besides, this book renovates Plato’s dialogues; it considers all sorts of stances from interlocutors who have not been usually taken to be legitimate philosophical peers: namely, the campesinos (peasants) who got together with Cardenal every Sunday to discuss the Gospels in Solentiname, a remote archipelago in Lake Nicaragua whose population is around 1000 persons.
I also love the fact that this book manages to do philosophy through poetic means (and vice-versa) while indicating the importance of utopic views for those who can no longer bear an actual and supposedly unavoidable situation.
In Solentiname, a remote archipelago in Lake Nicaragua, the people gathered each Sunday to reflect together on the Gospel reading. From recordings of their dialogue, this extraordinary document of faith in the midst of struggle was composed. First published in four volumes, The Gospel in Solentiname was immediately acclaimed as a classic of liberation theology—a radical reading of the good news of Jesus from the perspective of the poor and the oppressed. (It was also banned by the Somoza dictatorship.)
Forty years later The Gospel in Solentiname retains its freshness and power. Though times may have changed, the message of…
I am a philosophy post-doc at Unesp and a poet who has always felt that politics is not the exclusive business of politicians; that violence is not the exclusive business of warfare or of “vulgar” people, say, drunkards in bars. Violence, I have felt while doing philosophy in the USA, Brazil, Germany, and France, is likewise expressed by well-educated and apparently “peaceful” philosophers who are engaged in implicit politics and practice “subtle” violence. To handle the relation between politics and metaphysics is to do justice to this feeling. The Politics of Metaphysics, I hope, does that. I believe that though more tacitly, the same is done by this list’s books.
I love this book because it problematizes a popular assumption among contemporary Anglo-American authors who like to call themselves “analytic philosophers” and who only care to acknowledge the existence of a few past philosophers, e.g., Russell and Ryle. The assumption is that philosophers, such as the latter two, tackled in an apolitical “noble” fashion metaphysical matters.
Akehurst, by his turn, indicates how the likes of Russell and Ryle aligned themselves with a right-wing British policy whose “vulgar” propaganda is echoed throughout works published by British philosophers in the first half of the 20th century.
Also, I appreciate Akehurst’s way of showing that while contributing to the creation of the so-called “analytic-continental gap,” this attitude helped to naturalize the attribution of the shortness of logos to German philosophers like Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche.
British Analytic Philosophy in the Twentieth Century examines three generations of analytic philosophers, who between them founded the modern discipline of analytic philosophy in Britain. The book explores how philosophers such as Bertrand Russell, A.J. Ayer, Gilbert Ryle and Isaiah Berlin believed in a link between German aggression in the twentieth century and the nineteenth-century philosophy of Hegel and Nietzsche. Thomas L. Akehurst thus identifies in this political critique of continental philosophy the origins of the hugely significant faultline between analytic and continental thought, an aspect of twentieth-century philosophy that is still poorly understood. The book also uncovers a tripartite…
I am a philosophy post-doc at Unesp and a poet who has always felt that politics is not the exclusive business of politicians; that violence is not the exclusive business of warfare or of “vulgar” people, say, drunkards in bars. Violence, I have felt while doing philosophy in the USA, Brazil, Germany, and France, is likewise expressed by well-educated and apparently “peaceful” philosophers who are engaged in implicit politics and practice “subtle” violence. To handle the relation between politics and metaphysics is to do justice to this feeling. The Politics of Metaphysics, I hope, does that. I believe that though more tacitly, the same is done by this list’s books.
Dussel does what Latin American philosophers allegedly should not do. That is what I love about this book.
Whereas Latin American philosophers allegedly should take for granted assumptions from supposedly “enlightened” philosophers who have worked in the Global North, Dussel rejects such assumptions, say, the one that philosophers should never talk about imperialism as if this political issue were philosophically irrelevant.
Whereas Latin American philosophers allegedly should only tackle disputes in metaphysics raised by philosophers from the Global North, Dussel articulates disputes these likes usually ignore, e.g., the dispute on how or under which conditions a liberation could exist.
Whereas Latin American philosophers allegedly should import Northern right-wing policies of depoliticization, Dussel politicizes philosophy in a left-wing vein while opposing the war-driven attitudes of the likes of Henry Kissinger.
Argentinean philosopher, theologian, and historian Enrique Dussel understands the present international order as divided into the culture of the center -- by which he means the ruling elite of Europe, North America, and Russia -- and the peoples of the periphery -- by which he means the populations of Latin America, Africa, and part of Asia, and the oppressed classes (including women and children) throughout the world. In 'Philosophy of Liberation,' he presents a profound analysis of the alienation of peripheral peoples resulting from the imperialism of the center for more than five centuries. Dussel's aim is to demonstrate that…
Deirdre Nansen McCloskey is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Economics and of History, and Professor Emerita of English and of Communication, adjunct in classics and philosophy, at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Trained at Harvard in the 1960s as an economist, she has written twenty-four books and some four hundred academic and popular articles on economic history, rhetoric, philosophy, statistical theory, economic theory, feminism, queer studies, liberalism, ethics, and law.
Polanyi, an eminent Hungarian Jewish chemist who spent his career at the University of Manchester, was the smarter brother of the more famous Karl Polanyi, the socialist economic historian. Michael (Mihály) shows in the book how science depends on ordinary, “personal” knowledge, as for example in riding a bicycle. He was a “liberal” in the European sense, unlike his brother, and saw the scientific community as analogous to a free market, and the free market as analogous to a scientific community.
The publication of Personal Knowledge in 1958 shook the science world, as Michael Polanyi took aim at the long-standing ideals of rigid empiricism and rule-bound logic. Today, Personal Knowledge remains one of the most significant philosophy of science books of the twentieth century, bringing the crucial concepts of “tacit knowledge” and “personal knowledge” to the forefront of inquiry.
In this remarkable treatise, Polanyi attests that our personal experiences and ways of sharing knowledge have a profound effect on scientific discovery. He argues against the idea of the wholly dispassionate researcher, pointing out that even in the strictest of sciences, knowing…
I was once an academic philosopher, but I found it too glamorous and well-paid so I became a novelist and private intellectual mentor instead. I wroteYou Are Herebecause I love whatscience knows, but an interest in howscience knows drew me into the philosophy of science, where a puzzle lurks. Scientists claim that the essence of their craft is captured in a 17th Century formula, “the scientific method”... and in a 20th Century litmus test, “falsifiability.” Philosophers claim that these two ideas are (a) both nonsense and (b) in any case mutually contradictory. So what’s going on?
There are many short, accessible introductions to what current philosophers of science spend their time arguing about; this is one of the best. It wisely doesn’t cover everything, but instead uses Francis Bacon’s crucial break with the authority of Aristotle as a point of entry into current debates on half a dozen core issues such as inductive inference, progress, and realism.
Few can imagine a world without telephones or televisions; many depend on computers and the Internet as part of daily life. Without scientific theory, these developments would not have been possible.
In this exceptionally clear and engaging introduction to philosophy of science, James Ladyman explores the philosophical questions that arise when we reflect on the nature of the scientific method and the knowledge it produces. He discusses whether fundamental philosophical questions about knowledge and reality might be answered by science, and considers in detail the debate between realists and antirealists about the extent of scientific knowledge. Along the way, central…
I became Buddhist while I was working in Southeast Asia, in Thailand specifically. Here’s one of the great lessons I learned, or perhaps it’s merely a koan, and that is this, no true Buddhist is Buddhist. It’s my own saying and one that I live by because Zen, Tibetan or Theravada are all structured disciplines with ritual and even recognized leaders. And I think the Buddha would laugh one of his full bellied roars to learn that there were, in some cases, global organizations all named in his honor. That’s not to make light of the way of organized Buddhism, merely to say that it isn’t my way.
I first encountered the philosophy of physicist Bohm in another book by the philosopher Renée Weber (Dialogues with Scientists and Sages) in which she, the Dalai Lama, and Bohm (among others) explore, well, everything. But Bohm’s own exploration blends Buddhist concepts with physics. One of the many reasons I am Buddhist myself is its architecture and allowance for new concepts including physics theory and the reality of light itself. His implicate order for the universe explains more about its reality than accepted current theory. I’m no physicist nor towering intellectual, but I am following the Buddha’s advice to figure it out for myself. This book helped immensely. Sadly his work is overlooked by the scientific community.
There are few scientists of the twentieth century whose life's work has created more excitement and controversy than that of physicist David Bohm (1917-1992). For the first time in a single volume, The Essential David Bohm offers a comprehensive overview of Bohm's original works from a non-technical perspective. Including three chapters of previously unpublished material, each reading has been selected to highlight some aspect of the implicate order process, and to provide an introduction to one of the most provocative thinkers of our time.
I'm a PEN Award-winning historian of alternative spirituality and a writer-in-residence at the New York Public Library. I track the impact and substance of supernatural beliefs—a source of fascination since my Queens, NY, boyhood—in books including Occult America, The Miracle Club, and Uncertain Places. I often say that if you do not write your own history, it gets written for you—usually by people who may not care about or even understand the values that emanate from your work. Given my personal dedication to the spiritual search, I call myself a believing historian (which most historians of religion actually are). I labor to explore the lives, ideas, and practices behind esoteric spirituality.
The most controversial aspect of nearly a century of research in quantum mechanics is how the perspective of an observer, either sentient or mechanical, determines reality on the subatomic scale. What does this say—if anything—about life in our above-ground, macro world? With zero sensationalism and great rigor, not to mention witty and accessible writing, physicists Rosenblum and Kuttner sort out questions of particle mechanics, quantum theory, and consciousness in a manner that is understandable to the layperson yet faithful to the findings of this most confounding of the hard sciences.
In trying to understand the atom, physicists built quantum mechanics, the most successful theory in science and the basis of one-third of our economy. They found, to their embarrassment, that with their theory, physics encounters consciousness. Authors Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner explain all this in non-technical terms with help from some fanciful stories and anecdotes about the theory's developers. They present the quantum mystery honestly, emphasizing what is and what is not speculation. Quantum Enigma's description of the experimental quantum facts, and the quantum theory explaining them, is undisputed. Interpreting what it all means, however, is heatedly controversial. But…
In Denmark, I teach at the Center for Videnskabsstudier.“Videnskabsstudier” is often translated as Science Studies.It thus connotes a rather broad field, which includes philosophical, historical, and sociological studies of science.And the notion of “videnskab”, which is frequently translated as science is interpreted rather broadly, to include, in addition to the natural science, the social sciences, and the humanities, indeed, basically any field one might study at a university. In fact, my own research intersects with and is influenced by research in all these fields.
Scientific realists generally assume that the growth of scientific knowledge is continuous and cumulative, with no significant setbacks. Discoveries in science generally add on to our current understanding of the world. Scientific realists generally regard scientific revolutions or paradigm changes as a threat to the rationality of science as such changes seem to imply that scientists have had a fundamentally flawed understanding of the world.
Psillos presents one of the most comprehensive and strongest cases for realism. Anyone who is serious about defending a view of the development of science that involves periodic revolutionary changes of theory, as I do, has to take Psillos’ arguments very seriously.
Scientific realism is the optimistic view that modern science is on the right track: that the world really is the way our best scientific theories describe it . In his book, Stathis Psillos gives us a detailed and comprehensive study which restores the intuitive plausibility of scientific realism. We see that throughout the twentieth century, scientific realism has been challenged by philosophical positions from all angles: from reductive empiricism, to instrumentalism and to modern sceptical empiricism. Scientific Realism explains that the history of science does not undermine the arguments for scientific realism, but instead makes it reasonable to accept scientific…
I’m a scientist at the University of Cambridge who’s worked on
environmental research topics such as jet streams and the Antarctic
ozone hole. I’ve also worked on solar physics and musical acoustics.
And other branches of science have always interested me. Toward the
end of my career, I became fascinated by cutting-edge issues in
biological evolution and natural selection. Evolution is far
richer and more complex than you’d think from its popular description
in terms of ‘selfish genes’. The complexities are central to
understanding deep connections between the sciences, the arts, and
human nature in general, and the profound differences between human
intelligence and artificial intelligence.
It achieves an important and unusual cross-fertilization between two
very different kinds of expertise. Both authors are highly
innovative, and creative, thinkers, Cohen in biology and Stewart in
mathematics.
Cohen is a biologist fascinated by the complexity
observed in the living world, and Stewart is an expert on the
mathematics of chaos and complexity. The result is a profound and
multifaceted view of many natural phenomena, and of evolution in
particular. It becomes very clear how selfish-gene theory fails to
take account of important evolutionary mechanisms.
Moving on from his books on chaos ("Does God Play Dice?") and symmetry ("Fearful Symmetry"), the author of this book deals with the wider field of complexity theory. The book tackles the question of how complexity arises in nature, of how life overcomes chaos and entropy to create developing order. Co-written with biologist Jack Cohen, the book will range across the central areas of modern science, from quantum mechanics and cosmology to evolution and intelligence, looking at the central questions of order, chaos, reductionism and complexity.
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