Science and the Sciences in Plato PDF Download

Author: John Peter Anton
Publisher: Eidos
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Author: Andrew Gregory
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472502388
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
In this illuminating book Andrew Gregory takes an original approach to Plato's philosophy of science by reassessing Plato's views on how we might investigate and explain the natural world. He demonstrates that many of the common charges against Plato - disinterest, ignorance, dismissal of observation - are unfounded, and shows instead that Plato had a series of important and cogent criticisms to make of the early atomists and other physiologoi. Plato's views on science, and on astronomy and cosmology in particular, are shown to have developed in interesting ways. Thus, the book argues, Plato can best be seen as a philosopher struggling with the foundations of scientific realism, and as someone, moreover, who has interesting epistemological, cosmological and nomological reasons for his approach. Plato's Philosophy of Science is important reading for all those with an interest in Ancient Philosophy and the History of Science.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Author: Scott Berman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350080225
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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What are the objects of science? Are they just the things in our scientific experiments that are located in space and time? Or does science also require that there be additional things that are not located in space and time? Using clear examples, these are just some of the questions that Scott Berman explores as he shows why alternative theories such as Nominalism, Contemporary Aristotelianism, Constructivism, and Classical Aristotelianism, fall short. He demonstrates why the objects of scientific knowledge need to be not located in space or time if they are to do the explanatory work scientists need them to do. The result is a contemporary version of Platonism that provides us with the best way to explain what the objects of scientific understanding are, and how those non-spatiotemporal things relate to the spatiotemporal things of scientific experiments, as well as everything around us, including even ourselves.

Author: John Peter Anton
Publisher: Academic Resources Corp
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 154

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Author: Andrew Gregory
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 147250237X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
In this illuminating book Andrew Gregory takes an original approach to Plato's philosophy of science by reassessing Plato's views on how we might investigate and explain the natural world. He demonstrates that many of the common charges against Plato - disinterest, ignorance, dismissal of observation - are unfounded, and shows instead that Plato had a series of important and cogent criticisms to make of the early atomists and other physiologoi. Plato's views on science, and on astronomy and cosmology in particular, are shown to have developed in interesting ways. Thus, the book argues, Plato can best be seen as a philosopher struggling with the foundations of scientific realism, and as someone, moreover, who has interesting epistemological, cosmological and nomological reasons for his approach. Plato's Philosophy of Science is important reading for all those with an interest in Ancient Philosophy and the History of Science.

Author: Thomas Kjeller Johansen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107320119
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Plato's dialogue the Timaeus-Critias presents two connected accounts, that of the story of Atlantis and its defeat by ancient Athens and that of the creation of the cosmos by a divine craftsman. This book offers a unified reading of the dialogue. It tackles a wide range of interpretative and philosophical issues. Topics discussed include the function of the famous Atlantis story, the notion of cosmology as 'myth' and as 'likely', and the role of God in Platonic cosmology. Other areas commented upon are Plato's concepts of 'necessity' and 'teleology', the nature of the 'receptacle', the relationship between the soul and the body, the use of perception in cosmology, and the work's peculiar monologue form. The unifying theme is teleology: Plato's attempt to show the cosmos to be organised for the good. A central lesson which emerges is that the Timaeus is closer to Aristotle's physics than previously thought.

Author: G E R Lloyd
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1448156718
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 149

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In this new series leading classical scholars interpret afresh the ancient world for the modern reader. They stress those questions and institutions that most concern us today: the interplay between economic factors and politics, the struggle to find a balance between the state and the individual, the role of the intellectual. Most of the books in this series centre on the great focal periods, those of great literature and art: the world of Herodotus and the tragedians, Plato and Aristotle, Cicero and Caesar, Virgil, Horace and Tacitus. This study traces Greek science through the work of the Pythagoreans, the Presocratic natural philosophers, the Hippocratic writers, Plato, the fourth-century B.C. astronomers and Aristotle. G. E. R. Lloyd also investigates the relationships between science and philosophy and science and medicine; he discusses the social and economic setting of Greek science; he analyses the motives and incentives of the different groups of writers.

Author: Luc Brisson
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791426913
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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A parallel investigation of both Plato's Timaeusand the contemporary standard Big Bang model of the universe shows that any possible scientific knowledge of the universe is ultimately grounded in irreducible and undemonstrable propositions. These are inventions of the human mind. The scientific knowledge of the universe is entirely composed in a series of axioms and rules of inference underlying a formalized system. There is no logical relationship between the sensible perception of a world of becoming and the formalized system of axioms known as a "scientific explanation." The "irrational gap" between perception and explanation can be appraised historically and identified in three stages: Plato's Timaeus furnishes the first example of a scientific theory dealing with a realm of ideality that cannot be derived from immediate sensible perception; the Big Bang model is constituted on the basis of the purely geometrical notion of symmetry; and in the more recent Algorithmic Theory of Information, the analysis of the purely symbolic language expressing physical reality reveals the level of complexity of any given theory formulated in this language. The result is that the probability of the universe actually conforming with simple mathematics is zero. In a formal system, a theorem contains more information than can be found in the set of axioms of this system, and it remains undecidable. In Aristotle' s language, the theorems that can be proved within a theoretical model are already potentially contained in the system of axioms underlying these theorems.

Author: Julia Annas
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 019157922X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
This lively and accessible introduction to Plato focuses on the philosophy and argument of his writings, drawing the reader into Plato's way of doing philosophy, and the general themes of his thinking. This is not a book to leave the reader standing in the outer court of introduction and background information, but leads directly into Plato's argument. It looks at Plato as a thinker grappling with philosophical problems in a variety of ways, rather than a philosopher with a fully worked-out system. It includes a brief account of Plato's life and the various interpretations that have been drawn from the sparse remains of information. It stresses the importance of the founding of the Academy and the conception of philosophy as a subject. Julia Annas discusses Plato's style of writing: his use of the dialogue form, his use of what we today call fiction, and his philosophical transformation of myths. She also looks at his discussions of love and philosophy, his attitude to women, and to homosexual love, explores Plato's claim that virtue is sufficient for happiness, and touches on his arguments for the immortality of the soul and his ideas about the nature of the universe. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.