Andreas Huttemann - Böcker

'Microphysicalism', the view that whole objects behave the way they do in virtue of the behaviour of their constituent parts, is an influential contemporary view with a long philosophical and scientific heritage. In What's Wrong With Microphysicalism? Andreas Hüttemann offers a fresh challenge to this view.Hüttemann agrees with the microphysicalists that we can explain compound systems by explaining their parts, but claims that this does not entail a fundamentalism that gives hegemony to the micro-level. At most, it shows that there is a relationship of determination between parts and wholes, but there is no justification for taking this relationship to be asymmetrical rather than one of mutual dependence. Hüttemann argues that if this is the case, then microphysicalists have no right to claim that the micro-level is the ultimate agent: neither the parts nor the whole have 'ontological priority'. Hüttemann advocates a pragmatic pluralism, allowing for different ways to describe nature.What's Wrong With Microphysicalism? is a convincing and original contribution to central issues in contemporary philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and metaphysics.

Inductive Metaphysics (IM) is a comparatively new branch of metaphysics that justifies metaphysical principles by inductive or abductive inferences from empirical evidence, rather than by purely logico-conceptual considerations. This is the first volume to provide a representative picture of current research and debates in this branch of metaphysics.Metaphysics was traditionally conceived as a purely conceptual, a priori enterprise. Besides the traditional view, there has always been the opposite view of metaphysics as an a posteriori discipline, but it was not until the 19th century that an a posteriori understanding of metaphysics was turned into a philosophical program entitled "Inductive Metaphysics". The program of IM argues that premises in metaphysical arguments should rely on empirical data and that inductive and abductive inferences are legitimate methods in metaphysics. This volume explores IM as a continuously expanding and highly topical field of metaphysics with contributions in virtually all domains of the discipline. The chapters are divided into six thematic sections. It starts with a section on the increasing role of IM in the history of philosophy and in contemporary philosophy. The next section addresses the central role of the method of abduction for IM, followed by a section on the relation of IM to metaphysical accounts of grounding, explanation, and evidence, and a section on IM and the formation of concepts. The last two sections cover the applications of IM in physics and in the life sciences.Inductive Metaphysics will appeal to scholars and graduate students working in metaphysics, philosophy of science, epistemology, logic, and cognitive science.The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution‑ShareAlike (CC‑BY‑SA) 4.0 International license. Funded by DFG (research unit FOR 2495, project number SCHU 1566/13‑1) and Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf (Open Access Fund).

'Microphysicalism', the view that whole objects behave the way they do in virtue of the behaviour of their constituent parts, is an influential contemporary view with a long philosophical and scientific heritage. In What's Wrong With Microphysicalism? Andreas Hüttemann offers a fresh challenge to this view.Hüttemann agrees with the microphysicalists that we can explain compound systems by explaining their parts, but claims that this does not entail a fundamentalism that gives hegemony to the micro-level. At most, it shows that there is a relationship of determination between parts and wholes, but there is no justification for taking this relationship to be asymmetrical rather than one of mutual dependence. Hüttemann argues that if this is the case, then microphysicalists have no right to claim that the micro-level is the ultimate agent: neither the parts nor the whole have 'ontological priority'. Hüttemann advocates a pragmatic pluralism, allowing for different ways to describe nature.What's Wrong With Microphysicalism? is a convincing and original contribution to central issues in contemporary philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and metaphysics.

Der Begriff der Ursache spielt eine zentrale Rolle, wenn es um Verantwortung, Erklärungen oder Kontrolle von Ereignissen geht. Dabei ist aber auch trotz der langen Tradition des Begriffs in der Philosophienicht klar, ob es überhaupt zwingende Kausalverhältnisse gibt.In diesem neuen Grundthemen-Band folgt der Autor dem bewährten Prinzip der Reihe: Nach einem historischen Abschnitt über den Ursachenbegriff entwickelt er mit Bezug auf gegenwärtige Debatten einen eigenen Ansatz. Dabei verbindet er aktuelle philosophische mit naturwissenschaftlichen Theorien.

Ursachen spielen im Alltag und in der Wissenschaft eine zentrale Rolle. Wir stützen uns auf Ursachenwissen wenn wir Vorhersagen machen, wenn wir Phänomene erklären, wenn wir in die Natur eingreifen und wenn wir Verantwortung zuschreiben. Aber was heißt es, dass etwas die Ursache eines Ereignisses ist? Dieses Buch gibt einen kurzen Überblick über historische Positionen, die auch für heutige Debatten noch relevant sind. Im Hauptteil wird ein systematischer Überblick über die wesentlichen Theorien von Ursachen gegeben: die Regularitätstheorie, die kontrafaktische Theorie, die Prozesstheorie und neuere Formen des Interventionismus. Zwei Fragestellungen spielen bei der Bewertung der verschiedenen Ansätze eine zentrale Rolle: Wie wird erklärt, dass Ursachen ihre Wirkungen ,erzwingen‘? Wie wird verständlich gemacht, dass Ursachen Teil einer Welt sein können, die durch die Physik beschrieben wird? Schließlich entwickelt der Verfasser eine neue Variante einer Prozesstheorie, die darauf verzichtet Prozesse physikalisch auszuzeichnen. Die Neuauflage enthält eine deutliche Weiterentwicklung der Position des Verfassers. Zudem wurde der gesamte Text durchgesehen sowie neu erschienene Literatur berücksichtigt.

Explanation in the Special Sciences