Product Description: Drawing on his sweeping and innovative research, philosopher and cognitive scientist J. D. Trout recruits the latest findings in psychology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience to answer the question: How can we make better personal decisions and design social policies that improve the lives of everyone?We are touched when faced with the hardships of others, whether caused by unemployment, poor schools, crime, poverty, poor health, or the financial insecurity of credit and mortgage debt...read more

Product Description: Drawing on his sweeping and innovative research, philosopher and cognitive scientist J. D. Trout recruits the latest findings in psychology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience to answer the question: How can we make better personal decisions and design social policies that improve the lives of everyone?We are touched when faced with the hardships of others, whether caused by unemployment, poor schools, crime, poverty, poor health, or the financial insecurity of credit and mortgage debt...read more

Bishop and Trout here present a unique and provocative new approach to epistemology (the theory of human knowledge and reasoning). Their approach aims to liberate epistemology from the scholastic debates of standard analytic epistemology, and treat it as a branch of the philosophy of science. The approach is novel in its use of cost-benefit analysis to guide people facing real reasoning problems and in its framework for resolving normative disputes in psychology. Based on empirical data, Bishop and Trout show how people can improve their reasoning by relying on Statistical Prediction Rules (SPRs). They then develop and articulate the positive core of the book. Their view, Strategic Reliabilism, claims that epistemic excellence consists in the efficient allocation of cognitive resources to reliable reasoning strategies, applied to significant problems. The last third of the book develops the implications of this view for standard analytic epistemology; for resolving normative disputes in psychology; and for offering practical, concrete advice on how this theory can improve real people's reasoning.This is a truly distinctive and controversial work that spans many disciplines and will speak to an unusually diverse group, including people in epistemology, philosophy of science, decision theory, cognitive and clinical psychology, and ethics and public policy.

Contemporary Materialism brings together the best recent work on materialism from many of our leading contemporary philosophers. This is the first comprehensive reader on the subject. The majority of philosophers and scientists today hold the view that all phenomena are physical, as a result materialism or 'physicalism' is now the dominant ontology in a wide range of fields. Surprisingly no single book, until now, has collected the key investigations into materialism, to reflect the impact it has had on current thinking in metaphysics, philosophy of mind and the theory of value. The classic papers in this collection chart contemporary problems, positions and themes in materialism. At the invitation of the editors, many of the papers have been specially up-dated for this collection: follow-on pieces written by the contributors enable them to appraise the original paper and assess developments since the work was first published. The book's selections are largely non-technical and accessible to advanced undergraduates. The editors have provided a useful general introduction, outlining and contextualising this central system of thought, as well as a topical bibliography. Contemporary Materialism will be vital reading for anyone concerned to discover the ideas underlying contemporary philosophy. David Armstrong, University of Sydney; Jerry Fodor, Rutgers University, New Jersey; Tim Crane, University College, London; D. H. Mellor, Univeristy of Cambridge; J.J.C.

Product Description: This volume is intended as an accessible introduction to contemporary epistemology - the theory of knowledge. It introduces traditional topics in epistemology within the context of contemporary debates about the definition, sources, and limits of human knowledge...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

The more than 40 readings in this anthology cover the most important developments of the past six decades, charting the rise and decline of logical positivism and the gradual emergence of a new consensus concerning the major issues and theoretical options in the field. The editors have included articles on all of the major special sciences and emphasize the relation between the more theoretical and applied questions. Part One deals with basic theoretical issues: confirmation, semantics, and the interpretation of theories; causation and explanation; and reductionism and the unity of science. In Part Two, these relatively abstract themes are illustrated and examined further in light of issues in the various special sciences such as physics, biology, psychology, and social science. (view table of contents)