Peirce's Scientific Metaphysics: The Philosophy of Chance, Law, and Evolution

摘要: Peirce's Scientific Metaphysics is the first book devoted to understanding Charles Sanders (1839-1914) metaphysics from perspective of scientific questions that motivated his thinking. Deftly situating often original and pathbreaking ideas within their appropriate historical contexts, Reynolds traces reliance upon law large numbers, which illustrated for Peirce emergence a stable order regularity multitude chance events, throughout writings on late nineteenth-century physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, cosmology. Along way, vision an indeterministic evolutionary cosmology contrasted with thought other important scientists philosophers, such as James Clerk Maxwell, Ludwig Boltzmann, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Herbert Spencer, Darwin, Ernst Haeckel. While offering detailed account theories essential metaphysical system (e.g., irreversibility time reversibility physical laws, statistical numbers), this written in manner accessible non-specialist. This will make it especially attractive students philosophy who lack familiarity mathematical are so central thought. Those interest history science, concerning application probabilistic thinking cosmology, find discussion invaluable.