Books in the The Evolution of Modern Philosophy series

This book charts the evolution of metaphysics since Descartes, providing an unusually wide-ranging history that includes both analytic and non-analytic schools of thought. It also provides a compelling case for why metaphysics matters and how it can help us to cope with continually changing demands on our humanity by making sense of things in ways that are radically new.

A magisterial study of the philosophy of physics, pursuing the conceptual development of physics from Galileo and Newton to Einstein and the founders of quantum mechanics. There is also discussion of important philosophers of physics in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and of twentieth-century debates.

This book traces the linguistic turns in the history of modern philosophy and the development of the philosophy of language. Michael Losonsky shows how the history of the philosophy of language in the modern period is marked by an as yet unintegrated dichotomy between formal and pragmatic perspectives on language.

Is life different from the non-living? If so, how? And how, in that case, does biology as the study of living things differ from other sciences? These questions are traced through an exploration of episodes in the history of biology and philosophy. The book begins with Aristotle, then moves on to Descartes, comparing his position with that of Harvey. In the eighteenth century the authors consider Buffon and Kant. In the nineteenth century the authors examine the Cuvier-Geoffroy debate, pre-Darwinian geology and natural theology, Darwin and the transition from Darwin to the revival of Mendelism. Two chapters deal with the evolutionary synthesis and such questions as the species problem, the reducibility or otherwise of biology to physics and chemistry, and the problem of biological explanation in terms of function and teleology. The final chapters reflect on the implications of the philosophy of biology for philosophy of science in general.

Charles Taliaferro has written a dynamic narrative history of philosophical reflection on religion from the seventeenth century to the present, with an emphasis on shifting views of faith and the nature of evidence. The book begins with the movement called Cambridge Platonism, which formed a bridge between the ancient and medieval worlds and early modern philosophy. While the book provides a general overview of different movements in philosophy, it also offers a detailed exposition and reflection on key arguments. The scope is broad, from Descartes to contemporary feminist philosophy of religion. Written with clarity and verve, this is a book that will appeal to professionals and students in the philosophy of religion, religious studies, and the history of ideas, as well as informed lay readers.

Examines the relations between logic and philosophy over the last 150 years. This mathematical and philosophical movement created the analytical style of philosophy. This book is an exposition and critique of its major trends and includes expositions of mathematical results in logic often inaccessible to philosophers.