From: John andor Carol Burgeson (burgytwo@juno.com)
Date: Thu Aug 21 2003 - 17:47:59 EDT
Glenn Morton challenged me to post some recent book information which is
supportive, at least in part, of the I.D. concepts.
One of these is NATURE, DESIGN & SCIENCE by Del Ratzsch. I intend to
address that book in a later post.
A second one is Realism Regained: An Exact Theory of Causation, Teleology
and the Mind (Oxford University Press, 2000, New York) by Robert C.
Koons. Some of us will remember Dr. Koons as the person most responsible
for the excellent 1997 conference in Austin, Texas titled "Naturalism,
Theism and the Scientific Enterprise." From Dr. Koons website, this about
the book:
Abstract: Causation has long been one of the central subjects in
philosophy. The late twentieth century has seen a renaissance of interest
in the subject, while the development of modal logic, probability theory,
mereology , defeasible or "nonmonotonic" logics, and partial semantics
(including the situation theory of Barwise, Perry and Etchemendy) have
provided the tools needed for an exact and comprehensive theory of
causation.
In Realism Regained, Koons constructs a non-Humean theory of causation
which sheds light on recent causal theories in epistemology and the
philosophy of mind. In the process, he develops a parsimonious
metaphysical theory, which accounts for such phenomena as: information,
teleology and biological function, mental representation, qualia and
mental causation, our knowledge of logic, mathematics and science, the
structure of spacetime, the identity of physical objects, and the
objectivity of values and moral norms.
Realism Regained offers a broadly "naturalistic" account of norms,
building upon and refining the teleological theories of Dretske, Stampe,
Millikan and others. However, Koons argues against a narrowly
materialistic view, providing seven independent lines of argument for the
existence of non-physical facts, in particular, facts of logical,
mathematical and natural necessity.
There is more -- see (on Dr. Koons):
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/koons/menus/conference.html
and (on his book):
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/koons/menus/book.html
Has anyone here studied this book? Is it one worth ordering? (Del
Ratzsch's book certainly is).
John Burgeson
www.burgy.50megs.com
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