Genetic transparency? : ethical and social implications of next generation human genomics and genetic medicine /
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Genetic Transparency? tackles the question of who has, or should have access to personal genomic information. Genomic science is revolutionary in how it changes the way we live, individually and together, and how it changes the shape of society. If this is so, then - the authors of this volume claim - the rules that regulate genetic transparency should be debated carefully, openly and critically. It is important to see that the social and cultural meanings of DNA and genetic sequences are much richer than can be accounted for by purely biomedical knowledge. In this book, an international group of leading genomics experts and scholars from the humanities and social sciences discuss how the new accessibility of genomic information affects interpersonal relationships, our self-understandings, ethics, law, and healthcare systems. Contributors are: Kirsten Brukamp, Gabrielle Christenhusz, Lorraine Cowley, Malte Dreyer, Jeanette Erdmann, Andrei Famenka, Teresa Finlay, Caroline Fündling, Shannon Gibson, Cathy Herbrand, Angeliki Kerasidou, Lene Koch, Fruzsina Molnár-Gábor, Tim Ohnhäuser, Christoph Rehmann-Sutter, Benedikt Reiz, Vasilja Rolfes, Sara Tocchetti
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1 online resource (292 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004311893 :
2211-4416 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Debating cognitive existentialism : values and orientations in hermeneutic philosophy of science /
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Cognitive existentialism is a version of hermeneutic philosophy. The volume provides a summation of the critical approaches to this version. All essays are engaged in probing the value of universal hermeneutics. Drawing on various conceptions developed in analytical and Continental traditions, the authors explore the interpretative dimensions of scientific inquiry. They try to place the projects of their investigations in historical, socio-cultural, and political contexts. The task of extending hermeneutics to the natural sciences is an initiative of much relevance to the dialogue between the scientific and humanistic culture. A special aspect of this dialogue, addressed by all authors, is the promotion of interpretive reflexivity in both kinds of academic culture.
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1 online resource (x, 201 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004299191 :
0929-8436 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Thinking about provincialism in thinking /
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The volume addresses a problem rarely discussed by philosophers - the question of provincialism in science (in the broadest sense of the term). There are only a few great centers of science, which attract funding and provide almost ideal opportunities for research and development. They also attract some of the best researchers. Some - but not all. For a variety of reasons, some of the best researchers, or ones who have that potential, may do science outside these centers, in the provinces. The volume is devoted to the problems they face. What is an intellectual province? Who are the provincial thinkers? What is the mark of provincialism? Do provincial (or central) thinkers have any special duties? Are there ways of overcoming one's own provincialism? The authors address these questions across different disciplines, cultures, locations and time periods.
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1 online resource (301 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789401209007 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Genomics and democracy : towards a 'lingua democratica' for the public debate on genomics /
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This book addresses the ethical and political questions flowing from the vastly increased possibilities to manipulate the genetic properties of organisms, including human beings. Due to the great complexity of the scientific fields involved, these questions are framed and answered mostly by scientific experts. But the new technological possibilities and social practices connected with genetic manipulation intrude into domains that for a long time have been the provenance of religious and secular worldviews and touch upon deep-seated convictions and emotions. Moreover they are strongly influenced by economic and political interests. As a consequence, questions of scientific truth and technical control are getting more and more mixed up with questions regarding values and interests. Against this background, this book starts from the premise that neither clinging to the idea of value-neutral, disinterested science, nor the complete abandonment of this idea in favour of postmodern relativism will be of much help here. Instead the different contributions to this book explore the idea of a 'lingua democratica' for the life sciences and sketch the contours of this notion by focusing on a broad range of conceptual and practical issues in the field of genomics.
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1 online resource (355 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789401209755 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Social brain matters : stances on the neurobiology of social cognition /
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This book examines philosophical and scientific implications of Neodarwinism relative to recent empirical data. It develops explanations of social behavior and cognition through analysis of mental capabilities and consideration of ethical issues. It includes debate within cognitive science among explanations of social and moral phenomena from philosophy, evolutionary and cognitive psychology, neurobiology, linguistics, and computer science. The series Cognitive Science provides an original corpus of scholarly work that makes explicit the import of cognitive-science research for philosophical analysis. Topics include the nature, structure, and justification of knowledge, cognitive architectures and development, brain-mind theories, and consciousness.
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1 online resource (xv, 299 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789401204491 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The limits of science : an analysis from "barriers" to "confines" /
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The problem of the limits of science is twofold. First, there is the problem of demarcation, id est, the boundaries or "barriers" between what is science and what is not science. Second, there is the problem of the ceiling of scientific activity, which leads to the "confines" of this human enterprise. These two faces of the problem of the limits - the "barriers" and the "confines" of science - require a new analysis, which is the task of this book. The authors take into account the Kantian roots but they are focused on the current stage of the philosophical and methodological analyses of science. This vision looks to supersede the Kantian approach in order to reach a richer conception of science.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004325401 :
0303-8157 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The search for a theory of cognition : early mechanisms and new ideas /
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The book brings into relief the variety of approaches and disciplines that have informed the quest for a theory of cognition. The center of interest are the historical, geographical, and theoretical peripheries of classic AI's mainstream research program. The twelve chapters bring back into focus the variety of strategies and theoretical questions that researchers explored while working toward a scientific theory of cognition and pre-cognition. The volume is organized in four parts, each one including three essays. The first one deals with cybernetics, the approach that may be considered as the most important periphery of classic AI research. The second part focuses on the geographical periphery of AI research. It examines how the theories and techniques developed on AI's home ground were translated into countries with different cultures and traditions: Italy, France, and the Soviet Union. The third part focuses on AI's periphery understood in the cultural and historical meaning of the term. It contains essays that locate some of the central concepts of AI, like representation and computability, within a broader philosophical (Descartes, Aristotle, Leibniz) and technical background (programming theory and practice). The fourth and final part of the volume is focused directly on the limitation of Turing's classic computability theory and its possible alternatives, some of which were studied in the early years of AI's research (e.g. Ashby's re-entrant information model), while others have been intensely studied in recent times (quantum automata).
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1 online resource (xxvii, 375 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 313-351) and index. :
9789401207157 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The scaffolding of our thoughts : essays on Assyriology and the history of science in honor of Francesca Rochberg /
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Francesca Rochberg has for more than thirty-five years been a leading figure in the study of ancient science. Her foundational insights on the concepts of "science," "canon," "celestial divination," "knowledge," "gods," and "nature" in cuneiform cultures have demanded continual contemplation on the tenets and assumptions that underlie the fields of Assyriology and the History of Science. "The Scaffolding of Our Thoughts" honors this luminary with twenty essays, each reflecting on aspects of her work. Following an initial appraisal of ancient "science" by Sir Geoffrey Lloyd, the contributions in the first half explore practices of knowledge in Assyriological sources. The second half of the volume focuses specifically on astronomical and astrological spheres of knowledge in the Ancient Mediterranean.
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Includes index. :
1 online resource. :
9789004363380 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Jahān-i dānish /
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Sharaf al-Din Mas'ūdi (6th/12th cent.) was a philosopher, astronomer, mathematician and logician. A native of Marw, he spent a large part of his life in Bukhara and Samarqand, Transoxiana. In Bukhara he had a number of debates with the philosopher and theologian Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī (d. 606/1210), described in the latter's Munāẓarāt jarat fī bilād Mā warāʾ al-nahr . From among his philosophical works, his critical notes to Avicenna's (d. 428/1037) al-Ishārāt wal-tanbīhāt deserve special mention. In the sciences, he wrote a work on astronomy and geography called al-Kifāya fī ʿilm al-hayʾa . In the introduction to this work he explains that he composed it at the request of a friend and that it is based on the works of others, among then Ibn al-Haytham (d. ca. 432/1040-41) and Kushyār b. Labbān (fl. late 4th/10th cent.). Afterwards, he translated it into Persian-this time without mentioning his sources-calling it Jahāni- dānish , published in this volume.
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1 online resource. :
9789004403383
9789646781764
Pizhūhishhāʾī dar tārīkh-i ʿilm : Maqālātī dar bāra-yi tārīkh-i riyāḍiyyāt, nujūm, mikānīk, wa pizishkī /
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As is well known, large parts of the Greek sciences were assimilated by the medieval Muslim world. Equally well known is the fact that quite a number of Muslim scholars contributed to the further development of some of these sciences and also, that some of their works were translated into Latin and other western languages, leaving their imprint on late medieval and early modern science in turn. For this reason, anyone interested in the history of science in the western world will be interested in reading about the history of science in Islam and vice versa. This is why the editor of the present collection of articles has done well to bring together contributions from both fields, in French, English, and Persian. While all of these articles are interesting in their own right, the section dedicated to Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī (d. 672/1274) and a study of Descartes' (d. 1650) de Solidorum elementis deserve special mention.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405813
9786002030184
Rawḍat al-munajjimīn /
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In the first centuries of Islam, Arabic gradually replaced Middle Persian to become the language of the new religion and the administration of Iran. Works in Middle Persian were translated into Arabic and Persian authors also started writing directly in Arabic. From the fifth/eleventh century onward, there arose a need for works in New Persian, either translated from Arabic or composed in New Persian straightaway. The work published in this volume is a product of that period. Not much is known about the life of its author, Shahmardān b. Abi ʼl-Khayr. A resident of Gurgān and Astarābād, he was a scholar who also worked as a secretary and financial officer. In astronomy, he was a student of Abu ʼl-Ḥasan Nasawī (fl. 2nd quart. 5th/11th cent.). Shahmardān's work is an accessible, popularized compilation of the works of others, among them Abū Maʿshar (d. 272/886), Kushyār b. Labbān (fl. late 4th/10th cent.), and Bīrūnī (d. 440/1048)
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1 online resource. :
9789004403673
9789646781795
Rāshīkāt al-Hind : Tanāsub nazd-i Hindiyān /
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Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī (d. after 442/1050) is one of the greatest scholars in the history of Islam. A native of Kāth, capital of Khwārazm, he wrote on subjects ranging from mathematics, geography, astronomy and natural science to history, linguistics and ethnography. He was a student of, among others, the astronomer-mathematicians Kushyār b. Labbān (fl. 390/1000) and Abū Maḥmūd al-Khujandī (d. 390/1000). He also met and corresponded with Avicenna (d. 428/1037). As was common for a scholar of his rank in those days, he spent his life in the entourage of powerful rulers, in Khwārazm, Khurāsān, and Sidjistān. It was at the court of Maḥmūd b. Sebüktigin (d. 421/1030) and his sucessors in Ghazna that he accompanied Maḥmūd on his campaigns to north-west India. It is there that he got acquainted with Indian methods in the arithmetic of proportions and ratios, the subject of this book. Arabic text with a Persian translation by the editor.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405615
9789648700954
The Arabic Version of Aristotle's Historia Animalium, Book I-X of <i>Kitāb al-Hayawān</i>.
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Aristotle's Historia Animalium is one of the most famous and influential zoological works that was ever written. It was translated into Arabic in the 9th century CE together with Aristotle's other zoological works, On the Generation of Animals and On the Parts of Animals . As a result, the influence of Aristotelian zoology is widely traceable in classical Arabic literary culture and thought. The Arabic translation found its way into Europe through the 13th-century Latin translation by Michael Scotus, which was extensively used by medieval European scholars. A critical edition of the Arabic Historia Animalium has long been awaited, and Lourus Filius's edition, based on all extant Arabic MSS, as well as on Scotus's Latin translation, can rightly be seen as a scholarly landmark.
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1 online resource. :
9789004315969
Seh risāla az Thābit b. Qurra : Sāʿathā-yi āftābī, Ḥarakat-i khurshīd u māh, Chahārdah wajhī muḥāṭ dar kurah /
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Thābit b. Qurra (d. 288/901) was a gifted mathematician, scientist and translator of many Greek scientific works, who knew Greek, Syriac and Arabic. He might have spent his entire life in his native Ḥarrān as a money-changer were it not for his chance encounter with Muḥammad b. Mūsā (259/873) of the famous Banū Mūsā brothers, specialists in mathematics and astronomy and among the most important intellectuals of Baghdad at the time. Appreciating his intelligence and his mastery of languages, Muḥammad took Thābit back with him to Baghdad, where he was trained in philosophy, astronomy and mathematics. Thābit then set out on a brilliant career as a translator and author in his own right, writing on all the applied sciences of his time. This facsimile edition of three texts on sundials, solar and lunar motions, and a fourteen-sided solid inside a sphere reproduces the well-known MS Istanbul, Köprülü 948, dated 370/981, copied by Thābit's grandson Ibrāhīm.
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"Nuskhah bargardān bih qaṭʻ-i aṣl-i nuskhah-i khaṭṭī bih shumārah-i 948 Kitābkhānah-i Kūprūlū (Istānbūl) kitābat 370 hijrī".
"A facsimile edition of the manuscript (MS 948, Koprulu Library, Istanbul, Turkey) copied in 370 A.H (981 A.D)"--Added title page. :
1 online resource. :
9789004406360
9786002030511
Aristotle De animalibus. Michael Scot's Arabic-Latin translation, volume 1a: Books I-III: History of animals : a critical edition with an introduction, notes and indices /
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"Aristotle's De Animalibus was an important source of zoological knowledge for the ancient Greeks and for medieval Arabs and Europeans. In the thirteenth century, the work was twice translated into Latin. One translation was produced directly from the Greek by William of Moerbeke. An earlier translation, made available as a critical edition in the present volume for the first time, was produced through an intermediary Arabic translation (Kitāb al-Ḥayawān) by Michael Scot (1175--c. 1232). Scot's translation was one of the main sources of knowledge on animals in Europe and widely used until well into the fifteenth century. As a faithful translation of a translation produced by a Syriac-speaking Christian, the text contributes to our knowledge of Middle Arabic. The De Animalibus is composed of three sections: History of Animals (ten books), Parts of Animals (four books) and Generation of Animals (five books). Parts of Animals and Generation of Animals were published by Brill as Volumes 5.2 and 5.3 of the book series ASL in 1998 (ASL 5.2) and 1992 (ASL 5.3). The present Volume 5.1.a contains the first section of Scot's translation of History of Animals: the general introduction and books 1--3, with Notes. Editions of the two concluding parts of History of Animals, ASL 5.1.b, books 4--6 and ASL 5.1.c, books 7--10, are in preparation. Complete Latin-Arabic and Arabic-Latin indices of History of Animals will be published in due course".
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789004411333
Arabic Astronomy in Sanskrit : Al-Birjandī on Tadhkira II, Chapter 11 and its Sanskrit Translation /
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This book provides the first presentation of the bilingual textual material that illustrates the transmission of Islamic astronomy to scientists of the Indian Sanskritic tradition. It includes editions of the chapter of the Tadhkira in which the mid-thirteenth century Persian astronomer, Nasīr al-dīn al-ṭūsī discussed the new solutions that he devised to overcome certain technical problems in the lunar and planetary models of Ptolemaic astronomy and of the learned commentary composed by al-Birjandī in the early sixteenth century together with the Sanskrit translation of both made by Nayanasukha at Jaipur in 1729. An English translation of the Arabic texts and a commentary discussing their technical meanings and the deviations from them in the Sanskrit version together with a glossary of the Arabic and Sanskrit technical vocabulary conclude the volume.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004453418
9789004124752
Essays in the philosophy and history of logic and mathematics /
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The book is a collection of the author's selected works in the philosophy and history of logic and mathematics. Papers in Part I include both general surveys of contemporary philosophy of mathematics as well as studies devoted to specialized topics, like Cantor's philosophy of set theory, the Church thesis and its epistemological status, the history of the philosophical background of the concept of number, the structuralist epistemology of mathematics and the phenomenological philosophy of mathematics. Part II contains essays in the history of logic and mathematics. They address such issues as the philosophical background of the development of symbolism in mathematical logic, Giuseppe Peano and his role in the creation of contemporary logical symbolism, Emil L. Post's works in mathematical logic and recursion theory, the formalist school in the foundations of mathematics and the algebra of logic in England in the 19th century. The history of mathematics and logic in Poland is also considered. This volume is of interest to historians and philosophers of science and mathematics as well as to logicians and mathematicians interested in the philosophy and history of their fields.
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A collection of previously published essays; those originally written in Polish have been translated into English for this publication. :
1 online resource (343 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references (p. 301-334) and index. :
9789042030916 :
0303-8157 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.