Reduction and Emergence in Chemistry Most talk of reduction and emergence figures in discussions about the relation between different physical theories, or between physics and biology. The aim of this article is to present a different perspective through which to examine reduction and emergence; namely, the perspective of chemistry’s relation to physics. Very broadly, reduction is associated with the idea that the sciences are hierarchically

Spinoza: Free Will and Freedom Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was a Dutch Jewish rationalist philosopher who is most famous for his Ethics and Theological-Political Treatise. Although influenced by Stoicism, Maimonides, Machiavelli, Descartes, and Hobbes, among others, he developed distinct and innovative positions on a number of issues in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, biblical hermeneutics, and theology. He is also known as a pivotal figure in the

Charles Hartshorne: Neoclassical Metaphysics Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000) was an intrepid defender of the claims of metaphysics in a century characterized by its anti-metaphysical genius. While many influential voices were explaining what speculative philosophy could not accomplish or even proclaiming an end to it, Hartshorne was trying to show what speculative philosophy could accomplish. Metaphysics, he said, has a future as well as a past. He

The Safety Condition for Knowledge A number of epistemologists have defended a necessary condition for knowledge that has come to be labeled as the “safety” condition. Timothy Williamson, Duncan Pritchard, and Ernest Sosa are the foremost defenders of safety. According to these authors an agent S knows a true proposition P only if S could not easily have falsely believed P. Disagreement arises, however, with

Evolutionary Psychology In its broad sense, the term “evolutionary psychology” stands for any attempt to adopt an evolutionary perspective on human behavior by supplementing psychology with the central tenets of evolutionary biology. The underlying idea is that since our mind is the way it is at least in part because of our evolutionary past, evolutionary theory can aid our understanding not only of the human