The Nature of Contingency

The Nature of Contingency
Author: Alastair Wilson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2020
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0198846215

This book defends a radical new theory of contingency as a physical phenomenon. Drawing on the many-worlds approach, it argues that quantum theories are best understood as telling us about the space of genuine possibilities, rather than as telling us solely about actuality.

The Nature of Contingency

The Nature of Contingency
Author: Alastair Wilson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2020-02-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0192585142

This book defends a radical new theory of contingency as a physical phenomenon. Drawing on the many-worlds approach to quantum theory and cutting-edge metaphysics and philosophy of science, it argues that quantum theories are best understood as telling us about the space of genuine possibilities, rather than as telling us solely about actuality. When quantum physics is taken seriously in the way first proposed by Hugh Everett III, it provides the resources for a new systematic metaphysical framework encompassing possibility, necessity, actuality, chance, counterfactuals, and a host of related modal notions. Rationalist metaphysicians argue that the metaphysics of modality is strictly prior to any scientific investigation; metaphysics establishes which worlds are possible, and physics merely checks which of these worlds is actual. Naturalistic metaphysicians respond that science may discover new possibilities and new impossibilities. This book's quantum theory of contingency takes naturalistic metaphysics one step further, allowing that science may discover what it is to be possible. As electromagnetism revealed the nature of light, as acoustics revealed the nature of sound, as statistical mechanics revealed the nature of heat, so quantum physics reveals the nature of contingency.

Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity

Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity
Author: Richard Rorty
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 222
Release: 1989-02-24
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780521367813

In this 1989 book Rorty argues that thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein have enabled societies to see themselves as historical contingencies, rather than as expressions of underlying, ahistorical human nature or as realizations of suprahistorical goals. This ironic perspective on the human condition is valuable on a private level, although it cannot advance the social or political goals of liberalism. In fact Rorty believes that it is literature not philosophy that can do this, by promoting a genuine sense of human solidarity. A truly liberal culture, acutely aware of its own historical contingency, would fuse the private, individual freedom of the ironic, philosophical perspective with the public project of human solidarity as it is engendered through the insights and sensibilities of great writers. The book has a characteristically wide range of reference from philosophy through social theory to literary criticism. It confirms Rorty's status as a uniquely subtle theorist, whose writing will prove absorbing to academic and nonacademic readers alike.

The Nature of Contingency

The Nature of Contingency
Author: Alastair Wilson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2020-02-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0192585150

This book defends a radical new theory of contingency as a physical phenomenon. Drawing on the many-worlds approach to quantum theory and cutting-edge metaphysics and philosophy of science, it argues that quantum theories are best understood as telling us about the space of genuine possibilities, rather than as telling us solely about actuality. When quantum physics is taken seriously in the way first proposed by Hugh Everett III, it provides the resources for a new systematic metaphysical framework encompassing possibility, necessity, actuality, chance, counterfactuals, and a host of related modal notions. Rationalist metaphysicians argue that the metaphysics of modality is strictly prior to any scientific investigation; metaphysics establishes which worlds are possible, and physics merely checks which of these worlds is actual. Naturalistic metaphysicians respond that science may discover new possibilities and new impossibilities. This book's quantum theory of contingency takes naturalistic metaphysics one step further, allowing that science may discover what it is to be possible. As electromagnetism revealed the nature of light, as acoustics revealed the nature of sound, as statistical mechanics revealed the nature of heat, so quantum physics reveals the nature of contingency.

Theism and Ultimate Explanation

Theism and Ultimate Explanation
Author: Timothy O'Connor
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2012-02-20
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1444350889

An expansive, yet succinct, analysis of the Philosophy of Religion – from metaphysics through theology. Organized into two sections, the text first examines truths concerning what is possible and what is necessary. These chapters lay the foundation for the book’s second part – the search for a metaphysical framework that permits the possibility of an ultimate explanation that is correct and complete. A cutting-edge scholarly work which engages with the traditional metaphysician’s quest for a true ultimate explanation of the most general features of the world we inhabit Develops an original view concerning the epistemology and metaphysics of modality, or truths concerning what is possible or necessary Applies this framework to a re-examination of the cosmological argument for theism Defends a novel version of the Leibnizian cosmological argument

Recursivity and Contingency

Recursivity and Contingency
Author: Yuk Hui
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2019-01-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1786600544

This book is an investigation of algorithmic contingency and an elucidation of the contemporary situation that we are living in: the regular arrival of algorithmic catastrophes on a global scale. Through a historical analysis of philosophy, computation and media, this book proposes a renewed relation between nature and technics.

The Medium of Contingency

The Medium of Contingency
Author: Robin Mackay
Publisher: Ridinghouse
Total Pages: 82
Release: 2011
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9781905464395

The notion of 'contingency' has become crucial both in contemporary philosophy, and, as the artists in this volume suggest, in art today. Transcriptions of lectures by Reza Negarestani, Elie Ayache and Matthew Poole discuss the need for artists to abandon notions of autonomy and knowledge the greater networks to which they belong. This publication also includes a group discussion with the exhibition organizer, gallerist Miguel Abreu, and artists Scott Lyall and Sam Lewitt, that explores how a contemporary reading of the notion of 'contingency' is relevant to contemporary artists.

The Contingency Theory of Organizations

The Contingency Theory of Organizations
Author: Lex Donaldson
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2001-02-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780761915744

This volume presents a comprehensive, in-depth analysis of the theories, evidence and methodological issues of contingency theory - one of the major theoretical lenses used to view organizations.

Cycles of Contingency

Cycles of Contingency
Author: Susan Oyama
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 398
Release: 2003-01-24
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780262650632

The nature/nurture debate is not dead. Dichotomous views of development still underlie many fundamental debates in the biological and social sciences. Developmental systems theory (DST) offers a new conceptual framework with which to resolve such debates. DST views ontogeny as contingent cycles of interaction among a varied set of developmental resources, no one of which controls the process. These factors include DNA, cellular and organismic structure, and social and ecological interactions. DST has excited interest from a wide range of researchers, from molecular biologists to anthropologists, because of its ability to integrate evolutionary theory and other disciplines without falling into traditional oppositions.The book provides historical background to DST, recent theoretical findings on the mechanisms of heredity, applications of the DST framework to behavioral development, implications of DST for the philosophy of biology, and critical reactions to DST.