bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Poincaré, Jules Henri (1854–1912)
Authors: Stump David J. 
Published: September 2018

Although primarily a mathematician, Henri Poincaré wrote and lectured extensively on astronomy, theoretical physics, philosophy of science and philosophy of mathematics at the turn of the century. In philosophy, Poincaré is famous for the conventionalist thesis that we may choose either Euclidean or non-Euclidean geometry in physics, claiming that space is neither Euclidean nor non-Euclidean and that geometry is neither true nor false. However, Poincaré’s conventionalism was not global, as some have claimed. Poincaré held that only geometry and perhaps a few principles of mechanics are conventional, and argued that science does discover truth, despite a conventional element.
Poincaré followed new developments in mathematics and physics closely and was involved in discussion of the foundations of mathematics and in the development of the theory of relativity. He was an important transitional figure in both of these areas, sometimes seeming ahead of his time and sometimes seeming very traditional. Perhaps because of the breadth of his views or because of the way in which philosophers focused on issues or small pieces of his work rather than on accurate history, interpretations of Poincaré vary greatly. Frequently cited by the logical positivists as a precursor, and widely discussed in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of mathematics, Poincaré’s writings have had a strong impact on English-language philosophy.
Time
Authors: Sklar Lawrence 
Published: September 2018

Time is the single most pervasive component of our experience and the most fundamental concept in our physical theories. For these reasons time has received intensive attention from philosophy. Reflection on our ordinary-tensed language of time has led many to posit a relation of metaphysical importance between time and existence. Closely connected with such intuitions are claims to the effect that time is unlike space, and in deep and important ways.
The development of physical theories from Newtonian dynamics through relativistic theories, statistical mechanics, and quantum mechanics has had a profound effect on philosophical views about time. Relativity threatens the notion of a universal, global present, and with it the alleged connections of time to existence. The connection between temporal order and causal order in relativity theories, and between the asymmetry of time and entropic asymmetry in statistical mechanics, suggest various ‘reductive’ accounts of temporal phenomena.
Finally, the radical differences between time as it appears in our physical theory and time as it appears in our immediate experience, show important and difficult problems concerning the relation of the time of ‘theory’ to the time of ‘our immediate awareness’.
Jung, Carl Gustav (1875–1961)
Authors: Hogenson George B. 
Published: September 2018

Jung was among the leaders in the development of depth psychology at the beginning of the twentieth century. An early follower of Sigmund Freud, he broke with the founder of psychoanalysis in 1913 and established his own school of analytical psychology.
Jung’s theoretical development originated in his work on the word association test and the theory of feeling toned complexes. As he continued to explore the workings of the unconscious, he postulated the existence of instinctual patterns of cognition and behaviour which he termed ‘archetypes’. Archetypal patterns are, according to Jung, common throughout the human species and constitute an inherited ‘collective unconscious’.
Jung’s approach to psychology was eclectic. He accepted the psychological importance of any phenomenon, even if it conflicted with current thinking in other fields. This attitude led to a deep investigation of the psychological significance of occult phenomena and alchemy, which Jung viewed as expressions of the unconscious that anticipated modern psychology. Later in life, Jung turned increasingly to considerations of the contemporary cultural expressions of psychological forces, writing extensively on what he viewed to be a deepening spiritual crisis in Western civilization.
Putnam, Hilary (1926–2016)
Authors: Ben-Menahem Yemima 
Published: September 2018

Putnam’s work spans a broad spectrum of philosophical interests, yet nonetheless reflects thematic unity in its concern over the question of realism. A critic of logical positivism, Putnam opposed verificationism and conventionalism, arguing for a realist understanding of scientific theories. He rejected the traditional conception of meaning according to which speakers’ mental states determine meaning and consequently, reference, and put forward a conception of meaning on which external reality, for example, what one talks about, contributes essentially to meaning. Further, citing what he called the division of linguistic labour, Putnam saw the conferring of meaning as a social rather than an individual enterprise. In response to the relativistic challenge that the incommensurability of different theories precludes any possibility of intertheoretical dialogue, Putnam invoked a causal theory of reference construing reference as relatively insensitive to theoretical variation, so that the continuity and rationality of science and communication are upheld. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics posed yet another difficulty for realism. Putnam saw quantum logic as an alternative which was compatible with realism, and argued that logic, like geometry, can be revised on the basis of empirical considerations. In the philosophy of mind, Putnam proposed functionalism, the view that mental states are characterized by function rather than material constitution. Putnam also made a substantial contribution to mathematics through his work on the insolvability of Hilbert’s tenth problem.
In 1976, Putnam launched an attack on the coherence of the view he termed ‘metaphysical realism’. Arguing that relativism and scepticism are disguised forms of metaphysical realism, and likewise incoherent, he suggested an alternative, referred to as ’internal realism’. Clarification of this position and its viability as a third way between realism and relativism is the focus of Putnam’s later writings, and of much of the criticism they have incurred.
Evolutionary developmental biology
Authors: Amundson Ron 
Published: September 2018

Evolutionary developmental biology is the study of evolutionary change (called phylogeny) as it is revealed through the embryological development of individual organisms (called ontogeny). On this approach, the understanding of ontogeny contributes to our understanding of phylogeny, and vice versa. Evolutionary thinkers of the nineteenth century almost all held what may be called the core doctrine of evolutionary developmental biology: that in order to achieve a modification in the adult form, evolution must modify the embryological processes responsible for that form, so that an understanding of evolution requires an understanding of development.
Evolutionary theory has no theoretical need for developmental views of evolution. Beginning around 1990 a series of discoveries and theoretical innovations in developmental genetics led to the reinvigoration of developmental approaches to evolution. Evolutionary developmental biology (‘evo-devo’ as it is now called) was inaugurated as a Division of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in the year 2000.
Natural kinds in biology
Authors: Ereshefsky Marc 
Published: September 2018

Species are seen as paradigmatic natural kinds in biology. However, that assumption poses a potential problem for the traditional account of natural kinds. Many biologists and philosophers argue that species lack essences. They maintain that there is no biological trait that must occur in all and only the members of a species. If species are natural kinds and lack essences, then species are a counterexample to the view that natural kinds have essences.
Philosophers have responded to this problem in several ways. Some defend traditional essentialism. Others offer accounts of biological kinds that depart from traditional essentialism. Still others suggest that there are different types of natural kinds in biology: some biological kinds have essences, while other biological kinds do not.
The issue of natural kinds in biology is important because such kinds serve as a basis for prediction and explanation in science. Furthermore, biological kinds are taken to be real categories in nature. For these reasons, the topic of natural kinds in biology is of special interest to the philosophy of science and metaphysics.
Innateness
Authors: Mameli Matteo 
Published: September 2018

The notion of innateness plays a significant role in various important debates in philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, linguistics, ethology, and biology. These debates are about whether some particular trait is innate or not. Someone is a nativist about trait T if they claim that T is innate, and an anti-nativist about T if they claim that T is not innate. From the fact that someone is a nativist about a particular trait it does not follow that they are also a nativist about other traits.
Famously, Plato was a nativist about our knowledge of geometry (and various other things), and Chomsky is a nativist about our Universal Grammar. Nativist claims have also been made about many traits, such as: IQ, sexual preferences, folk psychology, lexical concepts, moral attitudes, and obesity. For each of these traits (and many others), various authors have argued that they are innate, and various authors have argued that they are not. We can call these ‘the nativist debates’.
Both nativists and anti-nativists assume that the notion of innateness is coherent and theoretically useful. But, in the light of what we currently know about the development and evolution of biological and psychological traits, it is not clear whether this is actually the case. Various interesting accounts of the notion of innateness exist. Each of these accounts argues that the notion refers to a specific property of phenotypic traits. The property varies from account to account. Usually, it is something having to do with the trait’s genetic origins, or with its unmalleability, or with its being unlearned. All these accounts seem to capture some particular aspect of the notion, but no account seems to be entirely satisfactory. This suggests that ‘innateness’ conflates different properties that should be kept distinct.
Euler, Leonhard (1707–1783)
Authors: Gray Jeremy 
Published: September 2018

Leonhard Euler’s importance for the history of mathematics is undoubted. Not only was he the most prolific mathematician ever – his collected works so far run to 76 volumes and further editions of his correspondence are planned – he dominated the eighteenth century. He combined an extraordinary memory, a capacity for a huge range of interests, an exceptional technical facility, and an ability to work to a high level of abstraction with a natural clarity of expression. His importance extends beyond his many profound innovations in many fields, of which three can be mentioned here:
- mechanics, which he built up from the motion of point masses through the theory of rigid body motion to aero- and hydrodynamics, with applications to ship design, gunnery, optics, and celestial mechanics, where he did important work on the motion of the Moon and the three body problem;
- the calculus, where he successfully introduced the concept of a function as fundamental; and
- number theory, including the theory of quadratic forms and the zeta function.
It was also the force of his example that established the culture of publishing in mathematics, and replaced the markedly more secretive habits of Newton and Leibniz. His widespread correspondence stimulated others, his work at the head of the Academy of St Petersburg helped develop mathematics in Russia, and his textbooks on the differential and integral calculus and on algebra made the subject accessible to generations of students.
Durkheim, Émile (1858–1917)
Authors: Orru Marco 
Published: September 2018

Émile Durkheim is generally recognized to be one of the founders of sociology as a distinct scientific discipline. Trained as a philosopher, Durkheim identified the central theme of sociology as the emergence and persistence of morality and social solidarity (along with their pathologies) in modern and traditional human societies. His distinctive approach to sociology was to adopt the positivistic method in identifying and explaining social facts – the facts of the moral life. Sociology was to be, in Durkheim’s own words, a science of ethics.
Durkheim’s sociology combined a positivistic methodology of research with an idealistic theory of social solidarity. On the one hand, Durkheim forcefully claimed that the empirical observation and analysis of regularities in the social world must be the starting point of the sociological enterprise; on the other hand, he was equally emphatic in claiming that sociological investigation must deal with the ultimate ends of human action – the moral values and goals that guide human conduct and create the essential conditions for social solidarity. Accordingly, in his scholarly writings on the division of labour, on suicide, on education, and on religion, Durkheim sought to identify through empirical evidence the major sources of social solidarity and of the social pathologies that undermine it.
Naturalism in social science
Authors: Benton Ted 
Published: September 2018

Naturalism is a term used in several ways. The more specific meanings of ‘naturalism’ in the philosophy of social sciences rest on the great popular authority acquired by modern scientific methods and forms of explanation in the wake of the seventeenth-century scientific revolution. For many of the thinkers of the European Enlightenment and their nineteenth-century followers the success of science in uncovering the laws governing the natural world was used as an argument for the extension of its methods into the study of morality, society, government and human mental life. Not only would this bring the benefit of consensus in these contested areas, but also it would provide a sound basis for ameliorative social reform. Among the most influential advocates of naturalism, in this sense, was the early nineteenth-century French philosopher Auguste Comte.
The authority of the new mechanical science, even as an account of non-human nature, continued to be resisted by romantic philosophers. However, the more limited task of resisting the scientific ‘invasion’ of human self-understanding was taken up by the Neo-Kantian philosophers of the latter part of the nineteenth century, in Germany. Followers and associates of this tradition (such as Windelband, Rickert, Dilthey and others) insist that there is a radical gulf between scientific knowledge of nature, and the forms of understanding which are possible in the sphere of humanly created meanings and cultures. This view is argued for in several different ways. Sometimes a contrast is made between the regularities captured in laws of nature, on the one hand, and social rules, on the other. Sometimes human consciousness and self-understanding is opposed to the non-conscious ‘behaviour’ of non-human beings and objects, so that studying society is more like reading a book or having a conversation than it is like studying a chemical reaction.
Society, concept of
Authors: Ross Angus 
Published: September 2018

The term ‘society’ is broader than ‘human society’. Many other species are described as possessing a social way of life. Yet mere gregariousness, of the kind found in a herd of cattle or a shoal of fish, is not enough to constitute a society. For the biologist, the marks of the social are cooperation (extending beyond cooperation between parents in raising young) and some form of order or division of labour. In assessing the merits of attempts to provide a more precise definition of society, we can ask whether the definition succeeds in capturing our intuitive understanding of the term, and also whether it succeeds in identifying those features of society which are most fundamental from an explanatory point of view – whether it captures the Lockean ‘real essence’ of society.
One influential approach seeks to capture the idea of society by characterizing social action, or interaction, in terms of the particular kinds of awareness it involves. Another approach focuses on social order, seeing it as a form of order that arises spontaneously when rational and mutually aware individuals succeed in solving coordination problems. Yet another approach focuses on the role played by communication in achieving collective agreement on the way the world is to be classified and understood, as a precondition of coordination and cooperation.
Authority
Authors: Green Leslie 
Published: September 2018

The notion of authority has two main senses: expertise and the right to rule. To have authority in matters of belief (to be ’an authority’) is to have theoretical authority; to have authority over action (to be ’in authority’) is to have practical authority. Both senses involve the subordination of an individual’s judgment or will to that of another person in a way that is binding, independent of the particular content of what that person says or requires. If a person’s authority is recognized then it is effective or de facto authority; if it is justified then it is de jure authority. The latter is the primary notion, for de jure authority is what de facto authorities claim and what they are believed to have. Authority thus differs from effective power, but also from justified power, which may involve no subordination of judgment. In many cases, however, practical authority is justified only if it is also effective.
Political authority involves a claim to the obedience of its subjects. Attempts to justify it have always been at the core of political philosophy. These include both instrumental arguments appealing to the expertise of rulers or to their capacity to promote social cooperation, and non-instrumental arguments resting on ideas such as consent or communal feeling. Whether any of these succeed in justifying the comprehensive authority that modern states claim is greatly disputed..
Democracy
Authors: Harrison Ross 
Published: September 2018

Democracy means rule by the people, as contrasted with rule by a special person or group. It is a system of decision making in which everyone who belongs to the political organism making the decision is actually or potentially involved. They all have equal power. There have been competing conceptions about what this involves. On one conception this means that everyone should participate in making the decision themselves, which should emerge from a full discussion. On another conception, it means that everyone should be able to vote between proposals or for representatives who will be entrusted with making the decision; the proposal or representative with most votes wins.
Philosophical problems connected with democracy relate both to its nature and its value. It might seem obvious that democracy has value because it promotes liberty and equality. As compared with, for example, dictatorship, everyone has equal political power and is free from control by a special individual or group. However, at least on the voting conception of democracy, it is the majority who have the control. This means that the minority may not be thought to be treated equally; and they lack liberty in the sense that they are controlled by the majority.
Another objection to democracy is that, by counting everyone’s opinions as of equal value, it considers the ignorant as being as important as the knowledgeable, and so does not result in properly informed decisions. However, voting may in certain circumstances be the right way of achieving knowledge. Pooling opinions may lead to better group judgement.
These difficulties with democracy are alleviated by the model which concentrates on mutual discussion rather than people just feeding opinions into a voting mechanism. Opinions should in such circumstances be better formed; and individuals are more obviously equally respected. However, this depends upon them starting from positions of equal power and liberty; rather than being consequences of a democratic procedure, it would seem that equality and liberty are instead prerequisites which are needed in order for it to work properly.
Green political philosophy
Authors: Ball Terence 
Published: September 2018

All the major political philosophies have been born of crisis. Green political philosophy is no exception to this general rule. It has emerged from that interconnected series of crises that is often termed ‘the environmental crisis’. As we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century it seems quite clear that the level and degree of environmental degradation and destruction cannot be sustained over the longer term without dire consequences for human and other animal species, and the ecosystems on which all depend. A veritable explosion in the human population, the pollution of air and water, the melting of the polar ice caps and the resulting rise in sea levels, the overfishing of the oceans, the destruction of tropical and temperate rain forests, the extinction of entire species, the depletion of the ozone layer, the build-up of greenhouse gases, global warming, desertification, wind and water erosion of precious topsoil, the disappearance of valuable farmland and wilderness for ‘development’ – these and many other interrelated phenomena provide the backdrop and justification for the ‘greening’ of much of modern political thinking.
The task of outlining and summarizing the state of green political philosophy is made more difficult because there is as yet no agreement among ‘green’ political thinkers. Indeed there is, at present, no definitive ‘green political philosophy’ as such. The environmental or green movement is diverse and disparate, and appears in different shades of green. These range from ‘light green’ conservationists to ‘dark green’ deep ecologists, from ecofeminists to social ecologists, from the militant ecoteurs of Earth First!, to the low-keyed gradualists of the Sierra Club and the Nature Conservancy. These groups differ not only over strategy and tactics, but also over fundamental philosophy as well.
While there is no single, systematically articulated and agreed-upon green political philosophy, however, there are nonetheless recurring topics, themes, categories and concepts that are surely central to such a political philosophy. These include the idea that humans are part of nature and members of a larger and more inclusive ‘biotic community’ to which they have obligations or duties. This community includes both human and nonhuman animals, and the conditions conducive to their survival and flourishing. Such a community consists, moreover, not only of members who are alive but those who are as yet unborn. A green political philosophy values both biological and cultural diversity, and views sustainability as a standard by which to judge the justness of human actions and practices. Exactly how these themes might fit together to form some larger, systematic and coherent whole is still being worked out.