Subjects of the world
Subtitle: Darwin's rhetoric and the study of agency in nature
By: Paul Sheldon Davies.
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Chicago; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 259
ISBN-13: 9780226137629
Subjects: Darwin, Charles, -- 1809-1882 -- Literary style; Teleology; Philosophy of nature; Evolution; Agent (Philosophy)
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Part one: A progressive orientation: naturalism as exploration; title: The vividness of truth: Darwin's romantic rhetoric and the evolutionary framework; title: Our most vexing problem: conceptual conservatism and conceptual imperialism; title: Naturalism as exploration: the elements of reform; title: Part two: The allure of agency: "purpose" in biology; title: The real heart of Darwinian evolutionary biology; title: A formative power of a self-propagating kind: natural purposes and the concept location project; title: A persistent mode of understanding: the psychological power of "purpose"; title: Part three: The illusions of agency: "free will" and "moral responsibility"; title: The death of an aphorism: the psychology of free will; title: The bare possibility of our opinion: libertarian imperialism; title: Words give us a special ability: compatibilist conservatism.