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On Purpose

By Michael Ruse

On Purpose

By Michael Ruse

0 - Default Title
Description
Can we live without the idea of purpose? Should we even try to? Kant thought we were stuck with purpose, and even Darwin's theory of natural selection, which profoundly shook the idea, was unable to kill it. In On Purpose, Michael Ruse explores the history of the idea of purpose in philosophical, religious, scientific, and historical thought, from ancient Greece to the present. Accessibly written and filled with literary and other examples, the book examines "purpose" thinking in the natural and human world. It shows how three ideas about purpose have been at the heart of Western thought for more than two thousand years. In the Platonic view, purpose results from the planning of a human or divine being; in the Aristotelian, purpose stems from a tendency or principle of order in the natural world; and in the Kantian, purpose is essentially heuristic, or something to be discovered, an idea given substance by Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection.
Product details
Edition:
1
Number of Pages:
296
Release Date:
2017-11-14
Publication Date:
2018-01-31
Publisher:
Princeton Univers. Press
Languages:
Original: English
ISBN10:
0691172463
ISBN13:
9780691172460
GPSR Manufacturer Reference:
[email protected]
Weight:
505 g
Height:
146 cm
Width:
223 cm
Thickness:
30 cm
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