All We Need Is a Paradigm

All We Need Is a Paradigm cover

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ISBN 0-8126-9635-2
ISBN-13 978-0-8126-9635-6

~~$45.95~~ $32.17
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428 pages

(Spring 08)

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All We Need Is a Paradigm

Essays on Science, Economics, and Logic from the Harvard Review of Philosophy

Edited by S. Phineas Upham

Foreword by Stanley Cavell

All We Need Is a Paradigm collects for the first time in one place some of the most important essays from the Harvard Review of Philosophy. The chapters, each written by a prominent scholar, focus on issues in science, economics, and logic and provide insights on the philosophical underpinnings of the way our world works. Whether they explore rationality, quantum physics, mathematics, or music, the authors strive to deepen our ability to understand the "what" and "how" of our surroundings.

Do we view the world as it is and can we trust our intuitions about it? How can math and science help us structure and make sense of the world around us, and what are the limitations of this approach? This book asks questions that are crucial to the general reader as well as philosophers, mathematicians, scientists, and other scholars.

Israel Kirzner examines the assumptions about human nature made by economists and the "science of human action." George Boolos challenges us with the "hardest logic puzzle ever" and offers us its subtle solution. Famed composer and conductor Luciano Berio writes about music as a text that is open to remembering and forgetting, a process which involves developing a personal and active relationship with the text. Simon Saunders looks at the inescapable and disquieting consequences of holding quantum mechanics to be fundamental and suggests solutions. Rupert Read explores the usefulness and limitations of Kuhn's paradigms for social scientists. Using different approaches, including puzzles, essays, and songs, the authors demonstrate philosophy's ability to deepen our understanding of science, mathematics, and logic.

S. Phineas Upham has a BA in Philosophy from Harvard University, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Review of Philosophy. He has a PhD and MBA from the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania and has written a nationally syndicated column for UPI and published numerous scholarly articles. He is the editor of Philosophers in Conversation (2002) and The Space of Love and Garbage (2007).