Ebook: PSA 1972: Proceedings of the 1972 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association

This book contains selected papers from symposia and contributed sessions presented at the third biennial meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, held in Lansing, Michigan, on October 27-29, 1972. We are grateful to Michigan State University, and especially to Professor Peter Asquith and his students and colleagues, for their friendly and efficient hospitality in organizing the circumstances of the sessions and of the 'intersessions', the unscheduled free time which is so important to any scholarly gathering. Several of the symposium papers have unhappily not been made available: those of Alasdair MacIntyre and Sidney Morgenbesser in the session on the social sciences, that of Ian Hacking in the session on randomness and that of Imre Lakatos in the session on discovery and rationality in science. Department of History and KENNETH F. SCHAFFNER Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh Center for the Philosophy and ROBERT S. COHEN History of Science, Boston University TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE v PART I/SYMPOSIUM: SPACE, TIME AND MATTER: THE FOUNDATIONS OF GEOMETRODYNAMICS ADOLF GRUNBAUM / Space, Time, and Matter: The Foundations of Geometrodynamics. Introductory Remarks 3 CHARLES W. MISNER / Some Topics for Philosophical Inquiry Concerning the Theories of Mathematical Geometrodynamics and of Physical Geometrodynamics 7 JOHN STACHEL / The Rise and Fall of Geometrodynamics 31 PART II / PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS OF BIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY STUART KAUFFMAN / Elsasser, Generalized Complementarity, and Finite Classes: A Critique of His Anti-Reductionism 57 WILLIAM C.