This title was first published in 2000. Philosophers have been greatly concerned with the nature of explanation, but no account has been fully satisfactory within science or plausible in the wider world. The author asserts that this is due to a misplaced focus and that instead of focusing on explanation, philosophers should consider understanding. This work outlines his theory and defends it against some objections. Attempts to understand understanding can become self-referential, but the book is intended to enable readers to build a good mental model of the author's theory.

This is a book about imaginative work and its relationship with the construction of knowledge. It is fully acknowledged by epistemologists that imagination is not something opposed to rationality; it is not mere fantasy opposed to intellect. In philosophy and cognitive sciences, imagination is generally “delimiting not much more than the mental ability to interact cognitively with things that are not now present via the senses.” (Stuart, 2017, p. 11) For centuries, scholars and poets have wondered where this capability could come from, whether it is inspired by divinity or it is a peculiar feature of human mind (Tateo, 2017b). The omnipresence of imaginative work in both every day and highly specialized human activities requires a profoundly radical understanding of this phenomenon. We need to work imaginatively in order to achieve knowledge, thus imagination must be something more than a mere flight of fantasy. Considering different stories in the field of scientific endeavor, I will try to propose the idea that the imaginative process is fundamental higher mental function that concurs in our experiencing, knowing and understanding the world we are part of. This book is thus about a theoretical idea of imagining as constant part of the complex whole we call the human psyche. It is a story of human beings striving not only for knowledge and exploration but also striving for imagining possibilities.​

This book provides students with a concise introduction to the philosophy of methodology. The book stands apart from existing methodology texts by clarifying in a student-friendly and engaging way distinctions between philosophical positions, paradigms of inquiry, methodology and methods. Building an understanding of the relationships and distinctions between philosophical positions and paradigms is an essential part of the research process and integral to deploying the methodology and methods best suited for a research project, thesis or dissertation. Aided throughout by definition boxes, examples and exercises for students, the book covers topics such as: - Positivism and Post-positivism - Phenomenology - Critical Theory - Constructivism and Participatory Paradigms - Post-Modernism and Post-Structuralism - Ethnography - Grounded Theory - Hermeneutics - Foucault and Discourse This text is aimed at final-year undergraduates and post-graduate research students. For more experienced researchers developing mixed methodological approaches, it can provide a greater understanding of underlying issues relating to unfamiliar techniques.

Ecology is an historical science in which theories can be as difficult to test as they are to devise. This volume, intended for ecologists and evolutionary biologists, reviews ecological theories, and how they are generated, evaluated, and categorized. Synthesizing a vast and sometimes labyrinthine literature, this book is a useful entry into the scientific philosophy of ecology and natural history. The need for integration of the contributions to theory made by different disciplines is a central theme of this book. The authors demonstrate that only through such integration will advances in ecological theory be possible. Ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and other serious students of natural history will want this book.

This textbook introduces the concepts and theories central for understanding the nature of knowledge. It is aimed at students who have already done an introductory course. Epistemology, or the theory of knowledge, is concerned about how we know what we do, what justifies us in believing what we do, and what standards of evidence we should use in seeking truths about the world of human experience. The author's approach draws the reader into the subfields and theories of the subject, guided by key concrete examples. Major topics covered include perception and reflection as grounds of knowledge, the nature, structure, and varieties of knowledge, and the character and scope of knowledge in the crucial realms of ethics, science and religion.

to that goal, and it is hoped that it will incorporate further works dealing in an exact way with interesting philosophical issues. Zürich, April 1973 Mario Bunge From the Preface to the First Edition It may seem odd that aseries of works devoted to the natural sciences should indude - indeed begin with - a volume on phi losophy. Today, of course, it is generally agreed that philosophy and natural science are perfectly compatible. But to grant the theory of knowledge such a prominent position implies not only that these two fields are compatible, but that there is a natural connection between them. Thus the indusion of this book in the series can be justified only if such an intimate relation of mutual dependence and interpenetration really does exist. Without anticipating what is to come, the author would like first to explain his point of view on the relationship between epistemology and the sciences, and in so doing make dear at the outset the method to be followed in this book. It is my view - which I have already expressed elsewhere and which I never tire of repeating - that philosophy is not aseparate science to be placed alongside of or above the individual disciplines. Rather, the philosophical element is present in all of the scienccs; it is their true soul, and only by virtue of it are they sciences at all.