MARC Record from marc_columbia

LEADER: 02417cam a2200313Ki 4500
001 13003528
005 20180124132238.0
008 170422s2018 nju b 001 0 eng d
020 $a9780691172460
020 $a0691172463
024 $a40027688150
035 $a(OCoLC)ocn983824542
035 $a(OCoLC)983824542
035 $a(NNC)13003528
040 $aBTCTA$beng$cBTCTA$dYDX$dBDX$dERASA$dIAD
050 4 $aBC177$b.R87 2018
082 04 $a100
100 1 $aRuse, Michael,$eauthor.
245 10 $aOn purpose /$cMichael Ruse.
264 1 $aPrinceton, New Jersey :$bPrinceton University Press,$c[2018]
264 4 $c©2018
300 $axv, 294 pages ;$c23 cm
336 $atext$btxt$2rdacontent
337 $aunmediated$bn$2rdamedia
338 $avolume$bnc$2rdacarrier
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
520 $aA brief, accessible history of the idea of purpose in Western thought, from ancient Greece to the present 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. Indeed, teleological explanation--what Aristotle called understanding in terms of "final causes" - seems to be making a comeback today, as both religious proponents of intelligent design and some prominent secular philosophers argue that any explanation of life without the idea of purpose is missing something essential. 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. On Purpose traces the profound and fascinating implications of these ways of thinking about purpose.
650 0 $aReason$xHistory.
852 00 $bglx$hBC177$i.R87 2018