Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World

Nozick, Robert

ISBN 10: 0674006313 / ISBN 13: 9780674006317

Published by The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2001

About this Item

Jacket lightly rubbed and chipped. Some light wear, occasional ink underlining to earlier pages, small number to ffep, else clean and firm. Size: 8vo.

Seller Inventory # 63730

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Invariances: The Structure of the Objective World
• Publisher: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674006313
• ISBN 13: 9780674006317
• Binding: Hard
• Condition: Very Good Minus
• Dust Jacket Condition: Good Plus
• Seller catalogs:
  • Philosophy

About this title

Synopsis

Recent scientific advances have placed many traditional philosophical concepts under great stress. In this pathbreaking book, the eminent philosopher Robert Nozick rethinks and transforms the concepts of truth, objectivity, necessity, contingency, consciousness, and ethics. Using an original method, he presents bold new philosophical theories that take account of scientific advances in physics, evolutionary biology, economics, and cognitive neuroscience, and casts current cultural controversies (such as whether all truth is relative and whether ethics is objective) in a wholly new light. Throughout, the book is open to, and engages in, the bold exploration of new philosophical possibilities.

Philosophy will never look the same. Truth is embedded in space-time and is relative to it. However, truth is not socially relative among human beings (extraterrestrials are another matter). Objective facts are invariant under specified transformations; objective beliefs are arrived at by a process in which biasing factors do not play a significant role. Necessity's domain is contracted (there are no important metaphysical necessities; water is not necessarily H2O) while the important and useful notion of degrees of contingency is elaborated. Gradations of consciousness (based upon "common registering") yield increasing capacity to fit actions to the world. The originating function of ethics is cooperation to mutual benefit, and evolution has instilled within humans a "normative module": the capacities to learn, internalize, follow norms, and make evaluations. Ethics has normative force because of the connection between ethics and conscious self-awareness. Nozick brings together the book's novel theories to show the extent to which there are objective ethical truths.

About the Author

Robert Nozick was Pellegrino University Professor at Harvard University. His book Anarchy, State, and Utopia received a National Book Award.