R. Tuomela

This anthology consists of a collection of papers on the nature of dis positions and the role of disposition concepts in scientific theories. I have tried to make the collection as representative as possible, except that problems specifically connected with dispositions in various special sciences are relatively little discussed. Most of these articles have been previously published. The papers by Mackie, Essler and Trapp, Fetzer (in Section 11), Levi, and Tuomela appear here for the first time, and are simultaneously published in Synthese 34, No. 4, which is a special issue on dispositions. Of the previously published material it should be emphasized that the papers by Hempel and Fisk have been extensively revised specially for this anthology. The papers are grouped in four sections, partlyon the basis of their content. However, due to the complexity of the issues involved, there is considerable overlap in content between the different sections, especially between Sections land 11. I wish to thank Professors James Fetzer and Carl G. Hempel for helpful advicc in compiling this anthology.

Dispositions

Juha Manninen

Studies in the Foundations of Humanities and Social Sciences

Essays on Explanation and Understanding

Were one to characterize the aims of this book ambitiously, it could be said to sketch the philosophical foundations or underpinnings of the scientific world view or, better, of the scientific conception of the world. In any case, it develops a comprehensive philosophical view, one which takes science seri ously as the best method for getting to know the ontological aspects of the world. This view is a kind of scientific realism - causal internal realism, as it is dubbed in the book. This brand of realism is "tough" in matters of ontology but "soft" in matters of semantics and epistemology. An ancestor of the book was published in Finnish under the title Tiede, toiminta ja todellisuus (Gaudeamus, 1983). That book is a shortish undergraduate-level monograph. However, as some research-level chapters have been added, the present book is perhaps best regarded as suited for more advanced readers. I completed the book while my stay at the University of Wisconsin in Madison as a Visiting Professor under the Exchange Program between the Universities of Wisconsin and Helsinki. I gratefully acknowledge this support. I also wish to thank Juhani Saalo and Martti Kuokkanen for comments on the manuscript and for editorial help. Dr Matti Sintonen translated the Finnish ancestor of this book into English, to be used as a partial basis for this work. His translation was supported by a grant from Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden edistamisvarat. Finally, and as usual, I wish to thank Mrs.

Science, Action, and Reality

This book presents a unified and systematic philosophical account of human actions and their explanation, and it does it in the spirit of scientific realism. In addition, various other related topics, such as psychological concept formation and the nature of mental events and states, are dis cussed. This is due to the fact that the key problems in the philosophy of psychology are interconnected to a high degree. This interwovenness has affected the discussion of these problems in that often the same topic is discussed in several contexts in the book. I hope the reader does not find this too frustrating. The theory of action developed in this book, especially in its latter half, is a causalist one. In a sense it can be regarded as an explication and refin~ment of a typical common sense view of actions and the mental episodes causally responsible for them. It has, of course, not been possible to discuss all the relevant philosophical problems in great detail, even if I have regarded it as necessary to give a brief treatment of relatively many problems. Rather, I have concentrated on some key issues and hope that future research will help to clarify the rest.

R. Tuomela

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