R. Tuomela Livres

Focusing on the underexplored realm of social actions, this book critiques the limited philosophical and psychological discourse surrounding joint actions performed by multiple agents. While acknowledging the existing action theory and game theory, it highlights their shortcomings in addressing the complexities of social action. Introducing the purposive-causal theory, the work aims to systematically analyze social actions and develop essential concepts for social psychology and sociology. Despite its comprehensive approach, it acknowledges that many significant questions remain unanswered.

Focusing on a causalist theory of action, this book offers a systematic philosophical exploration of human actions and their explanations, aligned with scientific realism. It delves into interconnected topics such as psychological concept formation and the nature of mental events, recognizing the complexity of these issues. While not exhaustive, the discussion emphasizes key problems in the philosophy of psychology, aiming to refine common-sense views of actions and their causal relationships, with an eye toward future research for further clarification.

The book explores the intricate relationship between conceptual change and the evolution of scientific theories, focusing on inductive change through conceptual enrichment. It extends Hintikka's inductive logic to incorporate new theoretical concepts, addressing philosophical and methodological issues that have lacked systematic analysis. The discussion includes the implications of scientific theories for inductive inference from a realist perspective, aiming to outline a hypothetico-inductive inference theory. Technical sections require only a basic understanding of logic and probability theory.

This book explores the philosophical foundations of the scientific worldview, advocating for a form of scientific realism known as causal internal realism. It emphasizes science as the best way to understand the world's ontological aspects, catering to advanced readers with added research-level chapters.

to that goal, and it is hoped that it will incorporate further works dealing in an exact way with interesting philosophical issues. Zurich, April 1973 Mario Bunge Preface In this book I have investigated the logical and methodological role of the much debated theoretical concepts in scientific theories. The philosophical viewpoint underlying my argumentation is critical scientific realism. My method of exposition has been to express ideas first in general terms and then to develop and elaborate them within a specific formal framework. It is assumed in the book that the reader has a relatively good knowledge of the basic techniques and results of modern symbolic logic, including model theory. Examples from actual science are mostly from the social sciences. I have deliberately omitted a treatment of a number of characteristic features which are particular to theoretical concepts in the more developed sciences, such as modern physics. This book owes very much to Professor Jaakko Hintikka, to whom I wish to express my deep gratitude. Especially at the begin ning of this project in 1968/69 when I was doing research for my doctoral degree at Stanford University I worked with him closely.