Introduction -- Naturalism and the scientific image -- Conceptual understanding as discursive niche construction -- What is conceptual understanding? -- Conceptual understanding in light of evolution -- Language, social practice, and conceptual normativity -- Two concepts of objectivity -- Conceptual articulation in scientific practice -- Scientific practice and the scientific image -- Experimental practice and conceptual understanding -- Laws and modalities in scientific practice -- Laboratory fictions and the opening of scientific domains -- Scientific significance -- Conclusion
Summary
"Naturalism both disavows any appeal to the supernatural or anything else transcendent to nature, and repudiates any philosophical or religious authority over the workings and conclusions of the sciences. Paradoxically, however, scientific knowledge itself appears to transcend nature, seemingly making it impossible to conceptualize within scientific naturalism. In Articulating the World, Joseph Rouse takes up this challenge, drawing on recent developments in evolutionary biology and the philosophy of science to defend naturalism by revising both how we understand our scientific conception of the world and how we situate ourselves within it"-- Back cover
