Indeterminacy – The Mapped, the Navigable and the Uncharted (The MIT Press) - Softcover

Ciprut, Jose V.; Guyer, Paul; Hardin, Russell; Botwinick, Aryeh; Clark, Robin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262533111 ISBN 13: 9780262533119

Publisher: MIT Press, 2009

Synopsis

Interdisciplinary perspectives on the concepts of indeterminacy and indeterminability and the distinctions between the two.

Formal thinking about certainty/uncertainty gained greater focus in scientific domains with the advent of particle physics and quantum mechanics. Concern with the exact predictability of events under guidance from scientific determinism led to speculation, then acknowledgement of quantum indeterminacy. But distinctions were made between what is physically indeterminate out there and what is indeterminable by human observation or in human action--over here, on the inside, right now. The implications of these insights into indeterminacy and indeterminabilities for practical and theoretical knowledge span physics, philosophy, ontology, causality, and the philosophy of mind. In this book, contributors from a range of disciplines consider the concept of indeterminacy and a few varieties of indeterminability, with attention to the distinctions between the two phenomena, appropriate approaches for examining both, and the differences vis-à-vis uncertainty, vagueness, and ambiguity.

About this title

About the Authors

Jose V. Ciprut is a social systems scientist and an international political economist. His expertise is in national development, regional security, international relations, and the global political economy. As independent scholar and seminar director, he is the convening editor also of The Art Of The Feud: Reconceptualizing International Relations, and Of Fears And Foes: Security and Insecurity in a Globalizing International Political Economy.

Robin Clark is Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Edition details

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262533111
• ISBN 13: 9780262533119
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432