Bøker av Roger M. White

In On the Origin of Species (1859), Charles Darwin put forward his theory of natural selection. Conventionally, Darwin's argument for this theory has been understood as based on an analogy with artificial selection. But there has been no consensus on how, exactly, this analogical argument is supposed to work - and some suspicion too that analogical arguments on the whole are embarrassingly weak. Drawing on new insights into the history of analogical argumentation from the ancient Greeks onward, as well as on in-depth studies of Darwin's public and private writings, this book offers an original perspective on Darwin's argument, restoring to view the intellectual traditions which Darwin took for granted in arguing as he did. From this perspective come new appreciations not only of Darwin's argument but of the metaphors based on it, the range of wider traditions the argument touched upon, and its legacies for science after the Origin.

Provides an account of the philosophical and historical context of Wittgenstein's work - "Tractatus". This book provides a detailed outline of the themes and structure of the text, guiding the reader towards an understanding of this remarkable text. It explores the reception and influence of the work and offers a detailed guide to further reading.

A fundamental question for theology is the question how we are to understand the claims that we make about God. The only language we can understand is the language we use to talk about human beings. This book explores the way the concept was evolved by Aristotle out of Greek mathematics as a technique for comparing 'things that were remote'.