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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Metaphysics & ontology
According to the received view, Kant's critical revolution put an
end to the kind of metaphysics of which Leibniz's 'Monadology' is
the example par excellence. This volume challenges Kant's claim by
providing a far more nuanced version of philosophy's 'post-Kantian'
tradition that spans from the late eighteenth to the early
twentieth century and brings to light a rich tradition of new
'monadologists', many of whom have been unjustifiably forgotten by
contemporary historians of philosophy. Through this complex
dialogue, monadology is shown to be a remarkably fecund hypothesis,
with many possible variations and developments. The volume's focus
on monadology exposes the depth and breadth of the post-Kantian
period in an original and previously unexplored way and opens up
numerous avenues for future research. Crucially, however, this
volume not only shows that monadological metaphysics did continue
after Kant but also asks the critical question of whether it should
have done so. Consequently, the question of whether monadological
metaphysics could also have a future is shown to be relevant in a
way that was previously almost inconceivable. This book was
originally published as a special issue of the British Journal for
the History of Philosophy.
The renaissance in Hegel scholarship over the past two decades has
largely ignored or marginalized the metaphysical dimension of his
thought, perhaps most vigorously when considering his social and
political philosophy. Many scholars have consistently maintained
that Hegel's political philosophy must be reconstructed without the
metaphysical structure that Hegel saw as his crowning philosophical
achievement. This book brings together twelve original essays that
explore the relation between Hegel's metaphysics and his political,
social, and practical philosophy. The essays seek to explore what
normative insights and positions can be obtained from examining
Hegel's distinctive view of the metaphysical dimensions of
political philosophy. His ideas about the good, the universal,
freedom, rationality, objectivity, self-determination, and
self-development can be seen in a new context and with renewed
understanding once their relation to his metaphysical project is
considered. Hegel's Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Politics will
be of great interest to scholars of Hegelian philosophy, German
Idealism, nineteenth-century philosophy, political philosophy, and
political theory.
How do we explain the truth of true propositions? Truthmaker theory
is the branch of metaphysics that explores the relationships
between what is true and what exists. It plays an important role in
contemporary debates about the nature of metaphysics and
metaphysical enquiry. In this book Jonathan Tallant argues,
controversially, that we should reject truthmaker theory. In its
place he argues for an 'explanationist' approach. Drawing on a
deflationary theory of truth he shows that it allows us to explain
the truth of true propositions and respond to recent arguments that
purport to show otherwise. He augments this with a distinction
between internally and externally quantified claims: externally
quantified claims are claims that quantify over elements of our
ontology that play an indispensable explanatory role; internally
quantified claims do not. He deploys this union of deflationism and
a distinction between kinds of quantification to pursue
metaphysical inquiry, sketching the implications for a number of
first-order debates, including those in the philosophy of time,
modality and mathematics, and also shows how this explanationist
model can be used to solve the key problems that afflicted
truthmaker theory. Truth and the World is an important contribution
to debates about truth and truthmaker theory as well as
metametaphysics, the metaphysics of time and the metaphysics of
mathematics, and is essential reading for students and scholars
engaged in the study of these topics.
Contemporary interest in realism and naturalism, emerging under the
banner of speculative or new realism, has prompted
continentally-trained philosophers to consider a number of texts
from the canon of analytic philosophy. The philosophy of Wilfrid
Sellars, in particular, has proven remarkably able to offer a
contemporary re-formulation of traditional "continental" concerns
that is amenable to realist and rationalist considerations, and
serves as an accessible entry point into the Anglo-American
tradition for continental philosophers. With the aim of appraising
this fertile theoretical convergence, this volume brings together
experts of both analytic and continental philosophy to discuss the
legacy of Kantianism in contemporary philosophy. The individual
essays explore the ways in which Sellars can be put into dialogue
with the widely influential work of Quentin Meillassoux, explaining
how-even though their methods, language, and proximal influences
are widely different-their philosophical stances can be compared
thanks to their shared Kantian heritage and interest in the problem
of realism. This book will be appeal to students and scholars who
are interested in Sellars, Meillassoux, contemporary realist
movements in continental philosophy, and the analytic-continental
debate in contemporary philosophy.
Must a philosophy of life be materialist, and if so, must it also
be a philosophy of immanence? In the last twenty years or so there
has been a growing trend in continental thought and philosophy and
critical theory that has seen a return to the category of
immanence. Through consideration of the work of thinkers such as
Giorgio Agamben, Catherine Malabou, Francois Laruelle, Gilles
Deleuze and others, this collection aims to examine the interplay
between the concepts of immanence, materialism and life,
particularly as this interplay can highlight new directions for
political inquiry. Furthermore, critical reflection on this
constellation of concepts could also be instructive for continental
philosophy of religion, in which ideas about the divine,
embodiment, sexual difference, desire, creation and incarnation are
refigured in provocative new ways. The way of immanence, however,
is not without its dangers. Indeed, it may be that with its
affirmation something of importance is lost to material life. Could
it be that the integrity of material things requires a transcendent
origin? Precisely what are the metaphysical, political and
theological consequences of pursuing a philosophy of immanence in
relation to a philosophy of life? This book was originally
published as a special issue of Angelaki: Journal of the
Theoretical Humanities.
In contradistinction to the many monographs and edited volumes
devoted to historical, cultural, or theological treatments of
demonology, this collection features newly written papers by
philosophers and other scholars engaged specifically in
philosophical argument, debate, and dialogue involving ideas and
topics in demonology. The contributors to the volume approach the
subject from the perspective of the broadest areas of Western
philosophy, namely metaphysics, epistemology, logic, and moral
philosophy. The collection also features a plurality of religious,
cultural, and theological views on the nature of demons from both
Eastern and Western thought, in addition to views that may diverge
from these traditional roots. Philosophical Approaches to
Demonology will be of interest to philosophers of religion,
theologians, and scholars working in philosophical theology and
demonology, as well as historians, cultural anthropologists, and
sociologists interested more broadly in the concept of demons.
First published in 1999, this volume re-examines Bertrand Russell's
views on modal logic and logical relevance, arguing that Russell
does in fact accommodate modality and modal logic. The author, Jan
Dejnozka, draws together Russell's comments and perspectives from
throughout his canon in order to demonstrate a coherent view on
logical modality and logical relevance. To achieve this, Dejnozka
explores questions including whether Russell has a possible worlds
logic, Rescher's case against Russell, Russell's three levels of
modality and the motives and origins of Russell's theory of
modality.
Originally published in 1989. In this interdisciplinary study, Dr
Levin offers an account of personal growth and self-fulfilment
based on the development of our capacity for listening. This book
should be of interest to advanced students of critical theory,
psychology, cultural studies, ethics, continental philosophy,
ontology, metaphysics.
The Limits of Free Will contains a selection of papers concerning
free will and moral responsibility. The problems arising in this
field of philosophy, which are deeply rooted in the history of the
subject, are also intimately related to a wide range of other
fields, such as law and criminology, moral psychology, theology,
and, more recently, neuroscience. The papers included in this
collection were written and first published over a period of three
decades, although most have appeared in the past decade or so.
During this period this area of philosophy has been particularly
active and it continues to attract a great deal of interest and
attention. Among the topics covered, as they relate to these
problems, are the challenge of skepticism; moral sentiment and
moral capacity; necessity and the metaphysics of causation;
practical reason; free will and art; fatalism and the limits of
agency; moral luck, and our metaphysical attitudes of optimism and
pessimism. Some of the papers in this collection are primarily
critical in character, presenting critiques and commentary on major
works or contributions in the contemporary scene. Others are mainly
constructive, aiming to develop and articulate a distinctive
account of compatibilism. The general theory advanced, which is
described as a form of "critical compatibilism", rejects any form
of unqualified or radical skepticism but also insists that a
plausible compatibilism has significant and substantive
implications about the limits of agency and argues that this
licenses a metaphysical attitude of (modest) pessimism on this
topic. Finally, each paper in this collection is self-standing and
can be read in isolation from the others. There is, nevertheless, a
core set of themes and issues that unite and link them all
together. The collection is arranged and organized in a format that
enables the reader to appreciate and recognize these links and the
core themes that unite them.
First published in 1927, The Nature of Deity forms a sequel to
Personality and Reality. The premise of this book is the conclusion
of the prequel: that there exists a Supreme Self or Deity. In
pursuing this argument, the author uses logic and broad facts that
prove the existence of a Supreme Self. This book will be of
interest to students of philosophy, religion, literature and
science.
Philosophical questions regarding the nature and methodology of
philosophical inquiry have garnered much attention in recent years.
Perhaps nowhere are these discussions more developed than in
relation to the field of metaphysics. The Routledge Handbook of
Metametaphysics is an outstanding reference source to this growing
subject. It comprises thirty-eight chapters written by leading
international contributors, and is arranged around five themes: *
The history of metametaphysics * Neo-Quineanism (and its objectors)
* Alternative conceptions of metaphysics * The epistemology of
metaphysics * Science and metaphysics. Essential reading for
students and researchers in metaphysics, philosophical methodology,
and ontology, The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics will also
be of interest to those in closely related subjects such as
philosophy of language, logic, and philosophy of science.
This book reassesses Gadamer's hermeneutics by bringing it into a
dialogue with John McDowell's minimal empiricism. It employs the
resources of McDowell's minimal empiricism to address the
transcendental and ontological presuppositions for objective
experience and understanding, while retaining Gadamer's emphasis on
the historicity of understanding. By means of the dialogue with
McDowell, the book develops a hermeneutical conception of
objectivity and perceptual experience, which also entails
reinterpretations of Gadamer's notions of tradition, practical
wisdom and meaning. The book explores the philosophical space
beyond the analytic-Continental divide and demonstrates that
hermeneutics is not limited to a reflection on understanding as it
is practiced in the human sciences, but can be revived as a
distinct and cogent philosophical approach with a transcendental
and ontological dimension. Thaning's book is a richly detailed,
well-argued and coherent presentation of a defensible, and
potentially very important, philosophical position. It demonstrates
an impressively deep understanding of the literature both from the
phenomenological tradition and from the part of the analytical
tradition, inspired by Wilfred Sellars, to which John McDowell
belongs. Being a substantial philosophical achievement in its own
right, the book raises far-reaching questions that will be of
interest to a wide audience. Dr. Steven Crowell, Rice University,
Houston (USA) Morten Thaning's book is an important contribution to
the discourse of philosophical hermeneutics. Thaning extensively
discusses a topic, which recent debates have touched upon, but
which up to now has not been the subject matter of concentrated
scholarly work: the relation between Gadamer's hermeneutics and
McDowell's empiricism. With Thaning's interpretation Gadamer' work
can be read anew as concerning the problem of hermeneutical
objectivity. Prof. Dr. Gunter Figal, University of Freiburg
(Germany)
First published in 1998, this volume responded to and evaluated
criticisms of McTaggart's atemporal philosophy of time. Established
philosophical positions on time had positioned themselves in
relation to either the A Series (past, present and future) or the B
Series (earlier and later). McTaggart considered both series
untenable and proposed his own, atemporal C Series. Beginning with
an overview of McTaggart's position, Gerald Rochelle attempts to
reinforce the seriousness of, and think beyond, McTaggart's attempt
to describe a world without time through an assessment of
McTaggart's criticisms and his suggested alternative. Rochelle
argues that McTaggart's atemporal world constitutes a strong
foundation for a new theory on time which breaks away from the
existing philosophical models of temporality.
Scientists studying the burning of stars, the evolution of species,
DNA, the brain, the economy, and social change, all frequently
describe their work as searching for mechanisms. Despite this fact,
for much of the twentieth century philosophical discussions of the
nature of mechanisms remained outside philosophy of science. The
Routledge Handbook of Mechanisms and Mechanical Philosophy is an
outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems, and
debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its
kind. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international
contributors, the Handbook is divided into four Parts: Historical
perspectives on mechanisms The nature of mechanisms Mechanisms and
the philosophy of science Disciplinary perspectives on mechanisms.
Within these Parts central topics and problems are examined,
including the rise of mechanical philosophy in the seventeenth
century; what mechanisms are made of and how they are organized;
mechanisms and laws and regularities; how mechanisms are discovered
and explained; dynamical systems theory; and disciplinary
perspectives from physics, chemistry, biology, biomedicine,
ecology, neuroscience, and the social sciences. Essential reading
for students and researchers in philosophy of science, the Handbook
will also be of interest to those in related fields, such as
metaphysics, philosophy of psychology, and history of science.
Between Logic and the World presents a theory of generic sentences
and the kind-directed modes of thought they express. The theory
closely integrates compositional semantics with metaphysics to
solve the problem that generics pose: what do generics mean?
Generic sentences are extremely simple, yet if there are patterns
to be discerned in terms of which are true and which are false,
these patterns are subtle and complex. Ravens are black, lions have
manes, sea-turtles are long-lived, and bishops in chess move along
diagonals. Statistical measures cannot do justice to the facts, but
what else is there that at least has a hope of giving us insight
into what we are capturing across so many domains? Bernhard Nickel
argues that generics are the top of a fundamentally explanatory
iceberg. By focusing on blackness in ravens and manes in lions, for
instance, we can place the kinds into a framework structured by
explanatory considerations. Between Logic and the World argues that
this explanatory framework is deeply intertwined with the semantics
of the language we use to express them, and in giving its
integrated semantic and metaphysical theory of generics, it aims to
solve old puzzles and draw attention to new phenomena.
The importance of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason in the
history of philosophy is matched only by its difficulty. In
particular, readers are often frustrated by how difficult it is to
extract Kant's arguments from his dense prose. This book
reconstructs, using the tools of propositional logic, the central
arguments of the Critique. In all, the book reconstructs thirty-six
of Kant's arguments spanning the Transcendental Aesthetic,
Transcendental Analytic, and Transcendental Dialectic. For each
argument, they begin with a quote from Kant's text followed by a
synopsis that explains the argument informally. Finally, each
synopsis is followed by a formal reconstruction of the argument.
The synopses offer examples, metaphors, historical background, and
objections/responses to aid the reader in appreciating Kant's
arguments. Even though many readers who approach Kant for the first
time have a good philosophical vocabulary, few will understand
Kant's unique lexicon. In addition to formally reconstructing
Kant's arguments, the book also includes a glossary that defines
the technical terms that Kant uses in his arguments. Finally, since
this book is directed largely at students, Bryan Hall enlisted two
of his own students to ensure that the book is maximally student
friendly. In contrast to most pedagogical philosophical literature,
the content of this book has been tailored by students for
students.
Common sense philosophy holds that widely and deeply held beliefs
are justified in the absence of defeaters. While this tradition has
always had its philosophical detractors who have defended various
forms of skepticism or have sought to develop rival epistemological
views, recent advances in several scientific disciplines claim to
have debunked the reliability of the faculties that produce our
common sense beliefs. At the same time, however, it seems
reasonable that we cannot do without common sense beliefs entirely.
Arguably, science and the scientific method are built on, and
continue to depend on, common sense. This collection of essays
debates the tenability of common sense in the face of recent
challenges from the empirical sciences. It explores to what extent
scientific considerations-rather than philosophical
considerations-put pressure on common sense philosophy. The book is
structured in a way that promotes dialogue between philosophers and
scientists. Noah Lemos, one of the most influential contemporary
advocates of the common sense tradition, begins with an overview of
the nature and scope of common sense beliefs, and examines
philosophical objections to common sense and its relationship to
scientific beliefs. Then, the volume features essays by scientists
and philosophers of science who discuss various proposed conflicts
between commonsensical and scientific beliefs: the reality of space
and time, about the nature of human beings, about free will and
identity, about rationality, about morality, and about religious
belief. Notable philosophers who embrace the common sense tradition
respond to these essays to explore the connection between common
sense philosophy and contemporary debates in evolutionary biology,
neuroscience, physics, and psychology.
Winner of the hegelpd-prize 2022 Contemporary philosophical
discourse has deeply problematized the possibility of absolute
existence. Hegel's Foundation Free Metaphysics demonstrates that by
reading Hegel's Doctrine of the Concept in his Science of Logic as
a form of Absolute Dialetheism, Hegel's logic of the concept can
account for the possibility of absolute existence. Through a close
examination of Hegel's concept of self-referential universality in
his Science of Logic, Moss demonstrates how Hegel's concept of
singularity is designed to solve a host of metaphysical and
epistemic paradoxes central to this problematic. He illustrates how
Hegel's revolutionary account of universality, particularity, and
singularity offers solutions to six problems that have plagued the
history of Western philosophy: the problem of nihilism, the problem
of instantiation, the problem of the missing difference, the
problem of absolute empiricism, the problem of onto-theology, and
the third man regress. Moss shows that Hegel's affirmation and
development of a revised ontological argument for God's existence
is designed to establish the necessity of absolute existence. By
adopting a metaphysical reading of Richard Dien Winfield's
foundation free epistemology, Moss critically engages dominant
readings and contemporary debates in Hegel scholarship. Hegel's
Foundation Free Metaphysics will appeal to scholars interested in
Hegel, German Idealism, 19th- and 20th-century European philosophy,
metaphysics, epistemology, and contemporary European thought.
The Routledge Handbook of Love in Philosophy collects 39 original
chapters from prominent philosophers on the nature, meaning, value,
and predicaments of love, presented in a unique framework that
highlights the rich variety of methods and traditions used to
engage with these subjects. This volume is structured around
important realms of human life and activity, each of which receives
its own section: I. Family and Friendship II. Romance and Sex III.
Politics and Society IV. Animals, Nature, and the Environment V.
Art, Faith, and Meaning VI. Rationality and Morality VII.
Traditions: Historical and Contemporary. This last section includes
chapters treating love as a subject in both Western and non-Western
philosophical traditions. The contributions, all appearing in print
here for the first time, are written to be accessible and
compelling to non-philosophers and philosophers alike; and the
volume as a whole encourages professional philosophers, teachers,
students, and lay readers to rethink standard constructions of
philosophical canons.
Substance and the Fundamentality of the Familiar explicates and
defends a novel neo-Aristotelian account of the structure of
material objects. While there have been numerous treatments of
properties, laws, causation, and modality in the neo-Aristotelian
metaphysics literature, this book is one of the first full-length
treatments of wholes and their parts. Another aim of the book is to
further develop the newly revived area concerning the question of
fundamental mereology, the question of whether wholes are
metaphysically prior to their parts or vice versa. Inman develops a
fundamental mereology with a grounding-based conception of the
structure and unity of substances at its core, what he calls
substantial priority, one that distinctively allows for the
fundamentality of ordinary, medium-sized composite objects. He
offers both empirical and philosophical considerations against the
view that the parts of every composite object are metaphysically
prior, in particular the view that ascribes ontological pride of
place to the smallest microphysical parts of composite objects,
which currently dominates debates in metaphysics, philosophy of
science, and philosophy of mind. Ultimately, he demonstrates that
substantial priority is well-motivated in virtue of its offering a
unified solution to a host of metaphysical problems involving
material objects.
The American University Publications In From its inception
Philosophy has continued the direction stated in the sub-title of
the initial volume that of probing new directions in philosophy. As
the series has developed these probings of new directions have
taken the two fold direction of exploring the relationships between
the disparate traditions of twentieth century philosophy and with
developing new insights into the foundations of some enduring
philosophic problems. This present volume continues both of these
directions. The interaction between twentieth-century Anglo-Saxon
and Continental philosophy which was an implicit theme of our first
and third volumes and the explicit subject of our second volume is
here continued in a series of studies on major figures and topics
in each tradition. In the context of these interpretative studies,
Professor Durfee returns again and again to the question of the
relationships between the will and the reason, and explores the
conflicting goals of creativity and objectivity in formulating a
philosophic position. In so doing he raises the issue as his title
suggests - of the foundations of philosophy itself. He seriously
challenges the belief common to both pheomenology and analytic
philosophy that philosophizing can be a presuppositionless
activity, objectively persued independent of the personal (and,
perhaps, arbitrary) commitments of the philosopher. This issue,
critical as it is to all forms of philosophy, is surely a worthy
one for a series such as ours."
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