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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Metaphysics & ontology
In recent years the majority of scholarship on Aristotle's
philosophy of mind has concentrated on his account of sensation and
has generally sought to find in his ancient account insights
applicable to contemporary materialistic explanations of mental
life. Challenging cognitivist and functionalist interpretations,
this volume argues that Aristotle believed the mind to be unmixed,
or separate from the body. Through careful textual analysis of De
Anima and other key texts, the author shows that the Greek
philosopher made a clear distinction between perception-an activity
realized in material sense organs-and thinking-a process that
cannot occur in any material organ. This innovative interpretation
of Aristotle's theory of cognitive activities is a worthy
contribution to an ongoing debate.
A philosophical study by W.W. Atkinson, Suggestion and
Auto-Suggestion is written, in his usual style, like an essay on
suggestion. In other words, he discusses the definition of
suggestion, the different forms it takes (such as authority, habit,
imitation, character, and so on), the influence of suggestion, and
how suggestion can be healthy and therapeutic, plus build
character. As always, Atkinson is descriptive and holds the readers
attention with anecdotes and examples. American writer WILLIAM
WALKER ATKINSON (1862-1932) was editor of the popular magazine New
Thought from 1901 to 1905, and editor of the journal Advanced
Thought from 1916 to 1919. He authored dozens of New Thought books
under numerous pseudonyms, including "Yogi," some of which are
likely still unknown today.
This volume collects the most important articles on the metaphysics of modality by noted philosopher Alvin Plantinga. The book chronicles Plantinga's thought from the late 1960's to the present. Plantinga is here concerned with fundamental issues in metaphysics: what is the nature of abstract objects like possible worlds,properties, propositions, and such phenomena? Are there possible but non-actual objects? Can objects that do not exist exemplify properties? In this thorough and searching book, Plantinga addresses these and many other questions that continue to preoccupy philosophers in the field. This volume contains some of the best work in metaphysics from the past 30 years, and will remain a source of critical contention and keen interest among philosophers of metaphysics and philosophical logic for years to come.
From Concept to Objectivity uncovers the nature and authority of
conceptual determination by critically thinking through neglected
arguments in Hegel's Science of Logic pivotal for understanding
reason and its role in philosophy. Winfield clarifies the logical
problems of presuppositionlessness and determinacy that prepare the
way for conceiving the concept, examines how universality,
particularity, and individuality are determined, investigates how
judgment and syllogism are exhaustively differentiated, and, on
that basis, explores how objectivity can be categorized without
casting thought in irrevocable opposition to reality. Winfield's
book will be of interest to readers of Hegel as well as anyone
wondering how thought can be objective.
This book focuses on African metaphysics and epistemology, and is
an exercise in decoloniality. The authors describe their approach
to "decoloniality" as an intellectual repudiation of coloniality,
using the method of conversational thinking grounded in Ezumezu
logic. Focusing specifically on both African metaphysics and
African epistemology, the authors put forward theories formulated
to stimulate fresh debates and extend the frontiers of learning in
the field. They emphasize that this book is not a project in
comparative philosophy, nor is it geared towards making Africa/ns
the object/subjects of philosophy. Rather, the book highlights and
discusses philosophical insights that have been produced from the
African perspective, which the authors argue must be further
developed in order to achieve decoloniality in the field of
philosophy more broadly.
Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra offers a fresh philosophical account of properties. How is it that two different things (such as two red roses) can share the same property (redness)? According to resemblance nominalism, things have their properties in virtue of resembling other things. This unfashionable view is championed with clarity and rigour.
The main aim of this book is to discuss fundamental developments on
the question of being in Western and African philosophy using
analytic metaphysics as a framework. It starts with the two
orthodox responses to the question of being, namely, the
subject-verb-object language view and the rheomodic language view.
In the first view, being is conceived through the analysis of
language structure, where it is represented by subjects
(particulars), objects, and relations (often universals). In the
second view, there are different variations; however, the common
idea is that the world's structure is revealed in the root verb of
terms. This suggests a holistic and dynamic conception of being,
where everything is in a continuous process of action. The book
builds on analytic philosophy and explores metaphysical concepts
such as space-time, modality, causation, indeterminism versus
determinism, and mind and body. The book shows that in both Western
and African thought, (i) similarities in different studies confirm
that philosophy is a universal activity, (ii) differences within a
context and beyond confirm the perspectival nature of human
knowledge as individuals attempt to interpret reality, and (iii)
language influences the conceptualization of being in a particular
area. One of the novel aspects is the development of visual and
mathematical African models of space and time.
Barry Taylor's book mounts an argument against one of the
fundamental tenets of much contemporary philosophy, the idea that
we can make sense of reality as existing objectively, independently
of our capacities to come to know it. Part One sets the scene by
arguings that traditional realism can be explicated as a doctrine
about truth - that truth is objective, that is, public, bivalent,
and epistemically independent. Part Two, the centrepiece of the
book, shows how a form of Hilary Putnam's model-theoretic argument
demonstrates that no such notion of truth can be founded on the
idea of correspondence, as explained in model-theoretic terms (more
traditional accounts of correspondence having been already disposed
of in Part One). Part Three argues that non-correspondence accounts
of truth - truth as superassertibility or idealized rational
acceptability, formal conceptions of truth, Tarskian truth - also
fail to meet the criteria for objectivity; along the way, it also
dismisses the claims of the latterday views of Putnam, and of
similar views articulated by John McDowell, to constitute a new,
less traditional form of realism. In the Coda, Taylor bolsters some
of the considerations advanced in Part Three in evaluating formal
conceptions of truth, by assessing and rejecting the claims of
Robert Brandom to have combined such an account of truth with a
satisfactory account of semantic structure. He concludes that there
is no defensible notion of truth which preserves the theses of
traditional realism, nor any extant position sufficiently true to
the ideals of that doctrine to inherit its title. So the only
question remaining is which form of antirealism to adopt.
Aristotle's Topics is a handbook for dialectic, which can be
understood as a philosophical debate between a questioner and a
respondent. In book 2, Aristotle mainly develops strategies for
making deductions about 'accidents', which are properties that
might or might not belong to a subject (for instance, Socrates has
five fingers, but might have had six), and about properties that
simply belong to a subject without further specification. In the
present commentary, here translated into English for the first
time, Alexander develops a careful study of Aristotle's text. He
preserves objections and replies from other philosophers whose work
is now lost, such as the Stoics. He also offers an invaluable
picture of the tradition of Aristotelian logic down to his time,
including innovative attempts to unify Aristotle's guidance for
dialectic with his general theory of deductive argument (the
syllogism), found in the Analytics. The work will be of interest
not only for its perspective on ancient logic, rhetoric, and
debate, but also for its continuing influence on argument in the
Middle Ages and later.
Uncovering the theoretical and creative interconnections between
posthumanism and philosophies of immanence, this volume explores
the influence of the philosophy of immanence on posthuman theory;
the varied reworkings of immanence for the nonhuman turn; and the
new pathways for critical thinking created by the combination of
these monumental discourses. With the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze
and Felix Guattari serving as a vibrant node of immanence, this
volume maps a multiplicity of pathways from Deleuze, Guattari and
their theoretical allies - including Spinoza and Nietzsche - to
posthuman thought. As positions that insist, respectively, on the
equal yet distinct powers of mind and body (immanence) and the
urgent need to dismantle human privilege and exceptionality
(posthumanism), each chapter reveals concepts for rethinking
established notions of being, thought, experience, and life. The
authors here take examples from a range of different media,
including literature and contemporary cinema, featuring films such
as Enthiran/The Robot (India, 2010) and CHAPPiE (USA/Mexico, 2015),
and new developments in technology and theory. In doing so, they
investigate Deleuzian and Guattarian posthumanism from a variety of
political and ethical frameworks and perspectives, from
afro-pessimism to feminist thought, disability studies,
biopolitics, and social justice. Countering the dualisms of
Cartesian philosophy and flattening the hierarchies imposed by
Humanism, From Deleuze and Guattari to Posthumanism launches vital
interrogations of established knowledge and sparks the critical
reflection necessary for life in the posthuman era.
We are women, we are men. We are refugees, single mothers, people
with disabilities, and queers. We belong to social categories and
they frame our actions, self-understanding, and opportunities. But
what are social categories? How are they created and sustained? How
does one come to belong to them? Asta approaches these questions
through analytic feminist metaphysics. Her theory of social
categories centers on an answer to the question: what is it for a
feature of an individual to be socially meaningful? In a careful,
probing investigation, she reveals how social categories are
created and sustained and demonstrates their tendency to oppress
through examples from current events. To this end, she offers an
account of just what social construction is and how it works in a
range of examples that problematize the categories of sex, gender,
and race in particular. The main idea is that social categories are
conferred upon people. Asta introduces a 'conferralist' framework
in order to articulate a theory of social meaning, social
construction, and most importantly, of the construction of sex,
gender, race, disability, and other social categories.
Jonathan Lowe argues that metaphysics should be restored to a central position in philosophy, as the most fundamental form of inquiry, whose findings underpin those of all other disciplines. He portrays metaphysics as charting the possibilities of existence, by identifying the categories of being and the relations between them. He sets out his own original metaphysical system, within which he seeks to answer many of the deepest questions in philosophy.
From an Ontological Point of View is a highly original and accessible exploration of fundamental questions about what there is. John Heil discusses such issues as whether the world includes levels of reality; the nature of objects and properties; the demands of realism; what makes things true; qualities, powers, and the relation these bear to one another. He advances an account of the fundamental constituents of the world around us, and applies this account to problems that have plagued recent work in the philosophy of mind and metaphysics (colour, intentionality, and the nature of consciousness).
This book is a critical re-evaluation of Jean-Paul Sartre's
phenomenological ontology, in which a theory of egological
complicity and self-deception informing his later better known
theory of bad faith is developed. This novel reinterpretation
offers a systematic challenge to orthodox apprehensions of Sartre's
conceputualization of transcendental consciousness and the role
that the ego plays within his account of pre-reflective
consciousness. Heldt persuasively demonstrates how an adequate
comprehension of Sartre's theories of negation and reflection can
reveal the world as it appears to human consciousness as one in
which our reality is capable of becoming littered with illusions.
As the foundation upon which the rest of Sartre's philosophical
project is built, it is essential that the phenomenological
ontology of Sartre's early writings be interpreted with clarity.
This book provides such a reinterpretation. In doing so, a
philosophical inquiry emerges which is genuinely contemporary in
its aim and scope and which seeks to demonstrate the significance
of Sartre's thought, not only as significant to the history of
philosophy, but to ongoing debates in continental philosophy and
philosophy of mind.
F. H. Bradley was the greatest of the British Idealists, but for
much of this century his views have been neglected, primarily as a
result of the severe criticism to which they were subjected by
Russell and Moore. In recent years, however, there has been a
resurgence of interest in and a widespread reappraisal of his work.
W. J. Mander offers a general introduction to Bradley's metaphysics
and its logical foundations, and shows that much of his philosophy
has been seriously misunderstood. Dr Mander argues that any
adequate treatment of Bradley's thought must take full account of
his unique dual inheritance from the traditions of British
empiricism and Hegelian rationalism. The scholarship of recent
years is assessed, and new interpretations are offered of Bradley's
views about truth, predication, and relations, and of his arguments
for idealism. This book is a clear and helpful guide for those new
to this difficult but fascinating thinker, and at the same time an
original and stimulating contribution to the re-evaluation of his
work.
Telepathy: Its Theory, Facts, and Proof discusses the theme of
telepathy and its existence. Focusing on proving that telepathy is
real, author W.W. Atkinson first defines his subject, telepathy,
and goes on to describe a series of scientific experiments and
their results to theorize that telepathy is real and useful. While
focusing on the realm of the otherworldly and therefore introducing
debate, Atkinson's work is enjoyable to read either for pleasure or
study, and as always he includes useful examples and stories for
the reader to follow. American writer WILLIAM WALKER ATKINSON
(1862-1932) was editor of the popular magazine New Thought from
1901 to 1905, and editor of the journal Advanced Thought from 1916
to 1919. He authored dozens of New Thought books under numerous
pseudonyms, including "Yogi," some of which are likely still
unknown today.
Doob's central thesis is that some beliefs function mainly to help
the believer cope with life's uncertainties. The coping mechanism
that is the focus of Doob's book is a belief that certain things in
life are inevitable. . . . Doob methodically explores the origin
and nature of inevitablility beliefs, and like his pervious titles
in social psychology, this is a theoretical analysis. . . . The
book is well written and carefully organized but demanding to read;
Doob attributes this to the inherent difficulty of the subject--he
is probably right. Choice This book examines the ways in which
human beings seek to cope with uncertainty by means of doctrines
that postulate degrees of inevitability. These doctrines originate
in natural science, social science, philosophy, and religion. Their
adequacies and inadequacies are carefully assessed, with special
reference to the ways in which they deal with intervention by the
very persons who would reduce uncertainty. The possibility of
intervention in turn raises questions concerning freedom and
responsibility that challenge people in all societies and
throughout the lifespan.
This book is an edited collection of papers from international
experts in philosophy and psychology concerned with time. The
collection aims to bridge the gap between these disciplines by
focussing on five key themes and providing philosophical and
psychological perspectives on each theme. The first theme is the
concept of time. The discussion ranges from the folk concept of
time to the notion of time in logic, philosophy and psychology. The
second theme concerns the notion of present in the philosophy of
mind, metaphysics, and psychology. The third theme relates to
continuity and flow of time in mind. One of the key questions in
this section is how the apparent temporal continuity of conscious
experience relates to the possibly discrete character of underlying
neural processes. The fourth theme is the timing of experiences,
with a focus on the perception of simultaneity and illusions of
temporal order. Such effects are treated as test cases for
hypotheses about the relationship between the subjective temporal
order of experience and the objective order of neural events. The
fifth and the final theme of the volume is time and
intersubjectivity. This section examines the role of time in
interpersonal coordination and in the development of social skills.
The collection will appeal to both psychologists and philosophers,
but also to researchers from other disciplines who seek an
accessible overview of the research on time in psychology and
philosophy.
This book presents a new way to understand human-animal
interactions. Offering a profound discussion of topics such as
human identity, our relationship with animals and the environment,
and our culture, the author channels the vibrant Italian traditions
of humanism, materialism, and speculative philosophy. The research
presents a dialogue between the humanities and the natural
sciences. It challenges the separation and oppression of animals
with a post-humanism steeped in the traditions of the Italian
Renaissance. Readers discover a vision of the human as a species
informed by an intertwining with animals. The human being is not
constructed by an onto-poetic process, but rather by close
relations with otherness. The human system is increasingly unstable
and, therefore, more hybrid. The argument it presents interests
scholars, thinkers, and researchers. It also appeals to anyone who
wants to delve into the deep animal-human bond and its
philosophical, cultural, political instances. The author is a
veterinarian, ethologist, and philosopher. He uses cognitive
science, zooanthropology, and philosophy to engage in a series of
empirical, theoretical, and practice-based engagements with animal
life. In the process, he argues that animals are key to human
identity and culture at all levels.
This book contains twelve chapters by leading and up-and-coming
philosophers on metaepistemology, that is, on the nature, existence
and authority of epistemic facts. One of the central divides in
metaepistemology is between epistemic realists and epistemic
anti-realists. Epistemic realists think that epistemic facts (such
as the fact that you ought to believe what your evidence supports)
exist independently of human judgements and practices, and that
they have authority over our judgements and practices. Epistemic
anti-realists think that, if epistemic facts exist at all, they are
grounded in human judgements and practices, and gain any authority
they have from our judgements and practices. This book considers
both epistemic realist and anti-realist perspectives, as well as
perspectives that 'transcend' the realism/anti-realism dichotomy.
As such, it constitutes the 'state of the art' with regard to
metaepistemology, and will shape the debate in years to come.
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