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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Metaphysics & ontology
In this second book of the Global Healing trilogy, Vipin Mehta takes us on the sacred journey to awaken spirituality beyond organized religions so that we can consciously create global healing by using metaphysical tools. The journey shows how spirituality will lead humanity by raising the level of human consciousness from nationalism to globalism and from patriotism to humanism.
This book is about our ordinary concept of matter in the form of enduring continuants and the processes in which they are involved in the macroscopic realm. It emphasises what science rather than philosophical intuition tells us about the world, and chemistry rather than the physics that is more usually encountered in philosophical discussions. The central chapters dealing with the nature of matter pursue key steps in the historical development of scientific conceptions of chemical substance. Like many contemporary discussions of material objects, it relies heavily on mereology. The classical principles are applied to the mereological structure of regions of space, intervals of time, processes and quantities of matter. Quantities of matter, which don't gain or lose parts over time, are distinguished from individuals, which are typically constituted of different quantities of matter at different times. The proper treatment of the temporal aspect of the features of material objects is a central issue in this book, which is addressed by investigating the conditions governing the application of predicates relating time and other entities. Of particular interest here are relations between quantities of matter and times expressing substance kind, phase and mixture. Modal aspects of these features are taken up in the final chapter.
This book, provides a critical approach to all major logical paradoxes: from ancient to contemporary ones. There are four key aims of the book: 1. Providing systematic and historical survey of different approaches - solutions of the most prominent paradoxes discussed in the logical and philosophical literature. 2. Introducing original solutions of major paradoxes like: Liar paradox, Protagoras paradox, an unexpected examination paradox, stone paradox, crocodile, Newcomb paradox. 3. Explaining the far-reaching significance of paradoxes of vagueness and change for philosophy and ontology. 4. Proposing a novel, well justified and, as it seems, natural classification of paradoxes. "
Borders enclose and separate us. We assign to them tremendous significance. Along them we draw supposedly uncrossable boundaries within which we believe our individual identities begin and end, erecting the metaphysical dividing walls that enclose each one of us into numerically identical, numerically distinct, entities: persons. Do the borders between us - physical, psychological, neurological, causal, spatial, temporal, etc. - merit the metaphysical significance ordinarily accorded them? The central thesis of I Am You is that our borders do not signify boundaries between persons. We are all the same person. Variations on this heretical theme have been voiced periodically throughout the ages (the Upanishads, Averroes, Giordano Bruno, Josiah Royce, Schrodinger, Fred Hoyle, Freeman Dyson). In presenting his arguments, the author relies on detailed analyses of recent formal work on personal identity, especially that of Derek Parfit, Sydney Shoemaker, Robert Nozick, David Wiggins, Daniel C. Dennett and Thomas Nagel, while incorporating the views of Descartes, Leibniz, Wittgenstein, Schopenhauer, Kant, Husserl and Brouwer. His development of the implied moral theory is inspired by, and draws on, Rawls, Sidgwick, Kant and again Parfit. The traditional, commonsense view that we are each a separate person numerically identical to ourselves over time, i.e., that personal identity is closed under known individuating and identifying borders - what the author calls Closed Individualism - is shown to be incoherent. The demonstration that personal identity is not closed but open points collectively in one of two new directions: either there are no continuously existing, self-identical persons over time in the sense ordinarily understood - the sort of view developed by philosophers as diverse as Buddha, Hume and most recently Derek Parfit, what the author calls Empty Individualism - or else you are everyone, i.e., personal identity is not closed under known individuating and identifying borders, what the author calls Open Individualism. In making his case, the author: - offers a new explanation both of consciousness and of self-consciousness - constructs a new theory of Self - explains psychopathologies (e.g. multiple personality disorder, schizophrenia) - shows Open Individualism to be the best competing explanation of who we are - provides the metaphysical foundations for global ethics. The book is intended for philosophers and the philosophically inclined - physicists, mathematicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, linguists, computer scientists, economists, and communication theorists. It is accessible to graduate students and advanced undergraduates."
I Know myself, I know myself, I am One With God -From the Pert Em Heru "The Ru Pert em Heru" or "Ancient Egyptian Book of The Dead," or "Book of Coming Forth By Day" as it is more popularly known, has fascinated the world since the successful translation of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic scripture over 150 years ago. The astonishing writings in it reveal that the Ancient Egyptians believed in life after death and in an ultimate destiny to discover the Divine. The elegance and aesthetic beauty of the hieroglyphic text itself has inspired many see it as an art form in and of itself. But is there more to it than that? Did the Ancient Egyptian wisdom contain more than just aphorisms and hopes of eternal life beyond death? In this volume Dr. Muata Ashby, the author of over 25 books on Ancient Egyptian Yoga Philosophy has produced a new translation of the original texts which uncovers a mystical teaching underlying the sayings and rituals instituted by the Ancient Egyptian Sages and Saints. "Once the philosophy of Ancient Egypt is understood as a mystical tradition instead of as a religion or primitive mythology, it reveals its secrets which if practiced today will lead anyone to discover the glory of spiritual self-discovery. The Pert em Heru is in every way comparable to the Indian Upanishads or the Tibetan Book of the Dead." $28.95 ISBN# 1-884564-28-3 Size: 81/2" X
Defining an "emphatic" as an intrusion that alters the import of what it intrudes on, Weiss sets the stage for an exquisitely systematic, speculative study of the major themes confronting modern metaphysics. The idea of an emphatic has its roots in Weiss's long-developed pluralistic ontology, with special focus on what we experience as an "emphasis." The most obvious examples are grammatical devices such as changed pitch in speech or exclamation and question marks in writing. Weiss also analyzes emphatics in etiquette, social status, nature, art, conventional behavior, encyclopedias, psychiatry, and religion. Brilliant in every respect, "Emphatics" rewrites Weiss's systematic ontology in new terms. Not only are the lineaments of the system reexamined, but this book floods the reader with new perspectives and insights on relationship, signs, truth, particularity, space-time causality, education, mind-body issues, Being and other ultimate philosophical categories, and good and evil. Weiss engages the various objections to his position in a series of question-and-answer epilogues at the end of each chapter that allow the reader to follow step-by-step a great philosophical mind at work. He takes his critics seriously, grapples with their objections, and answers them honestly. His discourse creatively revisits age-old questions and in reimagining new answers establishes the continuing relevance of philosophy as an academic discipline.
Robert Stalnaker draws together in this volume his seminal work in metaphysics. The central theme is the role of possible worlds in articulating our various metaphysical commitments. The book begins with reflections on the general idea of a possible world, and then uses the framework of possible worlds to formulate and clarify some questions about properties and individuals, reference, thought, and experience. The essays also reflect on the nature of metaphysics, and on the relation between questions about what there is and questions about how we talk and think about what there is. Two of the fourteen essays, plus an extensive introduction that sets the papers in context and draws out the essays' common threads, are published here for the first time.
Evolutionary theory has long been debated, not only on religious grounds, but in terms of its usefulness as a scientific model. A common objection is that the theory does not fit the hypothetical-deductive standard used in the physical sciences and is therefore not good science. In this study, Lloyd contends with the scientific and philosophical critics of evolutionary theory. Employing the same type of semantic analysis that has been applied to physical theory, she offers an alternative view of evolutionary theory that shows biological and physical theories to be structurally similar. The author begins by reviewing recent debates concerning the existence or non-existence of evolutionary laws and the possibility of axiomizing evolutionary theory. The central discussion of Lloyd's work revolves around several problems that have not been resolved by other methods. These are, first, the problem of which units or entities are selected in nature; second, the problem of reductionism in genetics; and third, the problem of confirmation. Developing a view of evolutionary theory based on mathematical models, she uses this framework to describe a wide variety of evolutionary subtheories. She tests her analysis by comparing it with other approaches and applying it to problematic cases. Finally, she presents a view of confirmation appropriate to a model-oriented conception of theories. This original study explores some significant connections between science and philosophy and adds to our understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge.
This original book enters the undeveloped territory of feminist metaphysics and offers a bold and unusual contribution to debates about identity, essence and self. Using a diverse range of theories - from Kant to chaos theory, from Kierkegaard to Deleuze, Irigaray, Butler and Oliver Sachs - this book challenges the assumption that metaphysics can remain unchanged by issues of sexual difference.
Explores the link between mathematics and ontology.
This book tackles some of the deepest problems in Berkeley's philosophy by providing a fresh interpretation of Berkeley's core ontological doctrines and their relationship to his views about self-consciousness. Berkeley, the author argues, is led to adopt a new model of self-consciousness because he rejects the basic metaphysics of many of his predecessors. This new model of self-consciousness provides the foundation for Berkeley's own ontological framework. Bettcher's interpretation provides answers to long-standing questions about Berkeley's traditionally derided views about mind, offers an elegant treatment of Berkeley's core metaphysical views more generally, and illuminates Berkeley's innovative attempt to address the important philosophical and theological issues of his day. Moreover, Bettcher shows the importance of Berkeley's philosophy of spirit to the perplexing thesis that the subject of experience is somehow mysteriously elusive. She argues that Berkeley can be seen as a transitional figure with respect to the older philosophical concept of 'subject' (as a metaphysical supporter of properties) and the more modern philosophical concept of 'subject (as opposed to 'object'). She provides a re-reading of Hume's famous claim that when he turned reflection upon himself, he could perceive only perceptions and sheds new light on the notion of a 'subject of experience'. The book will be of substantial interest both to Berkeley scholars and to philosophers concerned with contemporary discussions of self-consciousness.
Brian Leftow offers a theory of the possible and the necessary in which God plays the chief role, and a new sort of argument for God's existence. It has become usual to say that a proposition is possible just in case it is true in some 'possible world' (roughly, some complete history a universe might have) and necessary just if it is true in all. Thus much discussion of possibility and necessity since the 1960s has focussed on the nature and existence (or not) of possible worlds. God and Necessity holds that there are no such things, nor any sort of abstract entity. It assigns the metaphysical 'work' such items usually do to God and events in God's mind, and reduces 'broadly logical' modalities to causal modalities, replacing possible worlds in the semantics of modal logic with God and His mental events. Leftow argues that theists are committed to theist modal theories, and that the merits of a theist modal theory provide an argument for God's existence. Historically, almost all theist modal theories base all necessary truth on God's nature. Leftow disagrees: he argues that necessary truths about possible creatures and kinds of creatures are due ultimately to God's unconstrained imagination and choice. On his theory, it is in no sense part of the nature of God that normal zebras have stripes (if that is a necessary truth). Stripy zebras are simply things God thought up, and they have the nature they do simply because that is how God thought of them. Thus Leftow's essay in metaphysics takes a half-step toward Descartes' view of modal truth, and presents a compelling theist theory of necessity and possibility.
This book defends a new interpretation of Hegel's theoretical philosophy, according to which Hegel's project in his central Science of Logic has a single organizing focus, provided by taking metaphysics as fundamental to philosophy, rather than any epistemological problem about knowledge or intentionality. Hegel pursues more specifically the metaphysics of reason, concerned with grounds, reasons, or conditions in terms of which things can be explained-and ultimately with the possibility of complete reasons. There is no threat to such metaphysics in epistemological or skeptical worries. The real threat is Kant's Transcendental Dialectic case that metaphysics comes into conflict with itself. But Hegel, despite familiar worries, has a powerful case that Kant's own insights in the Dialectic can be turned to the purpose of constructive metaphysics. And we can understand in these terms the unified focus of the arguments at the conclusion of Hegel's Science of Logic. Hegel defends, first, his general claim that the reasons which explain things are always found in immanent concepts, universals or kinds. And he will argue from here to conclusions which are distinctive in being metaphysically ambitious yet surprisingly distant from any form of metaphysical foundationalism, whether scientistic, theological, or otherwise. Hegel's project, then, turns out neither Kantian nor Spinozist, but more distinctively his own. Finally, we can still learn a great deal from Hegel about ongoing philosophical debates concerning everything from metaphysics, to the philosophy of science, and all the way to the nature of philosophy itself.
Containing three previously unpublished papers by W.V. Quine as well as historical, exegetical, and critical papers by several leading Quine scholars including Hylton, Ebbs, and Ben-Menahem, this volume aims to remedy the comparative lack of historical investigation of Quine and his philosophical context.
In "The Nature of Evil, "Daryl Koehn takes us on a sweeping tour of
different interpretations of evil. In this timely and serious
discussion she argues that evil is not intentional malice, but
rather violence that stems from a false sense of self. Violence is
not true evil but a symptom of the underlying evil of our failure
to really know who we are. Koehn examines situations in which good
intentions can have horrific results. She explores such works as
"The Talented Mr. Ripley," Dante's" Inferno," and "The Turn of the
Screw" to illustrate the origins of evil and suffering. "The Nature
of Evil" offers an insightful and engaging exploration at a time
when we are all struggling to understand the roots of violence and
suffering.
As we continue our Sacred Journey in this third book of his Global Healing Trilogy, Vipin discovers and unfolds the Nature and State of Hope and then explores the Seven Treasures hidden within the Core of Fear. These Seven Treasures work together Creating the Resonance of New Vistas of Hope of Dawning the New Age of Dominion
This book articulates the theoretical outlines of a feminism developed from Aristotle's metaphysics, making a new contribution to feminist theory. Readers will discover why Aristotle was not a feminist and how he might have become one, through an investigation of Aristotle and Aristotelian tradition. The author shows how Aristotle's metaphysics can be used to articulate a particularly subtle and theoretically powerful understanding of gender that may offer a highly useful tool for distinctively feminist arguments. This work builds on Martha Nussbaum's 'capabilities approach' in a more explicitly and thoroughly hylomorphist way. The author shows how Aristotle's hylomorphic model, developed to run between the extremes of Platonic dualism and Democritean atomism, can similarly be used today to articulate a view of gender that takes bodily differences seriously without reducing gender to biological determinations. Although written for theorists, this scholarly yet accessible book can be used to address more practical issues and the final chapter explores women in universities as one example. This book will appeal to both feminists with limited familiarity with Aristotle's philosophy, and scholars of Aristotle with limited familiarity with feminism.
In The Concealed Art of the Soul, Jonardon Ganeri presents a
variety of perspectives on the nature of the self as seen by major
schools of classical Indian philosophy.
Almost everyone can run. Only very few can run a marathon. But what is it for agents to be able to do things? This question, while central to many debates in philosophy, is still awaiting a comprehensive answer. The book provides just that. Drawing on some valuable insights from previous works of abilities and making use of possible world semantics, Jaster develops the "success view", a view on which abilities are a matter of successful behavior. Along the way, she explores the gradable nature of abilities, the contextsensitivity of ability statements, the difference between general and specific abilities, the relationship between abilities and dispositions, and the ability to act otherwise. The book is mandatory reading for anyone working on abilities, and provides valuable insights for anyone dealing with agents' abilities in other fields of philosophy. For this book, Romy Jaster has received both the Wolfgang Stegmuller Prize and the De Gruyter Prize for Analytical Philosophy of Mind or Metaphysics/Ontology.
Once Upon a Time of Transition is a journey through four decades in the career of a Czech dissident and diplomat reflecting on transitions from the 20th to the 21st century. A meaningful contribution to on-going public debates, and to a better understanding of our current political situation, Ambassador Martin Palous explores the uncertain territory between philosophy and politics. Directly or indirectly, his texts were inspired by three great Central European thinkers of the 20th century, Hannah Arendt, Jan Pato?ka and Eric Voegelin. At stake is the classical Socratic question concerning the "common good" that they all raised in their investigations of the human condition -- the question that Aristotle held to direct all our actions whether we adhere to some form of metaphysics or theology, or subscribe to the post-modern nihilism so fashionable these days.
Is it possible to quantify over absolutely all there is? Or must all of our quantifiers range over a less-than-all-inclusive domain? It has commonly been thought that the question of absolute generality is intimately connected with the set-theoretic antinomies. But the topic of absolute generality has enjoyed a surge of interest in recent years. It has become increasingly apparent that its ramifications extend well beyond the foundations of set theory. Connections include semantic indeterminacy, logical consequence, higher-order languages, and metaphysics. Rayo and Uzquiano present for the first time a collection of essays on absolute generality. These newly commissioned articles - written by an impressive array of international scholars - draw the reader into the forefront of contemporary research on the subject. The volume represents a variety of approaches to the problem, with some of the contributions arguing for the possibility of all-inclusive quantification and some of them arguing against it. An introduction by the editors draws a helpful map of the philosophical terrain.
Metaphysics or Ontology? treats the evolution of the object of metaphysics from being, to the concept of being, to, finally, the object (thought). Possible being must be non-contradictory, but an object of thought includes anything a human being can think, including contradictions and nothingness. When the concept of being, or object of thought, replaces existence as the object of metaphysics, it becomes something other than metaphysics-ontology, or something beyond ontology. However, ontology cannot examine existence because it only investigates concepts and possibility. Only classical metaphysics investigates reality qua reality. This book masterfully treats the history of this controversy and many other important metaphysical questions raised over the centuries |
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