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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Metaphysics & ontology
This volume is devoted to problems within analytic metaphysics. It
defends an ontology and theory of categories inspired by Aristotle,
but revised in such a way as to be compatible with modern science.
The ontology of both natural and social reality is addressed,
starting out from the view that universals exist but only in the
spatiotemporal world (immanent realism). In attempting to bring
Aristotle's ontology up-to-date, the author relies very much on the
thinking of Edmund Husserl, conceiving the cement of the universe
as Husserlian relations of existential dependence and regarding
intentionality as a non-reducible category in the ontology of mind.
The work is thoroughly realistic in spirit, but large parts of it
should nonetheless be of interest to conceptualists and
nominalists, too.
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.
Ethical Personalism proposes to reflect on the person from at least
three levels: ontology, epistemology, and ethics. Articulating from
various philosophical and religious angles and traditions the
ontological and inalienable value of the human person, i.e., her
dignity, the contributors to this volume show not just what it
means to be a human person, but also what it takes to live
accordingly. Hence, beyond the purely theoretical elaboration on
ethical personalism that reposes the crucial debates between
relativism and realism on the one hand, and consequentialism and
deontology on the other hand, this volume offers a range of
insights useful for addressing concrete and practical matters that
we, as humans, are confronted in our everyday life. With the call
"back to the person!" which takes roots from a deep conviction to
bring into light the value of the person, Ethical Personalism
unequivocally affirms the necessity of (re)placing the person in
the centre of our project of society, economic plans, political
settings, and environment policies.
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.
For Indian thinkers, a philosophical treatise about the self
should not only reveal the truth about the nature of the soul, but
should also engage the reader in a process of study and
contemplation that will eventually lead to self-transformation. By
combining careful attention to philosophical content and
sensitivity to literary form, Ganeri deepens our understanding of
some of the greatest works in Indian literary history. His
magisterial survey includes the Upanisads, the Buddha's discourses,
the epic Mahabharata, and the writings of Candrakirti, whose work
was later to provide the foundation for Tibetan Buddhism.
Ganeri argues that many Western theories of selfhood are not only
present in, but are developed to high degree of sophistication in
these writings, and that there are other ideas about the self found
in the work of classical Indian thinkers which present-day analytic
philosophers have not yet begun to explore.
Scholars and students of philosophy and religious studies,
particularly those with an interest in Indian and Western
conceptions of the self, will find this book fascinating reading.
The present collection of seventeen papers, most of them already
published in international philosophical journals, deals both with
issues in the philosophy of logic, the philosophy of mathematics,
the philosophy of language and epistemology. The first part
contains critical assessments and somewhat deviant renderings of
the work of two seminal philosophers, Frege and Husserl, as well as
of the young Carnap and Kripke. The second part contains analyses
of central issues in the philosophy of logic, the philosophy of
mathematics and semantics, including arguments on behalf of
Platonism in the philosophy of mathematics, a defense of
second-order logic, a new definition of analyticity, a sketch of a
semantics for mathematical statements and a critique of Kripke's
possible world semantics for modal logic.
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
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.
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.
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.
The phenomenologists were concerned to show that essential
structures of being, knowable by rational insight, are found far
more abundantly than is commonly thought. In his great monograph
Reinach shows that in the civil law, where one usually thinks that
there are only legal structures of human devising, there are in
fact many essential structures, such as the structure of promising
or of owning. These pre-positive structures, which are something
different from the moral norms relevant to the positive law,
provide the civil law with a foundation that can be known by
philosophical insight. Though the enactments of the civil law are
changeable, these essential foundations are not changeable. Of
particular significance and originality is Reinach's concept of a
social act, that is, of an act that addresses another and has to be
heard by the other in order to be complete. Reinach shows that the
essence of legally relevant acts such as promising, comes to
evidence when they are understood as social acts. The concept of a
social act, in fact, has significance far beyond the part of legal
philosophy in which Reinach first discovers it.
Michail Peramatzis presents a new interpretation of Aristotle's
view of the priority relations between fundamental and derivative
parts of reality, following the recent revival of interest in
Aristotelian discussions of what priority consists in and how it
relates existents. He explores how in Aristotle's view, in
contradistinction with (e.g.) Quinean metaphysical views, questions
of existence are not considered central. Rather, the crucial
questions are: what types of existent are fundamental and what
their grounding relation to derivative existents consists in. It is
extremely important, therefore, to return to Aristotle's own theses
regarding priority and to study them not only with exegetical
caution but also with an acutely critical philosophical eye.
Aristotle deploys the notion of priority in numerous levels of his
thought. In his ontology he operates with the notion of primary
substance. His Categories, for instance, confer this honorific
title upon particular objects such as Socrates or Bucephalus, while
in the Metaphysics it is essences or substantial forms, such as
being human, which are privileged with priority over certain types
of matter or hylomorphic compounds (either particular compound
objects such as Socrates or universal compound types such as the
species human). Peramatzis' chief aim is to understand priority
claims of this sort in Aristotle's metaphysical system by setting
out the different concepts of priority and seeing whether and, if
so, how Aristotle's preferred prior and posterior items fit with
these concepts.
When Reschers Process Metaphysics (1996) was published, it was
widely acclaimed as a major step towards the academic recognition
of a mode of thought that has otherwise been confined within sharp
scholarly boundaries. Of course it is not an easy book: despite its
stylistic clarity, it remains the complex outcome of a lifes work
in most areas of philosophy. The goal of the present volume is to
systematically unfold the vices and virtues of Process Metaphysics,
and thereby to specify the contemporary state of affairs in process
thought. To do so, the editor has gathered one focused contribution
per chapter, each paper addressing specifically and explicitly its
assigned chapter and seeking to promote a dialogue with Rescher. In
addition, the volume features Reschers replies to the papers.
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
The first book in English to offer an extended comparative analysis
of Heidegger and Deleuze. Those familiar with Heidegger's and
Deleuze's thinking will find a detailed, well-researched book that
comes to an innovative conclusion, while those new to both will
find a clear, well-written exposition of their key concepts.
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.
To rectify the unfortunate neglect in the West of one of India's
premier intellectuals, philosopher Innaiah Narisetti has compiled
this new collection of Roy's most significant works. Roy conceived
of humanism as a scientific, integral, and radically new worldview.
For humanists, philosophers, political scientists, and others, M N
Roy's unique and still very relevant view of humanism will have
great appeal and broad application beyond its original Indian
context.
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In Physical Realization, Sydney Shoemaker considers the question of
how physicalism can be true: how can all facts about the world,
including mental ones, be constituted by facts about the
distribution in the world of physical properties? Physicalism
requires that the mental properties of a person are 'realized in'
the physical properties of that person, and that all instantiations
of properties in macroscopic objects are realized in microphysical
states of affairs. Shoemaker offers an account of both these sorts
of realization, one which allows the realized properties to be
causally efficacious. He also explores the implications of this
account for a wide range of metaphysical issues, including the
nature of persistence through time, the problem of material
constitution, the possibility of emergent properties, and the
nature of phenomenal consciousness.
This book is a collection of articles authored by renowed Polish
ontologists living and working in the early part of the 21st
century. Harking back to the well-known Polish Lvov-Warsaw School,
founded by Kazimierz Twardowski, we try to make our ontological
considerations as systematically rigorous and clear as possible -
i.e. to the greatest extent feasible, but also no more than the
subject under consideration itself allows for. Hence, the papers
presented here do not seek to steer clear of methods of inquiry
typical of either the formal or the natural sciences: on the
contrary, they use such methods wherever possible. At the same
time, despite their adherence to rigorous methods, the Polish
ontologists included here do not avoid traditional ontological
issues, being inspired as they most certainly are by the great
masters of Western philosophy - from Plato and Aristotle, through
St. Thomas and Leibniz, to Husserl, to name arguably just the most
important.
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