Oxford Cognitive Science Series General Editors: Martin Davies, Wilde Reader in Mental Philosophy, University of Oxford, UK, James Higginbotham , Professor of General Linguistics, University of Oxford, UK, John O'Keefe, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College, London, UK, Christopher Peacocke, Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy, University of Oxford, UK, and Kim Plunkett, University Lecturer in Psychology, University of Oxford, UK The Oxford Cognitive Science series is a forum for the best contemporary work in this flourishing field, where various disciplines-cognitive psychology, philosophy, linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, and computational theory-join forces in the investigation of thought, awareness, understanding, and associated workings of the mind. Each book will represent an original contribution to its subject, but will be accessible beyond the ranks of specialists, so as to reach a broad interdisciplinary readership. The series will be carefully shaped and steered by the general editors, with the aim of representing the most important developments in the field and bringing together its constituent disciplines. About this book The renowned philosopher Jerry Fodor, who has been a leading figure in the study of the mind for more than twenty years, presents a strikingly original theory of the basic constituents of thought. He suggests that the heart of a cognitive science is its theory of concepts, and that cognitive scientists have gone badly wrong in many areas because their assumptions about concepts have been seriously mistaken. Fodor argues compellingly for an atomistic theory of concepts, deals out witty and pugnacious demolitions of the rival theories that have prevailed in recent years, and suggests that future work on human cognition should build upon new foundations. This lively, conversational, accessible book is the first volume in the Oxford Cognitive Science Series, where the best original work in this field will be presented to a broad readership. Concepts will fascinate anyone interested in contemporary work on mind and language. Cognitive science will never be the same again.

Most contemporary metaphysicians are sceptical about the reality of familiar objects such as dogs and trees, people and desks, cells and stars. They prefer an ontology of the spatially tiny or temporally tiny. Tiny microparticles 'dog-wise arranged' explain the appearance, they say, that there are dogs; microparticles obeying microphysics collectively cause anything that a baseball appears to cause; temporal stages collectively sustain the illusion of enduring objects that persist across changes. Crawford L. Elder argues that all such attempts to 'explain away' familiar objects project downwards, onto the tiny entities, structures and features of familiar objects themselves. He contends that sceptical metaphysicians are thus employing shadows of familiar objects, while denying that the entities which cast those shadows really exist. He argues that the shadows are indeed really there, because their sources - familiar objects - are mind-independently real.

This book answers questions about secularization: Does it dissolve religion, or transform it into faith in a universally valid value? Is it restricted to the west or can it occur everywhere? Using ideas of Max Weber, the book conceives secularization as a process comparable to the rational development of science and production. What is the value secularization propagates? Sifting historical texts, Steinvorth argues the value is authenticity, to be understood as being true to one's talents developed in activities that are done for their own sake and provide life with meaning, and as unconditionally commanded. How can a value be unconditionally demanded? This question leads to an investigation of the self that combines Kant's ideas on the conditions of the possibility of experience with modern brain science, and to the metaphysical deliberation whether to prefer a world with creatures able to do both good and evil to one without them. It is not enough, however, to point to facts. We rather need to understand what secularization, religion and their possible rationality consist in. Max Weber's sociology of religion has provided us with the conceptual means to do so, which this book develops. Secularization is rediscovered as the same progress of rationality in the sphere of religion that we find in the development of the spheres of science, art, the economy and politics or public affairs. It proves to be the perfection rather than the dissolution of religion - a perfection that consists in recognizing authenticity as the successor of the absolute of religion.

As philosophy departments attempt to define their unique value amid program closures in the humanities and the rise of interdisciplinary research, metaphilosophy has become an increasingly important area of inquiry. Richard Fumerton here lays out a cogent answer to the question asked in the book's title, What is Philosophy?. Against those who argue that philosophy is not sharply distinguishable from the sciences, Fumerton makes a case for philosophy as an autonomous discipline with its own distinct methodology. Over the course of nine engaging and accessible chapters, he shows that answering fundamental philosophical questions requires one to take a radical first-person perspective that divorces the truth conditions of philosophical claims from the kind of contingent truths investigated by the empirical sciences. Along the way, Fumerton briefly discusses the historical controversies that have surrounded the nature of philosophy, situating his own argument within the larger conversation. Key Features Illuminates the unique role of thought experiments and especially the "paradox of analysis" in understanding the purpose and value of philosophy. Shows that philosophy asks fundamental questions, unanswerable by the sciences, that are critical to thinking clearly and rationally about the world. Highlights the distinct character of philosophical questions in specific subject areas: philosophy of language, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. Concludes by making a unique case for philosophy's contribution to cross-disciplinary work in ethics, politics, mathematics, and the empirical sciences. Written in a way to be engaging and accessible for advanced undergraduate readers.

Major introduction to metaphysics that integrates perennial topics such as ontology, time and free will with new ones such as critiques of metaphysics and social ontology Aimed at those coming to metaphysics for the first time: no prior knowledge of philosophy or metaphysics is required Packed with additional features such as chapter summaries, annotated further reading, glossary and companion website - all of which are updated for the second edition Second edition includes more on social metaphysics and the topics of fundamentality and grounding - in response to reviewer feedback of the first edition Competing textbooks cover a narrower range of topics, are out of date, or contain too much of the author's own views: our book is the most comprehensive and up to date introduction on the market. No competitor covers social metaphysics as thoroughly as our book, or introduces students to basic logic needed for metaphysics (this is optional).

Nature and Norm: Judaism, Christianity and the Theopolitical Problem is a book about the encounter between Jewish and Christian thought and the fact-value divide that invites the unsettling recognition of the dramatic acosmism that shadows and undermines a considerable number of modern and contemporary Jewish and Christian thought systems. By exposing the forced option presented to Jewish and Christian thinkers by the continued appropriation of the fact-value divide, Nature and Norm motivates Jewish and Christian thinkers to perform an immanent critique of the failure of their thought systems to advance rational theopolitical claims and exercise the authority and freedom to assert their claims as reasonable hypotheses that hold the potential for enacting effective change in our current historical moment.

This volume of essays explores major connected themes in Aristotle's metaphysics, philosophy of nature, and ethics, especially themes related to essence, definition, teleology, activity, potentiality, and the highest good. The volume is united by the belief that all aspects of Aristotle's work need to be studied together if any one of the areas of thought is to be fully understood. Many of the papers were contributions to a conference at the University of Pittsburgh entitled 'Being, Nature, and Life in Aristotle', to honor Professor Allan Gotthelf's many contributions to the field of ancient philosophy; a few are contributions from those who were invited but could not attend. The contributors, all longstanding friends of Professor Gotthelf, are among the most accomplished scholars in the field of ancient philosophy today.

This book takes up the question of whether past and future events exist. Two very different views are explored. According to one of these views, (presentism), advanced by Nikk Effingham, the present is special. Effingham argues that only the present things exist, but which things those are changes as time passes. Given presentism, although there once existed dinosaurs, they exist no more, and although you and I exist, at some time in the future we will come to exist no more. According to the alternative view (eternalism), advanced by Kristie Miller, our world is a giant four-dimensional block of spacetime in which all things, past, present, and future, exist. On this view, dinosaurs exist, it is just that they are not located at the current time. The book considers arguments for, and against, presentism and eternalism, including arguments that appeal to our best science, to the way the world seems to us to be in our experiences of time, change, and freedom, and to how to make sense of ordinary claims about the past. KEY FEATURES: Offers an accessible introduction to the philosophy of temporal ontology. Captures the process of philosophical debate, giving readers an insight into the craft of philosophy. Engages with and clearly explains state-of-the-art and cutting-edge research.

In a systematic treatment of Hegel's concept of philosophy and all of the different aspects related to it, this collection explores how Hegel and his understanding of his discipline can be put into dialogue with current metaphilosophical inquiries and shed light on the philosophical examination of the nature of philosophy itself. Taking into account specific aspects of Hegel's elaboration on philosophy such the scientificity of philosophy as a self-grounding rational process and his explanation of the relationship between philosophy and the history of philosophy, an international line-up of contributors consider: - Hegel's concept of philosophy in general from skepticism, idealism, history and difference, to time, politics and religion - The relation of Hegel's concept of philosophy to other philosophical traditions and philosophers including Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Jacobi - Hegel's concept of philosophy with reference to philosophy's relation to other forms of rationality and disciplines - The relation of Hegel's concept of philosophy to specific issues in present metaphilosophical debates. Reflecting the renewed and widespread interest in Hegel seen in Analytic philosophy and Continental thought, this volume advances study of Hegel's conceptual tools and provides new readings of traditional philosophical problems.

This book collects original essays on the epistemology of modality and related issues in modal metaphysics and philosophical methodology.

As philosophy departments attempt to define their unique value amid program closures in the humanities and the rise of interdisciplinary research, metaphilosophy has become an increasingly important area of inquiry. Richard Fumerton here lays out a cogent answer to the question asked in the book's title, What is Philosophy?. Against those who argue that philosophy is not sharply distinguishable from the sciences, Fumerton makes a case for philosophy as an autonomous discipline with its own distinct methodology. Over the course of nine engaging and accessible chapters, he shows that answering fundamental philosophical questions requires one to take a radical first-person perspective that divorces the truth conditions of philosophical claims from the kind of contingent truths investigated by the empirical sciences. Along the way, Fumerton briefly discusses the historical controversies that have surrounded the nature of philosophy, situating his own argument within the larger conversation. Key Features Illuminates the unique role of thought experiments and especially the "paradox of analysis" in understanding the purpose and value of philosophy. Shows that philosophy asks fundamental questions, unanswerable by the sciences, that are critical to thinking clearly and rationally about the world. Highlights the distinct character of philosophical questions in specific subject areas: philosophy of language, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. Concludes by making a unique case for philosophy's contribution to cross-disciplinary work in ethics, politics, mathematics, and the empirical sciences. Written in a way to be engaging and accessible for advanced undergraduate readers.

This volume offers an introduction to consciousness research within philosophy, psychology and neuroscience, from a philosophical perspective and with an emphasis on the history of ideas and core concepts. The book begins by examining consciousness as a modern mystery. Thereafter, the book introduces philosophy of mind and the mind-body problem, and proceeds to explore psychological, philosophical and neuroscientific approaches to mind and consciousness. The book then presents a discussion of mysterianist views of consciousness in response to what can be perceived as insurmountable scientific challenges to the problem of consciousness. As a response to mysterianist views, the next chapters examine radical approaches to rethinking the problem of consciousness, including externalist approaches. The final two chapters present the author's personal view of the problem of consciousness. Consciousness remains a mystery for contemporary science-a mystery raising many questions. Why does consciousness persist as a mystery? Are we humans not intelligent enough to solve the riddle of consciousness? If we can solve this mystery, what would it take? What research would we need to conduct? Moreover, the mystery of consciousness prompts the larger question of how well the cognitive sciences have actually advanced our understanding of ourselves as human beings. After all, consciousness is not just a minor part of our existence. Without consciousness, we would not be human beings at all. This book aims to increase the accessibility of major ideas in the field of consciousness research and to inspire readers to contribute to the ongoing discussion of the place of consciousness in nature.

In thinking about ontology as the study of being or what fundamentally exists, we can adopt an ontology that either takes substances or processes as primary. There are, however, both commonsense and naturalistic reasons for not fully adopting a substance ontology, which indicate that we ought to suspend judgment with respect to the acceptance of a substance ontology. Doing so allows room to further explore other ontologies. In this book, Andrew M. Winters argues that there are both commonsense and naturalistic reasons for further pursuing a process ontology. Adopting a process ontology allows us to overcome many of the difficulties facing a substance ontology while also accommodating many of the phenomenon that substance ontologies were appealed to for explanation. Given these reasons, we have both commonsense and naturalistic reasons for pursuing and developing a metaphysics without substance.

Phillip Cary argues that Augustine invented or created the concept of self as an inner space--as space into which one can enter and in which one can find God. This concept of inwardness, says Cary, has worked its way deeply into the intellectual heritage of the West and many Western individuals have experienced themselves as inner selves. After surveying the idea of inwardness in Augustine's predecessors, Cary offers a re-examination of Augustine's own writings, making the controversial point that in his early writings Augustine appears to hold that the human soul is quite literally divine. Cary goes on to contend that the crucial Book 7 of the Confessions is not a historical report of Augustine's "conversion" experience, but rather an explanation of his intellectual development over time.

What do philosophy and computer science have in common? It turns out, quite a lot! In providing an introduction to computer science (using Python), Daniel Lim presents in this book key philosophical issues, ranging from external world skepticism to the existence of God to the problem of induction. These issues, and others, are introduced through the use of critical computational concepts, ranging from image manipulation to recursive programming to elementary machine learning techniques. In illuminating some of the overlapping conceptual spaces of computer science and philosophy, Lim teaches the reader fundamental programming skills and also allows her to develop the critical thinking skills essential for examining some of the enduring questions of philosophy. Key Features Teaches readers actual computer programming, not merely ideas about computers Includes fun programming projects (like digital image manipulation and Game of Life simulation), allowing the reader to develop the ability to write larger computer programs that require decomposition, abstraction, and algorithmic thinking Uses computational concepts to introduce, clarify, and develop a variety of philosophical issues Covers various aspects of machine learning and relates them to philosophical issues involving science and induction as well as to ethical issues Provides a framework to critically analyze arguments in classic and contemporary philosophical debates

This book takes up the question of whether past and future events exist. Two very different views are explored. According to one of these views, (presentism), advanced by Nikk Effingham, the present is special. Effingham argues that only the present things exist, but which things those are changes as time passes. Given presentism, although there once existed dinosaurs, they exist no more, and although you and I exist, at some time in the future we will come to exist no more. According to the alternative view (eternalism), advanced by Kristie Miller, our world is a giant four-dimensional block of spacetime in which all things, past, present, and future, exist. On this view, dinosaurs exist, it is just that they are not located at the current time. The book considers arguments for, and against, presentism and eternalism, including arguments that appeal to our best science, to the way the world seems to us to be in our experiences of time, change, and freedom, and to how to make sense of ordinary claims about the past. KEY FEATURES: Offers an accessible introduction to the philosophy of temporal ontology. Captures the process of philosophical debate, giving readers an insight into the craft of philosophy. Engages with and clearly explains state-of-the-art and cutting-edge research.

Andean Ontologies is a fascinating interdisciplinary investigation of how ancient Andean people understood their world and the nature of being. Exploring pre-Hispanic ideas of time, space, and the human body, these essays highlight a range of beliefs across the region's different cultures, emphasizing the relational aspects of identity in Andean worldviews. This volume breaks new ground by bringing together an array of renowned specialists including anthropologists, bioarchaeologists, historians, linguists, ethnohistorians, and art historians to evaluate ancient Amerindian ideologies through different interpretive lenses. Many are local researchers from South American countries such as Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina, and this volume makes their work available to North American readers for the first time. Their essays are highly contextualized according to the territories and time periods studied. Instead of taking an external, outside-in approach, they prioritize internal and localized views that incorporate insights from today's indigenous societies. This cutting-edge collection demonstrates the value of a multifaceted, holistic, inside-out approach to the pre-Columbian world.

Sjoerd van Tuinen argues for the inseparability of matter and manner in the form of a group portrait of Leibniz, Bergson, Whitehead, Souriau, Simondon, Deleuze, Stengers, and Agamben. Examining afresh the 16th-century style of mannerism, this book synthesizes philosophy and aesthetics to demonstrate not only the contemporary relevance of artists such as Michelangelo or Arcimboldo but their broader significance as incorporating a form of modal thinking and perceiving. While looking at mannerism as a style that spurned the balance and proportion of earlier Renaissance models in favour of compositional instability and tension, this book also conceives of mannerism a-historically to investigate what it can tell us about continental modal metaphysics. Whereas analytical metaphysics privileges logical essence and asks whether something is possible, real, contingent, or necessary, continental philosophy privileges existence and counts as many modes as there are ways of coming-into-being. In three main parts, van Tuinen first explores the ontological, aesthetic, and ethical ramifications of this distinction. He then develops this through an extended study of Leibniz as a modal and indeed mannerist philosopher, before outlining in the final part a (neo)-mannerist aesthetics that incorporates diagrammatics, alchemy, and contemporary technologies of speculative design.

Truth is in trouble. In response, this book presents a new conception of truth. It recognizes that prominent philosophers have questioned whether the idea of truth is important. Some have asked why we even need it. Their questions reinforce broader trends in Western society, where many wonder whether or why we should pursue truth. Indeed, some pundits say we have become a "post-truth" society. Yet there are good reasons not to embrace the cultural Zeitgeist or go with the philosophical flow, reasons to regard truth as a substantive and socially significant idea. This book explains why. First it argues that propositional truth is only one kind of truth-an important kind, but not all important. Then it shows how propositional truth belongs to the more comprehensive process of truth as a whole. This process is a dynamic correlation between human fidelity to societal principles and a life-giving disclosure of society. The correlation comes to expression in distinct social domains of truth, where either propositional or nonpropositional truth is primary. The final chapters lay out five such domains: science, politics, art, religion, and philosophy. Anyone who cares about the future of truth in society will want to read this pathbreaking book.

The Spanish Jesuit Francisco Suarez (1548-1617) was an eminent philosopher and theologian whose Disputationes Metaphysicae was first published in Spain in 1597 and was widely studied throughout Europe during the seventeenth century. The Disputationes Metaphysicae had a great influence on the development of early modern philosophy and on such well-known figures as Descartes and Leibniz. This is the first time that Disputations 17, 18, and 19 have been translated into English. The Metaphysical Disputations provide an excellent philosophical introduction to the medieval Aristotelian discussion of efficient causality. The work constitutes a synthesis of monumental proportions: problematic issues are lucidly delineated and the various arguments are laid out in depth. Disputations 17, 18, and 19 deal explicitly with such issues as the nature of causality, the types of efficient causes, the prerequisites for causal action, causal contingency, human free choice, and chance.

In Ontologies and Natures: Knowledge about Health in Visual Culture, Fernando Gonzalez Rodriguez argues that visual culture offers insights into how societies perceive the role of nature in their own and others' pursuits to cure and care for the human body. By using a set of visual surfaces and artefacts as entry points-such as vlogs, toys, cosmetics, psychotropics, stamps, posters, and animation, among others-the book sheds light on the evolution, circulation, and rootedness of ideas about nature as a healing source. The first part of the book considers how visual culture operates as a vehicle to diffuse, transmit, mediate, and communicate health-related knowledge and imaginaries about the role of nature in medicinal therapies (e.g., a dictionary). The second part explores the process by which nature becomes a consumable, encapsulated in objects defined by their visual and material traits. The author focuses on items such as labels on packages of herbal cosmetics and infographics about superfoods. In the third part, Gonzalez Rodriguez examines the situatedness of health within two physical contexts: geographical and mental. Methodologically, the book is informed by historical sources, visual-virtual ethnography, content analysis, and semiotic-linguistic analysis of objects from all corners of the globe, paying particular attention to Indigenous traditional knowledge(s).

The book defends that there is both teleological order (design) and chance in non-living and in living systems of nature including man. This is done by giving exact definitions of different types of order and teleological order on the one hand and of different types of chance on the other. For their compatibility it is important to notice that any definition of chance presupposes some kind of order relative to that we can speak of chance. Thus also in evolution which is some growth of some order and for which a detailed definition is given in chpt.13 chance and degrees of freedom play an essential role. A further purpose of the book is to show that both the existing order and the existing chance in nature are compatible with a global teleological plan which is God's providence. However concerning the execution of God's plan not everything is done or caused by himself but "God created things in such a way that they themselves can create something" (Goedel, MAX PHIL). A reason for that is that God is neither all-causing nor all-willing although he is almighty. This is connected with the result of chpts.15 and 16 that also human freedom and evil are compatible with God's providence.

Medieval natural philosophy illuminates Chaucer's use of the motif of sight and the relationship between love and knowledge. In this study, Norman Klassen shows how Chaucer explores the complexity of the relationship between love and knowledge through recourse to the motif of sight. The convention of love at first sight involves love, knowledge, and sight, but insists that the claims of love and the realm of the rational are in strict opposition. In the metaphysical tradition, however, the relationship between love, knowledge and sight is more complex, manifesting both qualitiesof opposition and of symbiosis, similar to that found in late medieval natural philosophy. The author argues that Chaucer is unorthodox in exploiting the possibilities for using sight both to express emotional experience and to accentuate rationality at the same time. The conventional opposition of love and knowledge in the phenomenon of love at first sight gives way in Chaucer's development of love, knowledge, and sight to a symbiosis in his lovepoetry. The complexity of this relationship draws attention to his own role as artificer, as one who in the process of articulating the effects of love at first sight cannot help but bring together love and knowledge in ways not anticipated by the conventions of love poetry.NORMAN KLASSENis a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada postdoctorial fellow at the Centre for Medieval Studies and the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Minnesota.