David Armstrong sets out his metaphysical system in a set of concise and lively chapters each dealing with one aspect of the world. He begins with the assumption that all that exists is the physical world of space-time. On this foundation he constructs a coherent metaphysical scheme that gives plausible answers to many of the great problems of metaphysics. He gives accounts of properties, relations, and particulars; laws of nature; modality; abstract objects such as numbers; and time and mind.

D. M. Armstrong's A Materialist Theory of the Mind is widely known as one of the most important defences of the view that mental states are nothing but physical states of the brain. A landmark of twentieth-century philosophy of mind, it launched the physicalist revolution in approaches to the mind and has been engaged with, debated and puzzled over ever since its first publication over fifty years ago. Ranging over a remarkable number of topics, from behaviourism, the will and knowledge to perception, bodily sensation and introspection, Armstrong argues that mental states play a causally intermediate role between stimuli, other mental states and behavioural responses. He uses several illuminating examples to illustrate this, such as the classic case of pain. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Peter Anstey, placing Armstrong's book in helpful philosophical and historical context.

First published in 1961, Perception and the Physical World contends that there are insuperable difficulties for the Representative and Phenomenalist theories. Unreflective common sense thinks of sense-perception as a direct grasping of the nature of the physical world. But when we are confronted with facts about sensory illusion, about the physical and physiological causes of perception, and with modern scientific views of the real nature of matter, it is hard to maintain such a 'Direct Realist' theory of perception. We tend to substitute a Copy or Representative theory which puts sense-impressions between ourselves and physical reality. Some philosophers overwhelmed by the difficulties of the Copy theory, retreat into Phenomenalism, which identifies the physical world with our sense-impressions. The author re-examines all the traditional objections to a Direct Realist theory and tries to show that they can be overcome. This book will be of interest to students of philosophy.

First published in 1962, Bodily Sensations argues that bodily sensations are nothing but impressions that physical happenings are taking place in the body, impressions that may correspond or fail to correspond to physical reality. In the case of such sensations as pains, these impressions are accompanied by certain attitudes to the impressions. He argues, that is to say that bodily sensations are a sub-species of sense-impression, standing to perception of our own bodily state (or in some cases to touch) as visual impressions stand to the sense of sight. He examines, and tries to refute, all plausible alternative accounts of the nature of bodily sensations. He prefaces his argument by an account of tactual and bodily perception. Here he argues that, with the exception of heat and cold, the qualities discerned by these senses are all reducible to spatial and temporal properties of material objects. Combined with his own conclusions on bodily sensations, this allows him to draw up a short and exhaustive list of the so-called "secondary" qualities of physical objects. This book will be of interest to students of philosophy.

In this short text, a distinguished philosopher turns his attention to one of the oldest and most fundamental philosophical problems of all: How it is that we are able to sort and classify different things as being of the same natural class? Professor Armstrong carefully sets out six major theories?ancient, modern, and contemporary?and assesses the

Breaking new ground in the debate about the relation of mind and body, David Armstrong's classic text - first published in 1968 - remains the most compelling and comprehensive statement of the view that the mind is material or physical. In the preface to this new edition, the author reflects on the book's impact and considers it in the light of subsequent developments. He also provides a bibliography of all the key writings to have appeared in the materialist debate.

In this important study David Armstrong offers a comprehensive system of analytical metaphysics that synthesizes but also develops his thinking over the last twenty years. Armstrong's analysis, which acknowledges the 'logical atomism' of Russell and Wittgenstein, makes facts (or states of affairs, as the author calls them) the fundamental constituents of the world, examining properties, relations, numbers, classes, possibility and necessity, dispositions, causes and laws. All these, it is argued, find their place and can be understood inside a scheme of states of affairs. This is a comprehensive and rigorously this-worldly account of the most general features of reality, argued from a distinctive philosophical perspective, and it will appeal to a wide readership in analytical philosophy.

Dispositions are essential to our understanding of the world. Dispositions: A Debate is an extended dialogue between three distinguished philosophers - D.M. Armstrong, C.B. Martin and U.T. Place - on the many problems associated with dispositions, which reveals their own distinctive accounts of the nature of dispositions. These are then linked to other issues such as the nature of mind, matter, universals, existence, laws of nature and causation.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203004876

Breaking new ground in the debate about the relation of mind and body, David Armstrong's classic text - first published in 1968 - remains the most compelling and comprehensive statement of the view that the mind is material or physical.
In the preface to this new edition, the author reflects on the book's impact and considers it in the light of subsequent developments. He also provides a bibliography of all the key writings to have appeared in the materialist debate.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203003233

Dispositions are essential to our understanding of the world. Dispositions: A Debate is an extended dialogue between three distinguished philosophers - D.M. Armstrong, C.B. Martin and U.T. Place - on the many problems associated with dispositions, which reveals their own distinctive accounts of the nature of dispositions. These are then linked to other issues such as the nature of mind, matter, universals, existence, laws of nature and causation.

The relation of mind to body has been argued about by philosophers for centuries. The Mind-Body Problem: An Opinionated Introduction presents the problem as a debate between materialists about the mind and their opponents. After examining the views of Descartes, Hume and Thomas Huxley the debate is traced through the twentieth century to the presen

D. M. Armstrong's A Materialist Theory of the Mind is widely known as one of the most important defences of the view that mental states are nothing but physical states of the brain. A landmark of twentieth-century philosophy of mind, it launched the physicalist revolution in approaches to the mind and has been engaged with, debated and puzzled over ever since its first publication over fifty years ago.

Ranging over a remarkable number of topics, from behaviourism, the will and knowledge to perception, bodily sensation and introspection, Armstrong argues that mental states play a causally intermediate role between stimuli, other mental states and behavioural responses. He uses several illuminating examples to illustrate this, such as the classic case of pain.

This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Peter Anstey, placing Armstrong's book in helpful philosophical and historical context.

Table of Contents

Foreword to the Routledge Classics Edition Peter Anstey

Acknowledgements

Preface to the 1993 Edition

Introduction

Part 1: Theories of Mind

1. A Classification of Theories of Mind

2. Dualism

3. The Attribute Theory

4. A Difficulty for any Non-Materialist Theory of Mind

5. Behaviourism

6. The Central-State Theory

Part 2: The Concept of Mind

7. The Will (1)

8. The Will (2)

9. Knowledge and Inference

10. Perception and Belief

11. Perception and Behaviour

12. The Secondary Qualities

13. Mental Images

14. Bodily Sensations

15. Introspection

16. Belief and Thought

Part 3: The Nature of Mind

17. Identification of the Mental with the Physical

Bibliography

Index

David Armstrong sets out his metaphysical system in a set of concise and lively chapters each dealing with one aspect of the world. He begins with the assumption that all that exists is the physical world of space-time. On this foundation he constructs a coherent metaphysical scheme that gives plausible answers to many of the great problems of metaphysics. He gives accounts of properties, relations, and particulars; laws of nature; modality; abstract objects such as numbers; and time and mind.

The relation of mind to body has been argued about by philosophers for centuries. "The Mind-Body Problem: An Opinionated Introduction" presents the problem as a debate between materialists about the mind and their opponents. After examining the views of Descartes, Hume and Thomas Huxley the debate is traced through the twentieth century to the present day. The emphasis is always on the arguments used, and the way one position develops from another. By the end of the book the reader is afforded both a grasp of the state of the controversy, and how we got there.

In this short text, a distinguished philosopher turns his attention to one of the oldest and most fundamental philosophical problems of all: How it is that we are able to sort and classify different things as being of the same natural class? Professor Armstrong carefully sets out six major theories?ancient, modern, and contemporary?and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of each. Recognizing that there are no final victories or defeats in metaphysics, Armstrong nonetheless defends a traditional account of universals as the most satisfactory theory we have.This study is written for advanced students, but as Armstrong goes considerably beyond his earlier work on this topic, it will interest professional scholars as well. Carefully plotted and clearly written, Universals is both a paradigm of exposition and a case study on the value of careful analysis of fundamental issues in philosophy.

Truths are determined not by what we believe, but by the way the world is. Or so realists about truth believe. Philosophers call such theories correspondence theories of truth. Truthmaking theory, which now has many adherents among contemporary philosophers, is a recent development of a realist theory of truth, and in this book, first published in 2004, D. M. Armstrong offers the first full-length study of this theory. He examines its applications to different sorts of truth, including contingent truths, modal truths, truths about the past and the future, and mathematical truths. In a clear, even-handed and non-technical discussion he makes a compelling case for truthmaking and its importance in philosophy. His book marks a significant contribution to the debate and will be of interest to a wide range of readers working in analytical philosophy.

Truths are determined not by what we believe, but by the way the world is. Or so realists about truth believe. Philosophers call such theories correspondence theories of truth. Truthmaking theory, which now has many adherents among contemporary philosophers, is a recent development of a realist theory of truth, and in this book, first published in 2004, D. M. Armstrong offers the first full-length study of this theory. He examines its applications to different sorts of truth, including contingent truths, modal truths, truths about the past and the future, and mathematical truths. In a clear, even-handed and non-technical discussion he makes a compelling case for truthmaking and its importance in philosophy. His book marks a significant contribution to the debate and will be of interest to a wide range of readers working in analytical philosophy.

If asked what Humeanism could mean today, there is no other philosopher to turn to whose work covers such a wide range of topics from a unified Humean perspective as that of David Lewis. The core of Lewis's many contributions to philosophy, including his work in philosophical ontology, intensional logic and semantics, probability and decision theory, topics within philosophy of science as well as a distinguished philosophy of mind, can be understood as the development of philosophical position that is centered around his conception of Humean supervenience. If we accept the thesis that it is physical science and not philosophical reasoning that will eventually arrive at the basic constituents of all matter pertaining to our world, then Humean supervenience is the assumption that all truths about our world will supervene on the class of physical truths in the following sense: There are no truths in any compartment of our world that cannot be accounted for in terms of differences and similarities among those properties and external space-time relations that are fundamental to our world according to physical science.

In this important study D. M. Armstrong offers a comprehensive system of analytical metaphysics that synthesises but also develops his thinking over the last twenty years. Armstrong's analysis, which acknowledges the 'logical atomism' of Russell and Wittgenstein, makes facts (or states of affairs, as the author calls them) the fundamental constituents of the world, examining properties, relations, numbers, classes, possibility and necessity, dispositions, causes and laws. All these, it is argued, find their place and can be understood inside a scheme of states of affairs. This is a comprehensive and rigorously this-worldly account of the most general features of reality, argued from a distinctive philosophical perspective, and it will appeal to a wide readership in analytical philosophy.

David Armstrong’s new book is a contribution to recent philosophical discussion about possible worlds. Taking Wittgenstein’s Tractatus as his point of departure, Professor Armstrong argues that nonactual possibilities and possible worlds are recombinations of actually existing elements, and as such are useful fictions. There is an extended criticism of the alternative-possible-worlds approach championed by the American philosopher David Lewis. This major new work will be read with interest by a wide range of philosophers.

This is a study, in two volumes, of one of the longest-standing philosophical problems: the problem of universals. In volume I David Armstrong surveys and criticizes the main approaches and solutions to the problems that have been canvassed, rejecting the various forms of nominalism and 'Platonic' realism. In volume II he develops an important theory of his own, an objective theory of universals based not on linguistic conventions, but on the actual and potential findings of natural science. He thus reconciles a realism about qualities and relations with an empiricist epistemology. The theory allows, too, for a convincing explanation of natural laws as relations between these universals.

This is a study, in two volumes, of one of the longest-standing philosophical problems: the problem of universals. In volume I David Armstrong surveys and criticizes the main approaches and solutions to the problems that have been canvassed, rejecting the various forms of nominalism and 'Platonic' realism. In volume II he develops an important theory of his own, an objective theory of universals based not on linguistic conventions, but on the actual and potential findings of natural science. He thus reconciles a realism about qualities and relations with an empiricist epistemology. The theory allows, too, for a convincing explanation of natural laws as relations between these universals.

A wide-ranging study of the central concepts in epistemology - belief, truth and knowledge. Professor Armstrong offers a dispositional account of general beliefs and of knowledge of general propositions. Belief about particular matters of fact are described as structures in the mind of the believer which represent or 'map' reality, while general beliefs are dispositions to extend the 'map' or introduce casual relations between portions of the map according to general rules. 'Knowledge' denotes the reliability of such beliefs as representations of reality. Within this framework Professor Armstrong offers a distinctive account of many of the main questions in general epistemology - the relations between beliefs and language, the notions of proposition, concept and idea, the analysis of truth, the varieties of knowledge, and the way in which beleifs and knowledge are supported by reasons. The book as a whole if offered as a contribution to a naturalistic account of man.

First published in 1985, D. M. Armstrong's original work on what laws of nature are has continued to be influential in the areas of metaphysics and philosophy of science. Presenting a definitive attack on the sceptical Humean view, that laws are no more than a regularity of coincidence between stances of properties, Armstrong establishes his own theory and defends it concisely and systematically against objections. Presented in a fresh twenty-first-century series livery, and including a specially commissioned preface written by Marc Lange, illuminating its continuing importance and relevance to philosophical enquiry, this influential work is available for a new generation of readers.

First published in 1985, D. M. Armstrong's original work on what laws of nature are has continued to be influential in the areas of metaphysics and philosophy of science. Presenting a definitive attack on the sceptical Humean view, that laws are no more than a regularity of coincidence between stances of properties, Armstrong establishes his own theory and defends it concisely and systematically against objections. Presented in a fresh twenty-first-century series livery, and including a specially commissioned preface written by Marc Lange, illuminating its continuing importance and relevance to philosophical enquiry, this influential work is available for a new generation of readers.