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C. S. Peirce's indictment that "the chief cause of [metaphysics'] backward condition is that its leading professors have been theo (Collected Papers 6:3) falls heavily at my door. For it logians" was out of reflection upon religious experience and its meaning that the present relational metaphysic was conceived. My hope, however, is that its scope is sufficiently wider than its theological origins to justify its appearance as a work in philosophy. Having been nurtured in existential philosophy and having reached some measure of maturity with the wise counsel of Professor Dr. Fritz Buri, of Basel, I came to feel that theology as a modern discipline had reached an impasse owing to its overextended commitments to a subject-object paradigm of thought. Even those theologians who despaired of these ties seemed unable to find an independent alternative idiom for their ideas. A second tension in my thinking resulted from the inordinate neglect by theologians of the natural world. Also, my natural interest in physical understanding seemed unfulfilled within the narrow confines of theology, even of philosophical theology as then practiced. As I turned decisively toward the study of modern physics, and especially of cosmology, a new world seemed to open up to me. After extensive study with prominent astronomers and physicists, it began to dawn on me that the new physics has devised conceptual paradigms of thought which could be generalized into a metaphysical system of universal interest.
This volume presents thirteen original essays which explore both traditional and contemporary aspects of the metaphysics of relations. It is uncontroversial that there are true relational predications-'Abelard loves Eloise', 'Simmias is taller than Socrates', 'smoking causes cancer', and so forth. More controversial is whether any true relational predications have irreducibly relational truthmakers. Do any of the statements above involve their subjects jointly instantiating polyadic properties, or can we explain their truths solely in terms of monadic, non-relational properties of the relata? According to a tradition dating back to Plato and Aristotle, and continued by medieval philosophers, polyadic properties are metaphysically dubious. In non-symmetric relations such as the amatory relation, a property would have to inhere in two things at once-lover and beloved-but characterise each differently, and this puzzled the ancients. More recent work on non-symmetric relations highlights difficulties with their directionality. Such problems offer clear motivation for attempting to reduce relations to monadic properties. By contrast, ontic structural realists hold that the nature of physical reality is exhausted by the relational structure expressed in the equations of fundamental physics. On this view, there must be some irreducible relations, for its fundamental ontology is purely relational. The Metaphysics of Relations draws together the work of a team of leading metaphysicians, to address topics as diverse as ancient and medieval reasons for scepticism about polyadic properties; recent attempts to reduce causal and spatiotemporal relations; recent work on the directionality of relational properties; powers ontologies and their associated problems; whether the most promising interpretations of quantum mechanics posit a fundamentally relational world; and whether the very idea of such a world is coherent. From those who question whether there are relational properties at all, to those who hold they are a fundamental part of reality, this book covers a broad spectrum of positions on the nature and ontological status of relations, from antiquity to the present day.
Real Metaphysics brings together new articles by leading metaphysicians to honour Hugh Mellor's outstanding contribution to metaphysics. Some of the most outstanding minds of current times shed new light on all the main topics in metaphysics: truth, causation, dispositions and properties, explanation, and time. At the end of the book, Hugh Mellor responds to the issues raised by each of the thirteen contributors and gives us new insight into his own highly influential work on metaphysics.
Metaphysics is sensitive to the conceptual tools we choose to articulate metaphysical problems. Those tools are a lens through which we view metaphysical problems, and the same problems will look different when we change the lens. In this book, Theodore Sider identifies how the shift from modal to "postmodal" conceptual tools in recent years has affected the metaphysics of science and mathematics. He highlights, for instance, how the increased consideration of concepts of ground, essence, and fundamentality has transformed the debate over structuralism in many ways. Sider then examines three structuralist positions through a postmodal lens. First, nomic essentialism, which says that scientific properties are secondary and lawlike relationships among them are primary. Second, structuralism about individuals, a general position of which mathematical structuralism and structural realism are instances, which says that scientific and mathematical objects are secondary and the pattern of relations among them is primary. And third, comparativism about quantities, which says that particular values of scientific quantities, such as having exactly 1000g mass, are secondary, and quantitative relations, such as being-twice-as-massive-as, are primary. Sider concludes these discussions by considering the meta-question of when theories are equivalent and how that impacts the debate over structuralism.
Every Thing Must Go argues that the only kind of metaphysics that can contribute to objective knowledge is one based specifically on contemporary science as it really is, and not on philosophers' a priori intuitions, common sense, or simplifications of science. In addition to showing how recent metaphysics has drifted away from connection with all other serious scholarly inquiry as a result of not heeding this restriction, they demonstrate how to build a metaphysics compatible with current fundamental physics ('ontic structural realism'), which, when combined with their metaphysics of the special sciences ('rainforest realism'), can be used to unify physics with the other sciences without reducing these sciences to physics itself. Taking science metaphysically seriously, Ladyman and Ross argue, means that metaphysicians must abandon the picture of the world as composed of self-subsistent individual objects, and the paradigm of causation as the collision of such objects. Every Thing Must Go also assesses the role of information theory and complex systems theory in attempts to explain the relationship between the special sciences and physics, treading a middle road between the grand synthesis of thermodynamics and information, and eliminativism about information. The consequences of the author's metaphysical theory for central issues in the philosophy of science are explored, including the implications for the realism vs. empiricism debate, the role of causation in scientific explanations, the nature of causation and laws, the status of abstract and virtual objects, and the objective reality of natural kinds.
Metaphysics: The Fundamentals presents readers with a systematic, comprehensive introductory overview of modern analytic metaphysics. Presents an accessible, up-to-date and broad-ranging survey of one of the most dynamic and often daunting sub-fields in contemporary philosophy Introduces readers to the seminal works of contemporary and historic philosophers, including Descartes, Leibniz, Russell, David Lewis, Alvin Plantinga, Kit Fine, Peter van Inwagen, John Hawthorne and many others Explores key questions while identifying important assumptions, axioms, and methodological principles Addresses topics in ontology, modality, causality, and universals; as well as issues surrounding material composition, persistence, space, and time
Is it possible for the name of a particular person not to refer to that person? Ori Simchen defends a negative answer to this question, and presents a new account of aboutness, or intentionality. He argues that intentional items—such as words, thoughts, photos—are about whatever they are about as a matter of necessity, rather than contingency.
Written in an engaging dialogue style, Smith and Oaklander cover metaphysical topics from a student's perspective and introduce key concepts through a process of explanation, reformulation and critique.
Bradley is a much neglected philosopher. The neglect is hardly justifiable, considering what Bradley actually wrote. However, the situation has improved in the last couple of decades, as there are signs of renewed interest in Bradley. Indeed, a basic consensus among Bradley scholars is the need for a reassessement of his philosophy and his place in the history of philosophy. In this interpretive and critical work, Ilodigwe undertakes an appraisal of Bradleyâ (TM)s philosophy. He argues that Bradleyâ (TM)s metaphysics of the absolute is the core of his philosophical system This means that we cannot understand Bradleyâ (TM)s philosophy unless we do justice to this aspect of his thought. Nor would it be possible to gain a full conspectus of the varied ramification of his thought if dissociated from the larger milieu relative to which they subsist and have their being. Unfortunately, much of the contemporary rejection of Bradleyâ (TM)s metaphysics is predicted on this sort of fragementary appreciation, as evidenced by Russell and Jamesâ (TM)s reception of Bradley. Bradley and the Problematic Status of Metaphysics tries to redress this imbalance. Ilodigwe here makes a case for a fundamental reassessment of Bradleyâ (TM)s philosophy by taking his account of the Absolute as point of reference for receiving other aspects of his thought. In keeping with this strategy, Part 1 and 2 focuses on a number of themes in Bradleyâ (TM)s philosophy such as his account of immediate experience, his theory of Judgement, his analysis of the essence of thought and his account of truth as appearance. In each case Ilodigwe shows how the themes illutrate a two-fold thesis that permeate Bradleyâ (TM)s thought: the claim as to the immanence of the Absolute in its appearances, and the further claim that the Absolute is irreducible to to any of its apperances. Part 3 relates Bradleyâ (TM)s philosophy to the situation of contemporary philosophy by assessing Russell and Jamesâ (TM)s appraisal of Bradley.