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Ontological commitment implies that each theory is supposed to specify the type of entities that form its components. Representatives of a theory share an ontological commitment in relation to the objects they refer to. There are theories that admit the existence of universals while others do not. As there are different ways of speaking about universals it is necessary to decide what a universal term corresponds to. It is essential to have a criterion that enables us to decide which kinds of objects are allowed as references for the terms used. In this volume two different approaches are discussed: first, in cases where only extensional languages are accepted; second, when intensional elements are required to determine the meaning such terms as "Sachverhalt", intentional statements or representations. The ontological commitment associated with extensional theories exclusively admits the existence of physical objects, whereas intensional theses additionally include universal and abstract entities. The study of ontological commitment enables us to measure the ontological economy of theories. This serves as a basis for the choice of theory. The authors of this volume discuss relevant issues of both models and provide new solutions.
Scientific literature on particular themes in ontology is extremely abundant, but it is often very hard for freshmen or sophomores to find a red thread between the various proposals. This text is an opinionated introduction, a preliminary text to research in ontology from the so called standard approach to ontological commitment, that is from the particular point of view that connects ontological questions to quantificational questions. It offers a survey of this viewpoint in ontology together with their possible applications through a broad array of examples and open problems and, at the same time, essential references to the classics of philosophy, so as to allow non-specialists to understand the terms and analysis procedures characterizing the discipline. Its result is a wide-ranging overview of the issued tackled by ontology, with a particular focus on the most relevant problems of contemporary debate (categorial taxonomies, nonexistent objects, case studies of ontological debates in specific fields of knowledge).
The philosophical study of what exists and what it means for something to exist is one of the core concerns of metaphysics. This introduction to ontology provides readers with a comprehensive account of the central ideas of the subject of being. This book is divided into two parts. The first part explores questions of pure philosophical ontology: what is meant by the concept of being, why there exists something rather than nothing, and why there is only one logically contingent actual world. Dale Jacquette shows how logic provides the only possible answers to these fundamental problems. The second part of the book examines issues of applied scientific ontology. Jacquette offers a critical survey of some of the most influential traditional ontologies, such as the distinction between appearance and reality, and the categories of substance and transcendence. The ontology of physical entities - space, time, matter and causation - is examined as well as the ontology of abstract entities such as sets, numbers, properties, relations and propositions. The special problems posed by the subjectivity of mind and of postulating a god are also explored in detail. The final chapter examines the ontology of culture, language and art.
If we take mathematical statements to be true, must we also believe in the existence of abstract invisible mathematical objects? This text claims that the way to escape such a commitment is to accept true statements which are about objects that don't exist in any sense at all.
Our experience of a unified sense of the self is underwritten by a multiplicity of self-aspects having very different metaphysical commitments. Our experience of unity is provided by a process-which, under certain clinical conditions, is rendered inoperative-that enables a person to experience mental states as personally owned.
A new approach to the metaphysics, background logic, and semantics of ontological debate, Ontology Without Borders offers new solutions to perennial philosophical puzzles about constitution and the nonexistent. Book jacket.
Our experience of objects (and consequently our theorizing about them) is very rich. We perceive objects as possessing individuation conditions. They appear to have boundaries in space and time, for example, and they appear to move independently of a background of other objects or a landscape. In Ontology Without Boundaries Jody Azzouni undertakes an analysis of our concept of object, and shows what about that notion is truly due to the world and what about it is a projection onto the world of our senses and thinking. Location and individuation conditions are our product: there is no echo of them in the world. Features, the ways that objects seem to be, aren't projections. Azzouni shows how the resulting austere metaphysics tames a host of ancient philosophical problems about constitution ("Ship of Theseus," "Sorities"), as well as contemporary puzzles about reductionism. In addition, it's shown that the same sorts of individuation conditions for properties, which philosophers use to distinguish between various kinds of odd abstracta-universals, tropes, and so on, are also projections. Accompanying our notion of an object is a background logic that makes cogent ontological debate about anything from Platonic objects to Bigfoot. Contemporary views about this background logic ("quantifier variance") make ontological debate incoherent. Azzouni shows how a neutral interpretation of quantifiers and quantifier domains makes sense of both philosophical and pre-philosophical ontological debates. Azzouni also shows how the same apparatus makes sense of our speaking about a host of items--Mickey Mouse, unicorns, Martians--that nearly all of us deny exist. It's allowed by what Azzouni shows about the background logic of our ontological debates, as well as the semantics of the language of those debates that we can disagree over the existence of things, like unicorns, without that background logic and semantics forcing ontological commitments onto speakers that they don't have.
Economists increasingly recognise that engagement with social ontology – the study of the basic subject matter and constitution of social reality - can facilitate more relevant analysis. This growing recognition amongst economists of the importance of social ontology is due very considerably to the work of members of the Cambridge Social Ontology Group. This volume brings together important papers by members of this group, some previously unpublished, in a collection that reveals the breadth and vitality of this Cambridge project. It provides a brilliant introduction to the central themes explored, perspectives sustained, insights achieved and how the project is moving forward. An initial set of papers examine how ontology is understood and justified within this Cambridge project and consider how it compares with prominent historical and contemporary alternatives. The majority of the included papers involve social ontological analysis being put to work directly in underlabouring for specific types of development in economics. The papers are grouped according to their contribution to clarifying and developing (i) various competing traditions and projects of modern economics, (ii) history of thought contributions, (iii) methodological concerns, (iv) ethics and (v) conceptions of particular aspects of social reality, including money, gender, technology and institutions. Background to and a brief history of the Cambridge group is provided in the Introduction. Social Ontology and Modern Economics will be of interest not only to economists but also philosophers of social science, social theorists and those eager to explore the nature of gender, social institutions and technology.
Philosophical questions regarding both the existence and nature of properties are ubiquitous in ordinary life, the sciences, and philosophical theorising. In philosophy, it is one of the oldest topics discussed in various intellectual traditions – East and West – reaching back to Plato and Aristotle. Today, in the analytic tradition, properties continue to be a core area of study and research. The Routledge Handbook of Properties is an outstanding reference source to this perennial topic and is the first major volume of its kind. It contains forty specially commissioned chapters written by an international team of expert contributors, and is divided into nine clear parts: Methodology and Metaontology Distinctions Realism about Universals Nominalism Trope Theory Properties in Causation, Time, and Modality Properties in Science Properties in Language and Mind Properties in the Normative Realm, the Social World, and Aesthetics The Routledge Handbook of Properties is essential reading for anyone studying and researching metaphysics, metametaphysics, and ontology, and will also be of interest to those in closely related areas such as philosophy of science, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, ethics, and aesthetics.
W.V. Quine, a champion of philosophical naturalism and pioneer of mathematical logic, was one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. Contemporary thought in ontology, epistemology, and the philosophy of logic and language owes much to his influence, yet recent work in these areas has become increasingly dismissive of his views. This is often because of mistaken or overly simplified conceptions of his philosophy which overlook the development of his views over time, in particular the growing importance of a kind of structuralism to his system as it evolved. This volume provides a fuller, richer picture of Quine's views and their development. With contributions from leading philosophers in a range of subfields including philosophical logic, philosophy of language, history of philosophy, mathematics, philosophy of time, and set theory, it is the first to investigate Quine's views on structure and how it permeates and shapes his attitude to a range of philosophical questions.