Author: Anthony J. Everett Publisher: Stanford Univ Center for the Study ISBN: 9781575862538 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 325
Book Description
Contributions of important researchers working in empty names, fiction, and the puzzles of non-existence.
Author: Jody Azzouni Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199780439 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 282
Book Description
Ordinary language and scientific language enable us to speak about, in a singular way (using demonstratives and names), what we recognize not to exist: fictions, the contents of our hallucinations, abstract objects, and various idealized but nonexistent objects that our scientific theories are often couched in terms of. Indeed, references to such nonexistent items-especially in the case of the application of mathematics to the sciences-are indispensable. We cannot avoid talking about such things. Scientific and ordinary languages thus enable us to say things about Pegasus or about hallucinated objects that are true (or false), such as "Pegasus was believed by the ancient Greeks to be a flying horse," or "That elf I'm now hallucinating over there is wearing blue shoes." Standard contemporary metaphysical views and semantic analyses of singular idioms on offer in contemporary philosophy of language have not successfully accommodated these routine practices of saying true and false things about the nonexistent while simultaneously honoring the insight that such things do not exist in any way at all (and have no properties). That is, philosophers often feel driven to claim that such objects do exist, or they claim that all our talk isn't genuine truth-apt talk, but only pretence. This book reconfigures metaphysics (and the role of metaphysics in semantics) in radical ways that allow the accommodation of our ordinary ways of speaking of what does not exist while retaining the absolutely crucial presupposition that such objects exist in no way at all, have no properties, and so are not the truth-makers for the truths and falsities that are about them.
Author: Anthony Everett Publisher: OUP Oxford ISBN: 0191662453 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 255
Book Description
Anthony Everett defends the commonsense view that there are no such things as fictional people, places, and things. More precisely he develops and defends a pretense theoretic account on which there are no such things as fictional objects and our talk and thought that purports to be about them takes place within the scope of a pretense. Nevertheless we may mistakenly suppose there are fictional objects because we mistake the fact that certain utterances count as true within the pretense, and convey veridical information about the real world, for the genuine truth of those utterances. In the first half of The Nonexistent an account of this form is motivated, developed in detail, and defended from objections. The second half of the book then argues against fictional realism, the view that we should accept fictional objects into our ontology. First it is argued that the standard arguments offered for fictional realism all fail. Then a series of problems are raised for fictional realism. The upshot of these is that fictional realism provides an inadequate account of a significant range of talk and thought that purports to concern fictional objects. In contrast the pretense theoretic account developed earlier provides a very straightforward and attractive account of these cases and of fictional character discourse in general. Overall, Everett argues that we gain little but lose much by accepting fictional realism.
Author: Alan Berger Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 113950066X Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 383
Book Description
This collection of essays on Saul Kripke and his philosophy is the first and only collection of essays to examine both published and unpublished writings by Kripke. Its essays, written by distinguished philosophers in the field, present a broader picture of Kripke's life and work than has previously been available to scholars of his thought. New topics covered in these essays include vacuous names and names in fiction, Kripke on logicism and de re attitude toward numbers, Kripke on the incoherency of adopting a logic, Kripke on colour words and his criticism of the primary versus secondary quality distinction, and Kripke's critique of functionalism. These essays not only present Kripke's basic arguments but also engage with the arguments and controversies engendered by his work, providing the most comprehensive analysis of his philosophy and writings available. This collection will become a classic in contemporary analytic philosophy.
Author: Stuart Brock Publisher: OUP Oxford ISBN: 0191054526 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 308
Book Description
Eleven original essays discuss a range of puzzling philosophical questions about fictional characters, and more generally about fictional objects. For example, they ask questions like the following: Do they really exist? What would fictional objects be like if they existed? Do they exist eternally? Are they created? Who by? When and how? Can they be destroyed? If so, how? Are they abstract or concrete? Are they actual? Are they complete objects? Are they possible objects? How many fictional objects are there? What are their identity conditions? What kinds of attitudes can we have towards them? This volume will be a landmark in the philosophical debate about fictional objects, and will influence higher-level debates within metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.
Author: Adam Toon Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0198879628 Category : Languages : en Pages : 158
Book Description
We often think of the mind as an inner world. Once, this inner world might have been a spirit or soul - a "ghost in the machine", in Gilbert Ryle's memorable phrase. Nowadays, we are told it will be found in the brain. Adam Toon argues that this is a mistake. In fact, our concept of mind is fundamentally metaphorical: we project the 'outer world' of human culture onto the 'inner world' of the mind. This is an enormously powerful way of making sense of people and their behaviour. But we must not forget that this inner world is only a useful fiction. Mind as Metaphor develops this idea to offer a radical new approach to the mind, known as mental fictionalism. Toon shows that mental fictionalism can make sense of our ordinary concept of mind (or folk psychology), while avoiding the difficulties faced by alternative approaches, such as behaviourism or instrumentalism. In doing so, Mind as Metaphor sheds new light on a range of issues, from the mind's capacity to represent the world (or intentionality) to the way in which new tools and practices expand the limits of inquiry. Written in a concise, engaging, and accessible style, Mind as Metaphor is essential reading for anyone interested in the nature of the mind and its relationship to human culture
Author: William Lane Craig Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0191090549 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 255
Book Description
God Over All: Divine Aseity and the Challenge of Platonism is a defense of God's aseity and unique status as the Creator of all things apart from Himself in the face of the challenge posed by mathematical Platonism. After providing the biblical, theological, and philosophical basis for the traditional doctrine of divine aseity, William Lane Craig explains the challenge presented to that doctrine by the Indispensability Argument for Platonism, which postulates the existence of uncreated abstract objects. Craig provides detailed examination of a wide range of responses to that argument, both realist and anti-realist, with a view toward assessing the most promising options for the theist. A synoptic work in analytic philosophy of religion, this groundbreaking volume engages discussions in philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and metaontology.
Author: Brian Leiter Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand ISBN: 0199285934 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 317
Book Description
This volume capitalizes on a growth of interest in Nietzsche's work on morality from two sides--from scholars of the history of philosophy and from contributors to current debates on ethical theory.
Author: Zoltán Vecsey Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG ISBN: 3110665158 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 228
Book Description
One of the basic insights of the book is that there is a notion of non-relational linguistic representation which can fruitfully be employed in a systematic approach to literary fiction. This notion allows us to develop an improved understanding of the ontological nature of fictional entities. A related insight is that the customary distinction between extra-fictional and intra-fictional contexts has only a secondary theoretical importance. This distinction plays a central role in nearly all contemporary theories of literary fiction. There is a tendency among researchers to take it as obvious that the contrast between these two types of contexts is crucial for understanding the boundary that divides fiction from non-fiction. Seen from the perspective of non-relational representation, the key question is rather how representational networks come into being and how consumers of literary texts can, and do, engage with these networks. As a whole, the book provides, for the first time, a comprehensive artefactualist account of the nature of fictional entities.
Author: Francesco Berto Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media ISBN: 940074207X Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 254
Book Description
This profound exploration of one of the core notions of philosophy—the concept of existence itself—reviews, then counters (via Meinongian theory), the mainstream philosophical view running from Hume to Frege, Russell, and Quine, summarized thus by Kant: “Existence is not a predicate.” The initial section of the book presents a comprehensive introduction to, and critical evaluation of, this mainstream view. The author moves on to provide the first systematic survey of all the main Meinongian theories of existence, which, by contrast, reckon existence to be a real, full-fledged property of objects that some things possess, and others lack. As an influential addition to the research literature, the third part develops the most up-to-date neo-Meinongian theory called Modal Meinongianism, applies it to specific fields such as the ontology of fictional objects, and discusses its open problems, laying the groundwork for further research. In accordance with the latest trends in analytic ontology, the author prioritizes a meta-ontological viewpoint, adopting a dual definition of meta-ontology as the discourse on the meaning of being, and as the discourse on the tools and methods of ontological enquiry. This allows a balanced assessment of philosophical views on a cost-benefit basis, following multiple criteria for theory evaluation. Compelling and revealing, this new publication is a vital addition to contemporary philosophical ontology.
Author: Anthony J. Everett
Author: Jody Azzouni
Author: Anthony Everett
Author: Alan Berger
Author: Stuart Brock
Author: Adam Toon
Author: William Lane Craig
Author: Brian Leiter
Author: Zoltán Vecsey
Author: Francesco Berto