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Author: Jessica Leech Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0198873980 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 259
Book Description
Thinking of Necessity: A Kantian Account of Modal Thought and Modal Metaphysics sets out a Kant-inspired theory of modality, i.e., possibility and necessity. The theory is driven by a methodology which takes seriously questions about the function of modal judgment, i.e., the role or purpose of judgments of possibility and necessity, as a guide to a metaphysics of modality. Kant is a good example for how to develop this methodological approach since, for Kant, modal concepts play an important role in our capacity for thought and experience of the world. The book argues that we need logical modal concepts as a condition on our ability to think, and metaphysical modal concepts as a condition on our ability to think objectively, i.e., to think about the world. Concordant with this, it argues that logical necessity has its source in the laws of thought and that metaphysical necessity is relative to conditions on objective thought. This account of metaphysical necessity, which is termed “Modal Transcendentalism”, is then further developed, covering questions concerning necessary and contingent existence, de re necessity, essentialism, and modal epistemology. The theory of modality developed in the book is inspired by aspects of Kant's writings on modality, but the development and defence of the theory is undertaken mostly independently of Kant.
Author: Jessica Leech Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0198873980 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 259
Book Description
Thinking of Necessity: A Kantian Account of Modal Thought and Modal Metaphysics sets out a Kant-inspired theory of modality, i.e., possibility and necessity. The theory is driven by a methodology which takes seriously questions about the function of modal judgment, i.e., the role or purpose of judgments of possibility and necessity, as a guide to a metaphysics of modality. Kant is a good example for how to develop this methodological approach since, for Kant, modal concepts play an important role in our capacity for thought and experience of the world. The book argues that we need logical modal concepts as a condition on our ability to think, and metaphysical modal concepts as a condition on our ability to think objectively, i.e., to think about the world. Concordant with this, it argues that logical necessity has its source in the laws of thought and that metaphysical necessity is relative to conditions on objective thought. This account of metaphysical necessity, which is termed “Modal Transcendentalism”, is then further developed, covering questions concerning necessary and contingent existence, de re necessity, essentialism, and modal epistemology. The theory of modality developed in the book is inspired by aspects of Kant's writings on modality, but the development and defence of the theory is undertaken mostly independently of Kant.
Author: Amie L. Thomasson Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 019009821X Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 253
Book Description
Claims about what is metaphysically necessary or possible have long played a central role in metaphysics and other areas of philosophy. Such claims are traditionally thought of as aiming to describe a special kind of modal fact or property, or perhaps facts about other possible worlds. But that assumption leads to difficult ontological, epistemological, and methodological puzzles. Should we accept that there are modal facts or properties, or other possible worlds? If so, what could these things be? How could we come to know what the modal facts or properties are? How can we resolve philosophical debates about what is metaphysically necessary or possible? Norms and Necessity develops a new approach to understanding our claims about metaphysical possibility and necessity: Modal Normativism. The Normativist rejects the assumption that modal claims aim to describe modal features or possible worlds, arguing instead that they serve as useful ways of conveying, reasoning with, and renegotiating semantic rules and their consequences. By dropping the descriptivist assumption, the Normativist is able to unravel the notorious ontological problems of modality, and provide a clear and plausible story about how we can come to know what is metaphysically necessary or possible. Most importantly, this approach helps demystify philosophical methodology. It reveals that resolving metaphysical modal questions does not require a special form of philosophical insight or intuition. Instead, it requires nothing more mysterious than empirical knowledge, conceptual mastery, and an ability to explicitly convey and renegotiate semantic rules.
Author: Max Cresswell Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1316760456 Category : Mathematics Languages : en Pages : 365
Book Description
Interest in the metaphysics and logic of possible worlds goes back at least as far as Aristotle, but few books address the history of these important concepts. This volume offers new essays on the theories about the logical modalities (necessity and possibility) held by leading philosophers from Aristotle in ancient Greece to Rudolf Carnap in the twentieth century. The story begins with an illuminating discussion of Aristotle's views on the connection between logic and metaphysics, continues through the Stoic and mediaeval (including Arabic) traditions, and then moves to the early modern period with particular attention to Locke and Leibniz. The views of Kant, Peirce, C. I. Lewis and Carnap complete the volume. Many of the essays illuminate the connection between the historical figures studied, and recent or current work in the philosophy of modality. The result is a rich and wide-ranging picture of the history of the logical modalities.
Author: Quentin Meillassoux Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing ISBN: 1441121331 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 158
Book Description
From the preface by Alain Badiou: It is no exaggeration to say that Quentin Meillassoux has opened up a new path in the history of philosophy, understood here as the history of what it is to know ... This remarkable "critique of critique" is introduced here without embellishment, cutting straight to the heart of the matter in a particularly clear and logical manner. It allows the destiny of thought to be the absolute once more. "This work is one of the most important to appear in continental philosophy in recent years and deserves a wide readership at the earliest possible date ... Après la finitude is an important book of philosophy by an authnted emerging voices in continental thought. Quentin Meillassoux deserves our close attention in the years to come and his book deserves rapid translation and widespread discussion in the English-speaking world. There is nothing like it." -Graham Harman in Philosophy Today Quentin Meillassoux's remarkable debut makes a strikingly original contribution to contemporary French philosophy and is set to have a significant impact on the future of continental philosophy. Written in a style that marries great clarity of expression with argumentative rigour, After Finitude provides bold readings of the history of philosophy and sets out a devastating critique of the unavowed fideism at the heart of post-Kantian philosophy. The exceptional lucidity and the centrality of argument in Meillassoux's writing should appeal to analytic as well as continental philosophers, while his critique of fideism will be of interest to anyone preoccupied by the relation between philosophy, theology and religion. Meillassoux introduces a startlingly novel philosophical alternative to the forced choice between dogmatism and critique. After Finitude proposes a new alliance between philosophy and science and calls for an unequivocal halt to the creeping return of religiosity in contemporary philosophical discourse.
Author: Alvin Plantinga Publisher: Clarendon Press ISBN: 0191037176 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 266
Book Description
This is a reissue of a book which is an exploration and defence of the notion of modality 'de re', the idea that objects have both essential and accidental properties. It is one of the first full-length studies of the modalities to emerge from the debate to which Saul Kripke, David Lewis, Ruth Marcus and others have contributed. The argument is developed by means of the notion of possible worlds, and ranges over key problems including the nature of essence, trans-world identity, negative existential propositions, and the existence of unactual objects in other possible worlds. In the final chapters Professor Plantinga applies his logical theories to the clarification of two problems in the philosophy of religion - the Problem of Evil and the Ontological Argument.
Author: Saul A. Kripke Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 9780674598461 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 196
Book Description
If there is such a thing as essential reading in metaphysics or in philosophy of language, this is it. Ever since the publication of its original version, Naming and Necessity has had great and increasing influence. It redirected philosophical attention to neglected questions of natural and metaphysical necessity and to the connections between these and theories of reference, in particular of naming, and of identity. From a critique of the dominant tendency to assimilate names to descriptions and more generally to treat their reference as a function of their Fregean sense, surprisingly deep and widespread consequences may be drawn. The largely discredited distinction between accidental and essential properties, both of individual things (including people) and of kinds of things, is revived. So is a consequent view of science as what seeks out the essences of natural kinds. Traditional objections to such views are dealt with by sharpening distinctions between epistemic and metaphysical necessity; in particular by the startling admission of necessary a posteriori truths. From these, in particular from identity statements using rigid designators whether of things or of kinds, further remarkable consequences are drawn for the natures of things, of people, and of kinds; strong objections follow, for example to identity versions of materialism as a theory of the mind. This seminal work, to which today's thriving essentialist metaphysics largely owes its impetus, is here published with a substantial new Preface by the author.
Author: Kurt Mosser Publisher: CUA Press ISBN: 0813215323 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 254
Book Description
Kurt Mosser argues that reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason as an argument for such a logic of experience makes more defensible many of Kant's most controversial claims, and makes more accessible Kant's notoriously difficult text.
Author: Brian Leftow Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199263353 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 588
Book Description
Brian Leftow offers a theist theory of necessity and possibility, and a new sort of argument for God's existence. He argues that necessities of logic and mathematics are determined by God's nature, but that it is events in God's mind - His imagination and choice - that account for necessary truths about concrete creatures.
Author: Amie Lynn Thomasson Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 0199385114 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 361
Book Description
This volume aims to develop the easy approach to ontology, showing how it leads to both a first-order simple realism about the disputed entities and a form of metaontological deflationism that takes ontological disputes themselves to be misguided, since existence questions may be answered by straightforward conceptual and/or empirical work. It also aims to defend the easy approach against a range of objections and to show it to be a viable and attractive alternative to hard ontology.
Author: Willis F. Overton Publisher: Psychology Press ISBN: 1134735146 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 340
Book Description
A presentation of current work that systematically explores and articulates the nature, origin and development of reasoning, this volume's primary aim is to describe and examine contemporary theory and research findings on the topic of deductive reasoning. Many contributors believe concepts such as "structure," "competence," and "mental logic" are necessary features for a complete understanding of reasoning. As the book emanates from a Jean Piaget Symposium, his theory of intellectual development as the standard contemporary treatment of deductive reasoning is used as the context in which the contributors elaborate on their own perceptions.
Author: Jessica Leech
Author: Jessica Leech
Author: Amie L. Thomasson
Author: Max Cresswell
Author: Quentin Meillassoux
Author: Alvin Plantinga
Author: Saul A. Kripke
Author: Kurt Mosser
Author: Brian Leftow
Author: Amie Lynn Thomasson
Author: Willis F. Overton