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Author: Michael Dummett Publisher: Clarendon Press ISBN: 019151408X Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 125
Book Description
In this short, lucid, rich book Michael Dummett sets out his views about some of the deepest questions in philosophy. The fundamental question of metaphysics is: what does reality consist of? To answer this, Dummett holds, it is necessary to say what kinds of fact obtain, and what constitutes their holding good. Facts correspond with true propositions, or true thoughts: when we know which propositions, or thoughts, in general, are true, we shall know what facts there are in general. Dummett considers the relation between metaphysics, our conception of the constitution of reality, and semantics, the theory that explains how statements are determined as true or as false in terms of their composition out of their constituent expressions. He investigates the two concepts on which the bridge that connects semantics to metaphysics rests, meaning and truth, and the role of justification in a theory of meaning. He then examines the special semantic and metaphysical issues that arise with relation to time and tense. On this basis Dummett puts forward his controversial view of reality as indeterminate: there may be no fact of the matter about whether an object does or does not have a given property. We have to relinquish our deep-held realist understanding of language, the illusion that we know what it is for any proposition that we can frame to be true independently of our having any means of recognizing its truth, and accept that truth depends on our capacity to apprehend it. Dummett concludes with a chapter about God.
Author: Michael Dummett Publisher: Clarendon Press ISBN: 019151408X Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 125
Book Description
In this short, lucid, rich book Michael Dummett sets out his views about some of the deepest questions in philosophy. The fundamental question of metaphysics is: what does reality consist of? To answer this, Dummett holds, it is necessary to say what kinds of fact obtain, and what constitutes their holding good. Facts correspond with true propositions, or true thoughts: when we know which propositions, or thoughts, in general, are true, we shall know what facts there are in general. Dummett considers the relation between metaphysics, our conception of the constitution of reality, and semantics, the theory that explains how statements are determined as true or as false in terms of their composition out of their constituent expressions. He investigates the two concepts on which the bridge that connects semantics to metaphysics rests, meaning and truth, and the role of justification in a theory of meaning. He then examines the special semantic and metaphysical issues that arise with relation to time and tense. On this basis Dummett puts forward his controversial view of reality as indeterminate: there may be no fact of the matter about whether an object does or does not have a given property. We have to relinquish our deep-held realist understanding of language, the illusion that we know what it is for any proposition that we can frame to be true independently of our having any means of recognizing its truth, and accept that truth depends on our capacity to apprehend it. Dummett concludes with a chapter about God.
Author: John Henry McDowell Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 9780674007130 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 414
Book Description
This book collects some of McDowell’s most influential papers of the last two decades. The essays deal with themes such as the interpretation of Aristotle’s and Plato’s ethical writings, questions in moral philosophy that arise out of the Greek tradition, Wittengensteinian ideas about reason in action, and issues central to philosophy of mind.
Author: Paul L. Nunez Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199914648 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 317
Book Description
Does the brain create the mind, or is some external entity involved? This book synthesizes ideas borrowed from philosophy, religion, and science. Topics range widely from brain imagining of thought processes to quantum mechanics and the essential role of information in brains and physical systems.
Author: David Lee Huner Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform ISBN: 9781545345573 Category : Languages : en Pages : 60
Book Description
This is a short book on how thoughts have created reality throughout history and throughout your life. You will learn some very important concepts that upon further research will open your life up to new and wonderful directions to make your life all that it can be and all that you desrie.
Author: Hilary Putnam Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 9780262660747 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 166
Book Description
The author, one of the first philosophers to advance the notion that the computer is an apt model for the mind, takes a radical view of his own theory of functionalism in this book.
Author: Peter Godfrey-Smith Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 022677113X Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 412
Book Description
How does science work? Does it tell us what the world is “really” like? What makes it different from other ways of understanding the universe? In Theory and Reality, Peter Godfrey-Smith addresses these questions by taking the reader on a grand tour of more than a hundred years of debate about science. The result is a completely accessible introduction to the main themes of the philosophy of science. Examples and asides engage the beginning student, a glossary of terms explains key concepts, and suggestions for further reading are included at the end of each chapter. Like no other text in this field, Theory and Reality combines a survey of recent history of the philosophy of science with current key debates that any beginning scholar or critical reader can follow. The second edition is thoroughly updated and expanded by the author with a new chapter on truth, simplicity, and models in science.
Author: David J. Chalmers Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 0393635813 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 544
Book Description
A leading philosopher takes a mind-bending journey through virtual worlds, illuminating the nature of reality and our place within it. Virtual reality is genuine reality; that’s the central thesis of Reality+. In a highly original work of “technophilosophy,” David J. Chalmers gives a compelling analysis of our technological future. He argues that virtual worlds are not second-class worlds, and that we can live a meaningful life in virtual reality. We may even be in a virtual world already. Along the way, Chalmers conducts a grand tour of big ideas in philosophy and science. He uses virtual reality technology to offer a new perspective on long-established philosophical questions. How do we know that there’s an external world? Is there a god? What is the nature of reality? What’s the relation between mind and body? How can we lead a good life? All of these questions are illuminated or transformed by Chalmers’ mind-bending analysis. Studded with illustrations that bring philosophical issues to life, Reality+ is a major statement that will shape discussion of philosophy, science, and technology for years to come.
Author: Schommers Wolfram Publisher: World Scientific ISBN: 9814556793 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 324
Book Description
The relationship between mind and reality is usually perceived as an event that takes place in reality and producing simultaneously an internal image in the mind. So it takes place twice, so to speak, and there is a one-to-one correspondence between the two events. Within this conception, matter is embedded in space and time, and can be designated as “container-principle”. This monograph emphasizes that the well-known philosopher Immanuel Kant denied this principle and he stated that reality is principally not recognizable to a human being, and modern biological evolution seems to lead exactly to Kant's point of view. Within the theory of evolution, man's image about reality in mind does not have to be complete and true in the sense of a precise reproduction, and it is relatively easy to recognize that even space and time should not be elements of reality outside. Within this conception, only a certain part of reality, which the human being needs for mastering life, is projected onto space and time, and we come to the so-called “projection principle”. Then, spacetime defines the window to reality, leading to a number of exciting and essential questions, some of which are discussed in this monograph.As is known, current physics is mainly based on the container-principle. But this monograph proposes that the projection principle is obviously more suitable and could help to solve open-ended questions as, for example, in connection with the nature of time, the particle-wave duality, the cosmological constant, etc. Regarding the statistical behavior of matter, Einstein's statement “God does not play dice” has to be seen in a new light, but also Feynman's general viewpoint on quantum theory that it cannot be understood by man. However, conventional quantum theory is obviously not a consistent framework as per the projection principle. The term “world equation” is critically probed in this monograph.
Author: Ervin Laszlo Publisher: SelectBooks, Inc. ISBN: 1590793994 Category : Body, Mind & Spirit Languages : en Pages : 285
Book Description
Ervin Laszlo's tour de force, What is Reality?, is the product of a half-century of deep contemplation and cutting-edge scholarship. Addressing many of the paradoxes that have confounded modern science over the years, it offers nothing less than a new paradigm of reality, one in which the cosmos is a seamless whole, informed by a single, coherent consciousness manifest in us all. Bringing together science, philosophy, and metaphysics, Laszlo takes aim at accepted wisdom, such as the dichotomies of mind and body, spirit and matter, being and nonbeing, to show how we are all part of an infinite cycle of existence unfolding in spacetime and beyond. Augmented by insightful commentary from a dozen scholars and thinkers, along with a foreword by Deepak Chopra and an introduction by Stanislav Grof, What is Reality? offers a fresh and liberating understanding of the meaning and purpose of existence.