Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. The World Just Is the Way It Is.David Builes - 2021 - The Monist 104 (1):1-27.
    What is the relationship between objects and properties? According to a standard view, there are primitive individuals that ‘instantiate’ or ‘have’ various properties. According to a rival view, objects are mere ‘bundles’ of properties. While there are a number of reasons to be skeptical of primitive individuals, there are also a number of challenges that the bundle theorist faces. The goal of this paper is to formulate a view about the relationship between objects and properties that avoids many of the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • The Metaphysical Basis of Logic.Michaela McSweeney - 2016 - Dissertation, Princeton University
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Plural Slot Theory.T. Scott Dixon - 2018 - In Karen Bennett & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics Volume 11. Oxford University Press. pp. 193-223.
    Kit Fine (2000) breaks with tradition, arguing that, pace Russell (e.g., 1903: 228), relations have neither directions nor converses. He considers two ways to conceive of these new "neutral" relations, positionalism and anti-positionalism, and argues that the latter should be preferred to the former. Cody Gilmore (2013) argues for a generalization of positionalism, slot theory, the view that a property or relation is n-adic if and only if there are exactly n slots in it, and (very roughly) that each slot (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • Qual a motivação para se defender uma teoria causal da memória?César Schirmer Dos Santos - 2018 - In Juliano Santos do Carmo & Rogério F. Saucedo Corrêa (eds.), Linguagem e cognição. NEPFil. pp. 63-89.
    Este texto tem como objetivo apresentar a principal motivação filosófica para se defender uma teoria causal da memória, que é explicar como pode um evento que se deu no passado estar relacionado a uma experiência mnêmica que se dá no presente. Para tanto, iniciaremos apresentando a noção de memória de maneira informal e geral, para depois apresentar elementos mais detalhados. Finalizamos apresentando uma teoria causal da memória que se beneficia da noção de veritação (truthmaking).
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The inscrutability of reference.Robert Williams - 2005 - Dissertation, University of St Andrews
    The metaphysics of representation poses questions such as: in virtue of what does a sentence, picture, or mental state represent that the world is a certain way? In the first instance, I have focused on the semantic properties of language: for example, what is it for a name such as ‘London’ to refer to something? Interpretationism concerning what it is for linguistic expressions to have meaning, says that constitutively, semantic facts are fixed by best semantic theory. As here developed, it (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Following logical realism where it leads.Michaela Markham McSweeney - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (1):117-139.
    Logical realism is the view that there is logical structure in the world. I argue that, if logical realism is true, then we are deeply ignorant of that logical structure: either we can’t know which of our logical concepts accurately capture it, or none of our logical concepts accurately capture it at all. I don’t suggest abandoning logical realism, but instead discuss how realists should adjust their methodology in the face of this ignorance.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   21 citations  
  • (1 other version)To Be F Is To Be G.Cian Dorr - 2006 - Philosophical Perspectives 30 (1):39-134.
    This paper is an investigation of the general logic of "identifications", claims such as 'To be a vixen is to be a female fox', 'To be human is to be a rational animal', and 'To be just is to help one's friends and harm one's enemies', many of which are of great importance to philosophers. I advocate understanding such claims as expressing higher-order identity, and discuss a variety of different general laws which they might be thought to obey. [New version: (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   180 citations  
  • I—Peter Simons: Relations and Truthmaking.Peter Simons - 2010 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 84 (1):199-213.
    The metaphysics of relations is still in its infancy. We use the idea of truthmaking to gain purchase on this metaphysics. Assuming a modest supervenience conception of truthmaking, where true relational predications require multiply dependent truthmakers, these are indispensable relations. Though some such relations are required, none are needed for internal relatedness, nor for several other kinds of relational predication. Discerning the metaphysically basic kinds of relations is fraught with uncertainties, but must be tackled if progress is to be made.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   25 citations  
  • Reality is not structured.Jeremy Goodman - 2017 - Analysis 77 (1):43–53.
    The identity predicate can be defined using second-order quantification: a=b =df ∀F(Fa↔Fb). Less familiarly, a dyadic sentential operator analogous to the identity predicate can be defined using third-order quantification: ϕ≡ψ =df ∀X(Xϕ↔Xψ), where X is a variable of the same syntactic type as a monadic sentential operator. With this notion in view, it is natural to ask after general principles governing its application. More grandiosely, how fine-grained is reality? -/- I will argue that reality is not structured in anything like (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   49 citations  
  • Action and the problem of evil.Heine A. Holmen - 2015 - International Journal of Philosophy and Theology 76 (4):335-351.
    Most contemporary action theorists deny the possible existence of intentionally evil actions or diabolic agency. The reason for this is a normative interpretation of agency that appears to be motivated by action theoretic concerns, where agents are conceived as necessarily acting sub specie bonie or under ‘the guise of the good’. I argue that there is nothing in human agency to motivate this view and that diabolic evil is not at odds with inherent features of our nature.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Logically Simple Properties and Relations.Jan Plate - 2016 - Philosophers' Imprint 16:1-40.
    This paper presents an account of what it is for a property or relation (or ‘attribute’ for short) to be logically simple. Based on this account, it is shown, among other things, that the logically simple attributes are in at least one important way sparse. This in turn lends support to the view that the concept of a logically simple attribute can be regarded as a promising substitute for Lewis’s concept of a perfectly natural attribute. At least in part, the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Converse and Identity.David Liebesman - 2013 - Dialectica 67 (2):137-155.
    Necessarily, if I ate a slice of pizza, then that slice of pizza was eaten by me. More generally, it is necessarily true that if a relation holds between two objects in some order, its converse holds of the same objects in reverse order. What is the intimate relationship that guarantees such necessary connections? Timothy Williamson argues that the relationship between converses must be identity, on pain of the massive and systematic indeterminacy of relational predicates. If sound, Williamson’s argument overturns (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Part‐Intrinsicality.J. Robert G. Williams - 2011 - Noûs 47 (3):431-452.
    In some sense, survival seems to be an intrinsic matter. Whether or not you survive some event seems to depend on what goes on with you yourself —what happens in the environment shouldn’t make a difference. Likewise, being a person at a time seems intrinsic. The principle that survival seems intrinsic is one factor which makes personal fission puzzles so awkward. Fission scenarios present cases where if survival is an intrinsic matter, it appears that an individual could survive twice over. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Relational Order and Onto-Thematic Roles.Francesco Orilia - 2011 - Metaphysica 12 (1):1-18.
    States of affairs involving a non-symmetric relation such as loving are said to have a relational order, something that distinguishes, for instance, Romeo’s loving Juliet from Juliet’s loving Romeo. Relational order can be properly understood by appealing to o-roles, i.e., ontological counterparts of what linguists call thematic roles, e.g., agent, patient, instrument, and the like. This move allows us to meet the appropriate desiderata for a theory of relational order. In contrast, the main theories that try to do without o-roles, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  • Physical Geometry and Fundamental Metaphysics.Cian Dorr - 2011 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 111 (1pt1):135-159.
    I explore some ways in which one might base an account of the fundamental metaphysics of geometry on the mathematical theory of Linear Structures recently developed by Tim Maudlin (2010). Having considered some of the challenges facing this approach, Idevelop an alternative approach, according to which the fundamental ontology includes concrete entities structurally isomorphic to functions from space-time points to real numbers.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Illusions of gunk.J. Robert G. Williams - 2006 - Philosophical Perspectives 20 (1):493–513.
    Worlds where things divide forever ("gunk" worlds) are apparently conceivable. The conceivability of such scenarios has been used as an argument against "nihilist" or "near-nihilist" answers to the special composition question. I argue that the mereological nihilist has the resources to explain away the illusion that gunk is possible.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   55 citations  
  • On Sider on naturalness.Robert Williams - manuscript
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Background Independence: Lessons for Further Decades of Dispute.Trevor Teitel - 2019 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 65:41-54.
    Background independence begins life as an informal property that a physical theory might have, often glossed as 'doesn't posit a fixed spacetime background'. Interest in trying to offer a precise account of background independence has been sparked by the pronouncements of several theorists working on quantum gravity that background independence embodies in some sense an essential discovery of the General Theory of Relativity, and a feature we should strive to carry forward to future physical theories. This paper has two goals. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Essentialist Explanation.Martin Glazier - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (11):2871-2889.
    Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in metaphysical explanation, and philosophers have fixed on the notion of ground as the conceptual tool with which such explanation should be investigated. I will argue that this focus on ground is myopic and that some metaphysical explanations that involve the essences of things cannot be understood in terms of ground. Such ‘essentialist’ explanation is of interest, not only for its ubiquity in philosophy, but for its being in a sense an ultimate (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   64 citations  
  • Identity and Indiscernibility.K. Hawley - 2009 - Mind 118 (469):101-119.
    Putative counterexamples to the Principle of Identity of Indiscernibles (PII) are notoriously inconclusive. I establish ground rules for debate in this area, offer a new response to such counterexamples for friends of the PII, but then argue that no response is entirely satisfactory. Finally, I undermine some positive arguments for PII.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   83 citations  
  • ∈ : Formal concepts in a material world truthmaking and exemplification as types of determination.Philipp Keller - 2007 - Dissertation, University of Geneva
    In the first part ("Determination"), I consider different notions of determination, contrast and compare modal with non-modal accounts and then defend two a-modality theses concerning essence and supervenience. I argue, first, that essence is a a-modal notion, i.e. not usefully analysed in terms of metaphysical modality, and then, contra Kit Fine, that essential properties can be exemplified contingently. I argue, second, that supervenience is also an a-modal notion, and that it should be analysed in terms of constitution relations between properties. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Truthmaking: With and Without Counterpart Theory.Phillip Bricker - 2015 - In Barry Loewer & Jonathan Schaffer (eds.), A companion to David Lewis. Chichester, West Sussex ;: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 159–187.
    According to the Truthmaker Principle: every truth has a truthmaker. Attempts to come to grips with the Truthmaker Principle played a prominent role in Lewis’s metaphysical writings over the last fifteen years of his career. Although Lewis agreed that the truth of propositions must somehow be ontologically grounded, the Truthmaker Principle was too strong: it conflicted with two of Lewis’s most fundamental metaphysical assumptions, the uniqueness of composition and the Humean denial of necessary connections. Lewis endorsed instead a weaker principle: (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Half-Hearted Humeanism.Aaron Segal - 2015 - Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 9:262-305.
    Many contemporary philosophers endorse the Humean-Lewisian Denial of Absolutely Necessary Connections (‘DANC’). Among those philosophers, many deny all or part of the Humean-Lewisian package of views about causation and laws. I argue that they maintain an inconsistent set of views. DANC entails that (1) causal properties and relations are, with a few possible exceptions, always extrinsic to their bearers, (2) nomic properties and relations are, with a few possible exceptions, always extrinsic to their bearers, and (3) causal and nomic properties (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Structure-making.Kris McDaniel - 2009 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87 (2):251-274.
    Friends of states of affairs and structural universals appeal to a relation, structure-making, that is allegedly a kind of composition relation: structure-making ?builds? facts out of particulars and universals, and ?builds? structural universals out of unstructured universals. D. M. Armstrong, an eminent champion of structures, endorses two interesting theses concerning composition. First, that structure-making is a composition relation. Second, that it is not the only (fundamental) composition relation: Armstrong also believes in a mode of composition that he calls mereological, and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   42 citations  
  • Upward Grounding.T. Scott Dixon - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 97 (1):48-78.
    Realists about universals face a question about grounding. Are things how they are because they instantiate the universals they do? Or do they instantiate those universals because they are how they are? Take Ebenezer Scrooge. You can say that Scrooge is greedy because he instantiates greediness, or you can say that Scrooge instantiates greediness because he is greedy. I argue that there is reason to prefer the latter to the former. I develop two arguments for the view. I also respond (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   21 citations  
  • Predication as Ascription.David Liebesman - 2015 - Mind 124 (494):517-569.
    I articulate and defend a necessary and sufficient condition for predication. The condition is that a term or term-occurrence stands in the relation of ascription to its designatum, ascription being a fundamental semantic relation that differs from reference. This view has dramatically different semantic consequences from its alternatives. After outlining the alternatives, I draw out these consequences and show how they favour the ascription view. I then develop the view and elicit a number of its virtues.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   20 citations  
  • Combinatorialism revisited.David Armstrong - 2004 - In Armstrong David (ed.).
    The object of this paper is to argue once again for the combinatorial account of possibility defended in earlier work. But there I failed fully to realise the dialectical advantages that accrue once one begins by assuming the hypothesis of logical atomism, the hypothesis that postulates simple particulars and simple universals at the bottom of the world. Logical atomism is, I incline to think, no better than ‘speculative cosmology’ as opposed to ‘analytic ontology’, to use Donald Williams’ terminology. It is, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Names for relations.Peter Van Inwagen - 2006 - Philosophical Perspectives 20 (1):453–477.
    A proper presentation of this theory [sc. of properties] would treat properties as a special kind of relation. And it would treat propositions as a special kind of relation: it would treat properties as monadic relations and propositions as 0-adic relations. But I will not attempt to discuss relations within the confines of this paper.[ii].
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   16 citations  
  • Working parts: Reply to Mellor.Robert Williams - 2008 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 62:81-106.
    Two kinds of explanation might be put forward. The first goes like this: the necessary connection between the location of a whole and the location of its parts holds because the location of the whole is nothing but the collective location of its parts. The second style of explanation goes like this: the connection holds because what it is for a material whole to have something as a part, is (perhaps among other things) for the whole to contain the part.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Estructura.Axel Barceló - 2018 - Enciclopedia de Filosofía SEFA.
    1. La estructura como problema filosófico 2. Teorías metafísicas de la estructura 2.1. La concepción intrínseca de la estructura 2.2. Como parte sui-generis 2.3. La concepción extrínseca de la estructura 3. Conclusiones Referencias.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Fine-Tuned of Necessity?Ben Page - 2018 - Res Philosophica 95 (4):663-692.
    This paper seeks to explicate and analyze an alternative response to fine-tuning arguments from those that are typically given—namely, design or brute contingency. The response I explore is based on necessity, the necessitarian response. After showing how necessity blocks the argument, I explicate the reply I claim necessitarians can give and suggest how its three requirements can be met: firstly, that laws are metaphysically necessary; secondly, that constants are metaphysically necessary; and thirdly, that the fundamental properties that determine the laws (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • The Minimal A-theory.Meghan Sullivan - 2012 - Philosophical Studies 158 (2):149-174.
    Timothy Williamson thinks that every object is a necessary, eternal existent. In defense of his view, Williamson appeals primarily to considerations from modal and tense logic. While I am uncertain about his modal claims, I think there are good metaphysical reasons to believe permanentism: the principle that everything always exists. B-theorists of time and change have long denied that objects change with respect to unqualified existence. But aside from Williamson, nearly all A-theorists defend temporaryism: the principle that there are temporary (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   52 citations  
  • Fundamental Indeterminacy.Elizabeth Barnes - 2014 - Analytic Philosophy 55 (4):339-362.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   53 citations  
  • Ontology, quantification, and fundamentality.Jason Theodore Turner - unknown
    The structuralist conception of metaphysics holds that it aims to uncover the ultimate structure of reality and explain how the world's richness and variety are accounted for by that ultimate structure. On this conception, metaphysicians produce fundamental theories, the primitive, undefined expressions of which are supposed to 'carve reality at its joints', as it were. On this conception, ontological questions are understood as questions about what there is, where the existential quantifier 'there is' has a fundamental, joint-carving interpretation. Structuralist orthodoxy (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations