Causation: A Realist Approach Traditional empiricist accounts of causation and laws of nature have been reductionist in the sense of entailing that given a complete specification of the non-causal properties of and relations among particulars, it is therefore logically determined both what laws there are and what events are causally related. It is argued here, however, that reductionist accounts of causation and of laws of nature are exposed to decisive objections, and thus that the time has come for empiricists to (...) break with that tradition. -/- The basic goal of this book, therefore, is to set out and defend realistic accounts of those concepts. In the case of causal relations, for example, Tooley maintains that causation is basically a matter of theoretical relations between states of affairs that underlie and explain relative frequencies. He also argues that such an approach avoids the objections that tell against reductionist accounts and that it does so without making causal relations epistemologically inaccessible. (shrink)

This book is the one to put into the hands of those who have been over-impressed by Austin 's critics....[Warnock's] brilliant editing puts everybody who is concerned with philosophical problems in his debt.

When The Concept of Nature by Alfred North Whitehead was first published in 1920 it was declared to be one of the most important works on the relation between philosophy and science for many years, and several generations later it continues to deserve careful attention. Whitehead explores the fundamental problems of substance, space and time, and offers a criticism of Einstein's method of interpreting results while developing his own well-known theory of the four-dimensional 'space-time manifold'. With a specially commissioned new (...) preface written by Michael Hampe, this book is presented in a fresh series livery for the twenty-first century for a new generation of readers. (shrink)

The contents of this book were originally delivered at Trinity College in the autumn of 1919 as the inaugural course of Tarner lectures.

Professor Wisdom gives an elementary introduction to the applications in philosophy of the analytical method. He believes that the aim of analysis is clarity, whereas the aim of speculative philosophy is truth. After a brief introduction on what analysis is, he discusses the relation of body and mind and seeks for causal relations between mental and material events. He concludes this section with a chapter on Free will, before turning to perception and the external world.

My subject is the arguments brought by Ramsey in his paper “ Universals ” ’ against the generally held distinction between particulars and universals. This paper is provocative, suggestive, and radical, and it is humbling to reflect that its author was just 22 years old when it was published in Mind. As so often with Ramsey, the paper is superficially very easy to follow and hardly requires any introduction other than the imperative, “Read it through”, but underneath the surface are (...) many assumptions which make the paper difficult to interpret, and its argument structure is quite tortuous. Whereas the debate between nominalists and realists has been about whether there are just particulars or whether there are universals as well, Ramsey wants to step back behind the debate and question the basis on which it is made. His aims are primarily destructive: he wants to argue that there is no good reason to believe there is such a distinction. He does not offer much in the way of a positive theory of his own to replace those he considers he is demolishing. It is characteristic of Ramsey’s Cambridge perspective that he puts the debate in terms of the way such questions were considered in Cambridge in his day. His terms of comparison hardly extend beyond Cambridge, which in those days was quite a reasonable stance, since Cambridge provided sufficiently many great philosophers with differing theories for extramural excursions to be an unnecessary luxury. Ramsey accordingly focusses on the supposedly different roles of words for particulars and words for universals in atomic propositions, on the assumption that there will be some fairly straightforward kind of isomorphism between at least atomic propositions and the atomic facts to which they correspond if true. The alert reader will notice that he frequently switches between calling Socrates and ‘Socrates’ the subject of the same proposition. (shrink)

Formal implication is usually represented by symbolization such as ‘ φx ⊃ Ψx,’ which may be read, “for all values of ‘x’, φx implies Ψx.” If the values of the variable ‘x’, in ‘φx’ and ‘Ψx’ be ‘x1’ ‘x2’ ‘x3’, etc., then … ‘φx’ formally implies ‘Ψx’ if and only if, whatever values of ‘x’, ‘xn’, be chosen, ‘φxn’ materially implies ‘Ψxn’ …However, this still leaves it doubtful which of two possible interpretations of expressions having the form ‘ φx ⊃ (...) Ψx’ is to be taken as correct. … It means one thing to say, “Every existent having the property φ … has also the property Ψ,” and it means quite a different thing to say, “Every thinkable thing which should have the property φ must also have the property Ψ.” The second of these holds only when having the properly φ logically entails having the property Ψ; when ‘Ψx’ is deductible from ‘φx’. … The first of them, however, holds not only in such cases … but also in every case where among existent things, one property is universally accompanied by another. (shrink)

Modern empiricism has been conditioned in large part by two dogmas. One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of matters of fact, and truth which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience. Both dogmas, I shall argue, are ill founded. One effect of abandoning them is, as (...) we shall see, a blurring of the supposed boundary between speculative metaphysics and natural science. Another effect is a shift toward pragmatism. (shrink)

Developing some suggestions of Ramsey (1925), elementary logic is formulated with respect to an arbitrary categorial system rather than the categorial system of Logical Atomism which is retained in standard elementary logic. Among the many types of non-standard categorial systems allowed by this formalism, it is argued that elementary logic with predicates of variable degree occupies a distinguished position, both for formal reasons and because of its potential value for application of formal logic to natural language and natural science. This (...) is illustrated by use of such a logic to construct a theory of quantity which is argued to be scientifically superior to existing theories of quantity based on standard categorial systems, since it yields real-valued scales without the need for unrealistic existence assumptions. This provides empirical evidence for the hypothesis that the categorial structure of the physical world itself is non-standard in this sense. (shrink)

I relate plural quantification, and predicate logic where predicates do not need a fixed number of argument places, to the part-whole relation. For more on these themes see later work by Boolos, Lewis, and Oliver & Smiley.

Is there a particular-universal distinction? Is there a difference of kind between all the particulars on the one hand and all the universals on the other? Can we demonstrate that there is such a difference without assuming what we set out to show? In 1925 Frank Ramsey made a famous attempt to answers these questions. He came to the sceptical conclusion that there was no particularuniversal distinction, the theory of universals being merely “a great muddle”. Following Russell, Ramsey identified three (...) kinds of distinction, psychological, physical and logical, in terms of which the particular-universal distinction might be understood. Ramsey argued that the particular-universal distinction could not be understood in terms of any of these kinds of distinction. Ramsey concluded that the particular-universal distinction, being neither psychological, physical or logical, was no distinction at all. The conclusion that there is no particular-universal distinction cannot be substantiated on the basis of the arguments that Ramsey provides. At least one of these arguments, the argument that the particular-universal distinction cannot be a ‘physical’ distinction, is flawed. (shrink)

Is there a particular‐universal distinction? Ramsey famously advocated scepticism about this distinction. In “Some Formal Ontological Relations” E.J. Lowe argues against Ramsey that a particular‐universal distinction can be made out after all if only we allow ourselves the resources to distinguish between the elements of a four‐fold ontology. But in defence of Ramsey I argue that the case remains to be made in favour of either the four‐fold ontology Lowe recommends or the articulation of a particular‐universal distinction within it. I (...) also argue that the case remains to be made against a spatio‐temporal conception of the particular‐universal distinction. (shrink)

There cannot be a reductive theory of modality constructed from the concepts of sparse particular and sparse universal. These concepts are suffused with modal notions. I seek to establish this conclusion by tracing out the pattern of modal entanglements in which these concepts are involved. In order to appreciate the structure of these entanglements a distinction must be drawn between the lower-order necessary connections in which particulars and universals apparently figure, and higher-order necesary connections. The former type of connection relates (...) specific entities. By contrast, the latter type of connection is unspecific: it relates entities to some others. I argue that whilst there may be techniques that succeed in providing reductive truth conditions for sentences that say particulars and universals figure in lower-order necessary connections, such techniques cannot succeed in providing reductive truth conditions for sentences that say these entities figure in higher-order necessary connections. I conclude that this situation leaves reductionists with a dilemma. If they wish to affirm that there are particulars and universals then the project of reducing modality by positing these entities must be abandoned. Alternatively, they may continue to deploy their usual reductive techniques but then they must abandon the doctrine that there is more than one fundamental category of entity. (shrink)

I am happy to report that serious metaphysics is alive and well in the work of Jonathan Lowe. His recent book The Possibility of Metaphysics: Substance, Identity, and Time is a major contribution to analytical metaphysics; it confirms Lowe’s standing as a leading figure in the field.

In this important contribution to the revived interest in McTaggart's philosophy, Professor Geach clearly expounds the main lines of his metaphysical thought. McTaggart has produced some immensely interesting and significant arguments; in particular, his rigorous reasoning against the trustworthiness of sense perception and the reality of time deserves serious consideration. McTaggart presents his mystical vision of love--the element of our experience that brings us closest to absolute reality--with lucidity and deep conviction. This study will make stimulating reading for all students (...) of philosophy and religion. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book espouses an innovative theory of scientific realism in which due weight is given to mathematics and logic. The authors argue that mathematics can be understood realistically if it is seen to be the study of universals, of properties and relations, of patterns and structures, the kinds of things which can be in several places at once. Taking this kind of scientific platonism as their point of departure, they show how the theory of universals can account for probability, laws (...) of nature, causation, and explanation, and explore the consequences in all these fields. This will be an important book for all philosophers of science, logicians, and metaphysicians, and their graduate students. The readership will also include those outside philosophy interested in the interrelationship of philosophy and science. (shrink)