Switch to: Citations

Add references

You must login to add references.
  1. Van Inwagen and the Possibility of Gunk.Theodore Sider - 1993 - Analysis 53 (4):285 - 289.
    We often speak of an object being composed of various other objects. We say that the deck is composed of the cards, that a road is the sum total of its sections, that a house is composed of its walls, ceilings, floors, doors, etc. Suppose we have some material objects. Here is a philosophical question: what conditions must obtain for those objects to compose something? In his recent book Material Beings, Peter van Inwagen addresses this question, which he calls the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   116 citations  
  • (2 other versions)Ontological anti-realism.David J. Chalmers - 2009 - In Ryan Wasserman, David Manley & David Chalmers (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
    The basic question of ontology is “What exists?”. The basic question of metaontology is: are there objective answers to the basic question of ontology? Here ontological realists say yes, and ontological anti-realists say no. (Compare: The basic question of ethics is “What is right?”. The basic question of metaethics is: are there objective answers to the basic question of ethics? Here moral realists say yes, and moral anti-realists say no.) For example, the ontologist may ask: Do numbers exist? The Platonist (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   186 citations  
  • (4 other versions)Naming and necessity.Saul Kripke - 2010 - In Darragh Byrne & Max Kölbel (eds.), Arguing about language. New York: Routledge. pp. 431-433.
    _Naming and Necessity_ has had a 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 naming, and of identity. This seminal work, to which today's thriving essentialist metaphysics largely owes its impetus, is here reissued in a newly corrected form with a new preface by the author. If there is such a thing as essential reading in metaphysics, or in philosophy of language, this is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1453 citations  
  • Empty Names, Fiction, and the Puzzles of Non-Existence.T. Hofweber & A. Everett (eds.) - 2000 - CSLI Publications.
    Philosophers and theorists have long been puzzled by humans' ability to talk about things that do not exist, or to talk about things that they think exist but, in fact, do not. _Empty Names, Fiction, and the Puzzles of Non-Existence_ is a collection of 13 new works concerning the semantic and metaphysical issues arising from empty names, non-existence, and the nature of fiction. The contributors include some of the most important researchers working in these fields. Some of the papers develop (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   33 citations  
  • Solvable cases of the decision problem.Wilhelm Ackermann - 1954 - Amsterdam,: North-Holland Pub. Co..
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  • (1 other version)Conceptual Relativity and Metaphysical Realism.Terry Horgan & Mark Timmons - 2002 - Noûs 36 (s1):74-96.
    Is conceptual relativity a genuine phenomenon? If so, how is it properly understood? And if it does occur, does it undermine metaphysical realism? These are the questions we propose to address. We will argue that conceptual relativity is indeed a genuine phenomenon, albeit an extremely puzzling one. We will offer an account of it. And we will argue that it is entirely compatible with metaphysical realism. Metaphysical realism is the view that there is a world of objects and properties that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   16 citations  
  • Parts and Places: The Structures of Spatial Representation.Roberto Casati & Achille C. Varzi - 1999 - MIT Press.
    Thinking about space is thinking about spatial things. The table is on the carpet; hence the carpet is under the table. The vase is in the box; hence the box is not in the vase. But what does it mean for an object to be somewhere? How are objects tied to the space they occupy? This book is concerned with these and other fundamental issues in the philosophy of spatial representation. Our starting point is an analysis of the interplay between (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   206 citations  
  • Demonstratives: An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Metaphysics and Epistemology of Demonstratives and other Indexicals.David Kaplan - 1989 - In Joseph Almog, John Perry & Howard Wettstein (eds.), Themes From Kaplan. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 481-563.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1682 citations  
  • Contemporary debates in metaphysics.Theodore Sider, John Hawthorne & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.) - 2008 - Malden, MA: Blackwell.
    This anthology introduces advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students to today's debates in metaphysics. The book consists of essays by contemporary metaphysicians, and all but one appear here for the first time. For each of nine topics, there are two essays, one "pro-" and one "con-".
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   71 citations  
  • Reference and Essence, expanded edition (2nd edition).Nathan U. Salmon - 2005 - Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.
    This is the second edition of an award-winning 1981 book (Princeton University Press and Basil Blackwell, based on the author’s doctoral dissertation) considered to be a classic in the philosophy of language movement known variously as the New Theory of Reference or the Direct-Reference Theory, as well as in the metaphysics of modal essentialism that is related to this philosophy of language.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   276 citations  
  • (1 other version)Principia ethica.George Edward Moore - 1903 - Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications. Edited by Thomas Baldwin.
    First published in 1903, this volume revolutionized philosophy and forever altered the direction of ethical studies. A philosopher’s philosopher, G. E. Moore was the idol of the Bloomsbury group, and Lytton Strachey declared that Principia Ethica marked the rebirth of the Age of Reason. This work clarifies some of moral philosophy’s most common confusions and redefines the science’s terminology. Six chapters explore: the subject matter of ethics, naturalistic ethics, hedonism, metaphysical ethics, ethics in relation to conduct, and the ideal. Moore's (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   854 citations  
  • (2 other versions)Nominalism.Zoltan Szabo - 2003 - In Michael J. Loux & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), The Oxford handbook of metaphysics. New York: Oxford University Press.
    …entities? 2. How to be a nominalist 2.1. “Speak with the vulgar …” 2.2. “…think with the learned” 3. Arguments for nominalism 3.1. Intelligibility, physicalism, and economy 3.2. Causal..
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  • (2 other versions)Parts: a study in ontology.Peter M. Simons - 1987 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Although the relationship of part to whole is one of the most fundamental there is, this is the first full-length study of this key concept. Showing that mereology, or the formal theory of part and whole, is essential to ontology, Simons surveys and critiques previous theories--especially the standard extensional view--and proposes a new account that encompasses both temporal and modal considerations. Simons's revised theory not only allows him to offer fresh solutions to long-standing problems, but also has far-reaching consequences for (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   503 citations  
  • A subject with no object: strategies for nominalistic interpretation of mathematics.John P. Burgess & Gideon Rosen - 1997 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Gideon A. Rosen.
    Numbers and other mathematical objects are exceptional in having no locations in space or time or relations of cause and effect. This makes it difficult to account for the possibility of the knowledge of such objects, leading many philosophers to embrace nominalism, the doctrine that there are no such objects, and to embark on ambitious projects for interpreting mathematics so as to preserve the subject while eliminating its objects. This book cuts through a host of technicalities that have obscured previous (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   155 citations  
  • Mathematics as a science of patterns.Michael David Resnik - 1997 - New York ;: Oxford University Press.
    This book expounds a system of ideas about the nature of mathematics which Michael Resnik has been elaborating for a number of years. In calling mathematics a science he implies that it has a factual subject-matter and that mathematical knowledge is on a par with other scientific knowledge; in calling it a science of patterns he expresses his commitment to a structuralist philosophy of mathematics. He links this to a defense of realism about the metaphysics of mathematics--the view that mathematics (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   244 citations  
  • The Nature of Necessity.Alvin Plantinga - 1974 - Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.
    This book, 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 are contributing, is an exploration and defense of the notion of modality de re, the idea that objects have both essential and accidental properties. Plantinga develops his argument by means of the notion of possible worlds and ranges over such key problems as the nature of essence, transworld identity, negative existential propositions, and the existence (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   682 citations  
  • Introduction to Combinators and (Lambda) Calculus.J. Roger Hindley - 1986 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by J. P. Seldin.
    Combinatory logic and lambda-conversion were originally devised in the 1920s for investigating the foundations of mathematics using the basic concept of 'operation' instead of 'set'. They have now developed into linguistic tools, useful in several branches of logic and computer science, especially in the study of programming languages. These notes form a simple introduction to the two topics, suitable for a reader who has no previous knowledge of combinatory logic, but has taken an undergraduate course in predicate calculus and recursive (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   16 citations  
  • (1 other version)Fact, Fiction, and Forecast.Nelson Goodman - 1983 - Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
    In his new foreword to this edition, Hilary Putnam forcefully rejects these nativist claims.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1128 citations  
  • (1 other version)On what grounds what.Jonathan Schaffer - 2009 - In Ryan Wasserman, David Manley & David Chalmers (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. pp. 347-383.
    On the now dominant Quinean view, metaphysics is about what there is. Metaphysics so conceived is concerned with such questions as whether properties exist, whether meanings exist, and whether numbers exist. I will argue for the revival of a more traditional Aristotelian view, on which metaphysics is about what grounds what. Metaphysics so revived does not bother asking whether properties, meanings, and numbers exist (of course they do!) The question is whether or not they are fundamental.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   781 citations  
  • (2 other versions)Composition as a fiction.Gideon Rosen & Cian Dorr - 2002 - In Richard Gale (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Metaphysics. Blackwell. pp. 151--174.
    Region R Question: How many objects — entities, things — are contained in R? Ignore the empty space. Our question might better be put, 'How many material objects does R contain?' Let's stipulate that A, B and C are metaphysical atoms: absolutely simple entities with no parts whatsoever besides themselves. So you don't have to worry about counting a particle's top half and bottom half as different objects. Perhaps they are 'point-particles', with no length, width or breadth. Perhaps they are (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   166 citations  
  • (2 other versions)Ways of being.Kris McDaniel - 2009 - In Ryan Wasserman, David Manley & David Chalmers (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
    There are different ways to be. This paper explicates and defends this controversial thesis. Special attention is given to the meta-ontology of Martin Heidegger. -/- .
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   110 citations  
  • Answerable and unanswerable questions.Amie L. Thomasson - 2009 - In Ryan Wasserman, David Manley & David Chalmers (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
    While fights about ontology rage on in the ring, there’s long been a suspicion whispered in certain corners of the stadium that some of the fights aren’t real. Granted the disputants all think they are really disagreeing—it’s not the sincerity of the serious ontologists that’s in question, but rather their judgment that they are engaged in a real debate about genuine issues of substance.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   56 citations  
  • What good are counterexamples?Brian Weatherson - 2003 - Philosophical Studies 115 (1):1-31.
    Intuitively, Gettier cases are instances of justified true beliefs that are not cases of knowledge. Should we therefore conclude that knowledge is not justified true belief? Only if we have reason to trust intuition here. But intuitions are unreliable in a wide range of cases. And it can be argued that the Gettier intuitions have a greater resemblance to unreliable intuitions than to reliable intuitions. Whats distinctive about the faulty intuitions, I argue, is that respecting them would mean abandoning a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   188 citations  
  • Composition, colocation, and metaontology.Karen Bennett - 2009 - In Ryan Wasserman, David Manley & David Chalmers (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. pp. 38.
    The paper is an extended discussion of what I call the ‘dismissive attitude’ towards metaphysical questions. It has three parts. In the first part, I distinguish three quite different versions of dismissivism. I also argue that there is little reason to think that any of these positions is correct about the discipline of metaphysics as a whole; it is entirely possible that some metaphysical disputes should be dismissed and others should not be. Doing metametaphysics properly requires doing metaphysics first. I (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   147 citations  
  • On Quantifier Domain Restriction.Jason Stanley & Zoltán Gendler Szabó - 2000 - Mind and Language 15 (2-3):219--61.
    In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of the space of possible analyses of the phenomenon of quantifier domain restriction, together with a set of considerations which militate against all but our own proposal. Among the many accounts we consider and reject are the ‘explicit’ approach to quantifier domain restric‐tion discussed, for example, by Stephen Neale, and the pragmatic approach to quantifier domain restriction proposed by Kent Bach. Our hope is that the exhaustive discussion of this special case of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   391 citations  
  • (1 other version)The picture of reality as an amorphous lump.Matti Eklund - 2008 - In Theodore Sider, John Hawthorne & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), Contemporary debates in metaphysics. Malden, MA: Blackwell. pp. 382--96.
    (1) Abstract objects. The nominalist (as the label is used today) denies that there exist abstract objects. The platonist holds that there are abstract objects. One example is numbers. The nominalist denies that there are numbers; the platonist typically affirms it.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   47 citations  
  • Überwindung der metaphysik durch logische analyse der sprache.Rudolf Carnap - 1931 - Erkenntnis 2 (1):219-241.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   209 citations  
  • (1 other version)Models and reality.Hilary Putnam - 1980 - Journal of Symbolic Logic 45 (3):464-482.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   292 citations  
  • Holes.David K. Lewis & Stephanie Lewis - 1970 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 48 (2):206 – 212.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   95 citations  
  • (1 other version)How to define theoretical terms.David Lewis - 1970 - Journal of Philosophy 67 (13):427-446.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   575 citations  
  • What's So Logical about the “Logical” Axioms?J. H. Harris - 1982 - Studia Logica 41 (2-3):159 - 171.
    Intuitionists and classical logicians use in common a large number of the logical axioms, even though they supposedly mean different things by the logical connectives and quantifiers — conquans for short. But Wittgenstein says The meaning of a word is its use in the language. We prove that in a definite sense the intuitionistic axioms do indeed characterize the logical conquans, both for the intuitionist and the classical logician.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   35 citations  
  • The question of realism.Kit Fine - 2001 - Philosophers' Imprint 1:1-30.
    This paper distinguishes two kinds of realist issue -- the issue of whether the propositions of a given domain are factual and the issue of whether they are fundamental. It criticizes previous accounts of what these issues come to and suggests that they are to be understood in terms of a basic metaphysical concept of reality. This leaves open the question of how such issues are to be resolved; and it is argued that this may be done through consideration of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   589 citations  
  • What numbers could not be.Paul Benacerraf - 1965 - Philosophical Review 74 (1):47-73.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   585 citations  
  • Supervenience and mind: selected philosophical essays.Jaegwon Kim - 1993 - New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press.
    Jaegwon Kim is one of the most preeminent and most influential contributors to the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. This collection of essays presents the core of his work on supervenience and mind with two sets of postscripts especially written for the book. The essays focus on such issues as the nature of causation and events, what dependency relations other than causal relations connect facts and events, the analysis of supervenience, and the mind-body problem. A central problem in the philosophy (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   482 citations  
  • What Is Classical Mereology?Paul Hovda - 2009 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 38 (1):55 - 82.
    Classical mereology is a formal theory of the part-whole relation, essentially involving a notion of mereological fusion, or sum. There are various different definitions of fusion in the literature, and various axiomatizations for classical mereology. Though the equivalence of the definitions of fusion is provable from axiom sets, the definitions are not logically equivalent, and, hence, are not inter-changeable when laying down the axioms. We examine the relations between the main definitions of fusion and correct some technical errors in prominent (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   97 citations  
  • (1 other version)Material Beings.Peter Van Inwagen - 1990 - Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.
    According to Peter van Inwagen, visible inanimate objects do not, strictly speaking, exist. In defending this controversial thesis, he offers fresh insights on such topics as personal identity, commonsense belief, existence over time, the phenomenon of vagueness, and the relation between metaphysics and ordinary language.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   422 citations  
  • (4 other versions)Naming and Necessity.S. Kripke - 1972 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 45 (4):665-666.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2745 citations  
  • Reference and Essence.Nathan U. Salmon - 1981 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 173 (3):363-364.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   225 citations  
  • (1 other version)The Concept of Mind.Gilbert Ryle - 1949 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 141:125-126.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2257 citations  
  • (4 other versions)Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Philosophy 56 (217):431-433.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1720 citations  
  • (1 other version)Material Beings.Peter Van Inwagen - 1990 - Philosophy 67 (259):126-127.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   663 citations  
  • Lewis on Intentionality.Robert Stalnaker - 2004 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 82 (1):199-212.
    David Lewis's account of intentionality is a version of what he calls 'global descriptivism'. The rough idea is that the correct interpretation of one's total theory is the one (among the admissible interpretations) that come closest to making it true. I give an exposition of this account, as I understand it, and try to bring out some of its consequences. I argue that there is a tension between Lewis's global descriptivism and his rejection of a linguistic account of the intentionality (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  • (1 other version)The Concept of Mind.Gilbert Ryle - 1950 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 1 (4):328-332.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1186 citations  
  • Real Time.David Hugh Mellor - 1981 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 34 (2):197-200.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   152 citations  
  • (1 other version)Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake?Stephen Yablo & Andre Gallois - 1998 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 72:229-283.
    [Stephen Yablo] The usual charge against Carnap's internal/external distinction is one of 'guilt by association with analytic/synthetic'. But it can be freed of this association, to become the distinction between statements made within make-believe games and those made outside them-or, rather, a special case of it with some claim to be called the metaphorical/literal distinction. Not even Quine considers figurative speech committal, so this turns the tables somewhat. To determine our ontological commitments, we have to ferret out all traces of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   67 citations  
  • On What There Is.Willard Van Orman Quine - 1948 - Review of Metaphysics 2 (5):21-38.
    Suppose now that two philosophers, McX and I, differ over ontology. Suppose McX maintains there is something which I maintain there is not. McX can, quite consistently with his own point of view, describe our difference of opinion by saying that I refuse to recognize certain entities. I should protest of course that he is wrong in his formulation of our disagreement, for I maintain that there are no entities, of the kind which he alleges, for me to recognize; but (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   194 citations  
  • (1 other version)Actions, Reasons, and Causes.Donald Davidson - 1963 - Journal of Philosophy 60 (23):685.
    What is the relation between a reason and an action when the reason explains the action by giving the agent's reason for doing what he did? We may call such explanations rationalizations, and say that the reason rationalizes the action. In this paper I want to defend the ancient - and common-sense - position that rationalization is a species of ordinary causal explanation. The defense no doubt requires some redeployment, but not more or less complete abandonment of the position, as (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1289 citations  
  • The Ontology of Physical Objects: Four-Dimensional Hunks of Matter.Mark Heller - 1990 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    This provocative book attempts to resolve traditional problems of identity over time. It seeks to answer such questions as 'How is it that an object can survive change?' and 'How much change can an object undergo without being destroyed'? To answer these questions Professor Heller presents a theory about the nature of physical objects and about the relationship between our language and the physical world. According to his theory, the only actually existing physical entities are what the author calls 'hunks', (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   217 citations  
  • Mathematics as a Science of Patterns.Michael D. Resnik - 1997 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
    Mathematics as a Science of Patterns is the definitive exposition of a system of ideas about the nature of mathematics which Michael Resnik has been elaborating for a number of years. In calling mathematics a science he implies that it has a factual subject-matter and that mathematical knowledge is on a par with other scientific knowledge; in calling it a science of patterns he expresses his commitment to a structuralist philosophy of mathematics. He links this to a defence of realism (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   27 citations  
  • The Ontology of Physical Objects. [REVIEW]William R. Carter - 1990 - Philosophical Review 102 (1):122-126.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   141 citations