The Metaphysics Of Relations

Author : Anna Marmodoro
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198735871
Total Pages : 299 pages
Book Rating : 4.78/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Metaphysics of Relations written by Anna Marmodoro and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this work, 15 philosophers offer new essays exploring the metaphysics of relations from antiquity to the present day. From those who question whether there are relational properties at all, to those who hold they are a fundamental part of reality, the essays cover a wide range of views on the nature and ontological status of relations.

Author : Anna Marmodoro
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0191054747
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Metaphysics of Relations written by Anna Marmodoro and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-07 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents thirteen original essays which explore both traditional and contemporary aspects of the metaphysics of relations. It is uncontroversial that there are true relational predications-'Abelard loves Eloise', 'Simmias is taller than Socrates', 'smoking causes cancer', and so forth. More controversial is whether any true relational predications have irreducibly relational truthmakers. Do any of the statements above involve their subjects jointly instantiating polyadic properties, or can we explain their truths solely in terms of monadic, non-relational properties of the relata? According to a tradition dating back to Plato and Aristotle, and continued by medieval philosophers, polyadic properties are metaphysically dubious. In non-symmetric relations such as the amatory relation, a property would have to inhere in two things at once-lover and beloved-but characterise each differently, and this puzzled the ancients. More recent work on non-symmetric relations highlights difficulties with their directionality. Such problems offer clear motivation for attempting to reduce relations to monadic properties. By contrast, ontic structural realists hold that the nature of physical reality is exhausted by the relational structure expressed in the equations of fundamental physics. On this view, there must be some irreducible relations, for its fundamental ontology is purely relational. The Metaphysics of Relations draws together the work of a team of leading metaphysicians, to address topics as diverse as ancient and medieval reasons for scepticism about polyadic properties; recent attempts to reduce causal and spatiotemporal relations; recent work on the directionality of relational properties; powers ontologies and their associated problems; whether the most promising interpretations of quantum mechanics posit a fundamentally relational world; and whether the very idea of such a world is coherent. From those who question whether there are relational properties at all, to those who hold they are a fundamental part of reality, this book covers a broad spectrum of positions on the nature and ontological status of relations, from antiquity to the present day.

Author : John Heil
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108945422
Total Pages : 118 pages
Book Rating : 4.24/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Relations written by John Heil and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-11 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historically, philosophical discussions of relations have featured chiefly as afterthoughts, loose ends to be addressed only after coming to terms with more important and pressing metaphysical issues. F. H. Bradley stands out as an exception. Understanding Bradley's views on relations and their significance today requires an appreciation of the alternatives, which in turn requires an understanding of how relations have traditionally been classified and how philosophers have struggled to capture their nature and their ontological standing. Positions on these topics range from the rejection of relations altogether, to their being awarded the status as grounds for everything else, to various intermediary positions along this spectrum. Love them, hate them, or merely tolerate them, no philosopher engaged in ontologically serious metaphysics can afford to ignore relations.

Author : Bo R. Meinertsen
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 9811330689
Total Pages : 174 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Metaphysics of States of Affairs written by Bo R. Meinertsen and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-04-06 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses the metaphysics of Armstrongian states of affairs, i.e. instantiations of naturalist universals by particulars. The author argues that states of affairs are the best candidate for truthmakers and, in the spirit of logical atomism, that we need no molecular truthmakers for positive truths. In the book's context, this has the pleasing result that there are no molecular states of affairs. Following this account of truthmaking, the author first shows that the particulars in (first-order) states of affairs are bare particulars. He then argues that the properties in states of affairs are simple, non-relational and concrete universals. Next, he argues that (material) relations in states of affairs are external relations. Lastly, he argues that a state of affairs is unified by a distinctive formal relation without giving rise to Bradley’s regress. Written in a relatively non-technical style, the book offers a valuable resource for philosophers working on analytic metaphysics and ontology, as well as their graduate students.

Author : Neil E. Williams
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 0198833571
Total Pages : 267 pages
Book Rating : 4.74/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Powers Metaphysic written by Neil E. Williams and published by . This book was released on 2019-09-12 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Systematic metaphysics is defined by its task of solving metaphysical problems through the repeated application of single, fundamental ontology. The dominant contemporary metaphysic is that of neo-Humeanism, built on a static ontology typified by its rejection of basic causal and modalfeatures. This book offers a radically distinct metaphysic, one that turns the status quo on its head. Starting with a foundational ontology of inherently causal properties known as "powers", Neil E. Williams develops a metaphysic that appeals to powers in explanations of causation, persistence,laws, and modality. Powers are properties that have their causal natures internal to them: they are responsible for the effects in the world. A unique account of powers is advanced, one that understands this internal nature in terms of blueprint of potential interaction types. After the presentationof the powers ontology, Williams offers solutions to broad metaphysical puzzles, some of which take on different forms in light of the new tools that are available. The defence of the ontology comes from the virtues of metaphysic it can be used to develop. Particular attention is paid to theproblems of causation and persistence, simultaneously solving them as is casts them in a new light. The resultant powers metaphysic is offered as a systematic alternative to neo-Humeanism.

Author : Karen Bennett
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0191505145
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Making Things Up written by Karen Bennett and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-19 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A certain kind of talk is ubiquitous among both philosophers and so-called "ordinary people": talk of one phenomenon generating or giving rise to another, or talk of one phenomenon being based in or constructed from another. For example, your computer screen is built of atoms in a complex configuration, and the picture on the screen is based in the local illumination of various individual pixels. Karen Bennett calls the family of relations invoked by such talk 'building relations'. Grounding is one currently popular such relation; so too are composition, property realization, and-controversially-causation. In chapters 2 and 3 Bennett argues that despite their differences, building relations form an interestingly unified family, and characterizes what all building relations have in common. In chapter 4 she argues that it's a mistake to think there is a strict divide between causal and noncausal determination. Chapters 5 and 6 turn to the connections between building and fundamentality. Bennett argues at length that both absolute and relative fundamentality are best understood in terms of building, and that to say that one thing is more fundamental than another is to say no more than that certain patterns of building obtain. In chapter 7 Bennett argues that facts about what builds what must be themselves built: if a builds b, there is something in virtue of which that is the case. She also argues that the answer is a itself. Finally, in chapter 8 she defends an assumption that runs throughout the rest of the book, namely that there indeed are nonfundamental, built entities. Doing so involves substantive discussion about the scope of Ockham's Razor. Bennett argues that some nonfundamentalia are among the proper subject-matter of metaphysics, and thus that metaphysics is not best understood as the study of the fundamental nature of reality.

Author : J. E. Wolff
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192573942
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Metaphysics of Quantities written by J. E. Wolff and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-27 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are physical quantities, and in particular, what makes them quantitative? This book articulates and defends an original answer to this important, insufficiently understood question through the novel position of substantival structuralism. This position argues that quantitativeness is an irreducible feature of attributes, and quantitative attributes are best understood as substantival structured spaces. The book first explores what it means for an attribute to be quantitative, and what metaphysical implications a commitment to quantitative attributes has. It then sets the stage to address the metaphysical and ontological consequences of the existence of quantitative attributes.

Author : Theodore Sider
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 019881156X
Total Pages : 246 pages
Book Rating : 4.65/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Tools of Metaphysics and the Metaphysics of Science written by Theodore Sider and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Metaphysics has shifted ground, moving away from necessity and possibility as the lens through which we look at things. Ted Sider shapes the agenda for the subject by exploring how this shift transforms the project of understanding the objects, properties, and quantities of the universe, and the relations between them, in terms of structures.

Author : Constantine Cavarnos
Publisher : Institute for Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies, Incorporated
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 124 pages
Book Rating : 4.06/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Classical Theory of Relations written by Constantine Cavarnos and published by Institute for Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies, Incorporated. This book was released on 1975 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Richard Corry
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 0198840713
Total Pages : 253 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Power and Influence written by Richard Corry and published by . This book was released on 2019-07-25 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world is a complex place, and this complexity is an obstacle to our attempts to explain, predict, and control it. In Power and Influence, Richard Corry investigates the assumptions that are built into the reductive method of explanation - the method whereby we study the components of acomplex system in relative isolation and use the information so gained to explain or predict the behaviour of the complex whole. He investigates the metaphysical presuppositions built into the reductive method, seeking to ascertain what the world must be like in order that the method could work.Corry argues that the method assumes the existence of causal powers that manifest causal influence- - a relatively unrecognised ontological category, of which forces are a paradigm example. The success of the reductive method, therefore, is an argument for the existence of such causal influences.The book goes on to show that adding causal influence to our ontology gives us the resources to solve some traditional problems in the metaphysics of causal powers, laws of nature, causation, emergence, and possibly even normative ethics. What results, then, is not just an understanding of thereductive method, but an integrated metaphysical worldview that is grounded in an ontology of power and influence.