Many philosophers aim to develop a theory of reality—to answer the question, what does reality consist in? Roughly, this is the challenge of ontology. For the last half-century, perhaps most ...philosophers in the analytic tradition have approached this so-called ontological question arguing that it should be understood as a question about what there is. Call this the Neo-Quinean approach. In recent years, however, serious competitors to this approach have emerged. Neo-Aristotelians, for example, take the ontological question to be best understood as a question about what is fundamental. The Neo-Sellarsians take it to be about the relations between what they call the manifest and scientific images. And the Neo-Carnapian approach is aimed at showing the triviality or meaninglessness of ontology. Since the disagreement at hand is about how we ought to understand the very challenge of ontology, the debate is, as it were, a “meta-ontological” one. In this project, I defend the claim that Neo-Meinongianism deserves a seat at the table. To this end, I take up two general tasks. First, I motivate the kind of Neo-Meinongianism I am interested in (§1). Second, I further demonstrate its utility by exploring its connection to truth (§2), mereology (§3), and time (§4).In §1, I consider the merits of jointly endorsing Meinongianism and Ontological Pluralism. With the aim of showing that the two views complement one another, Iargue that such a meta-ontology can have tremendous utility, since it inherits the resources of both its constituent meta-ontologies, but avoids some objections that plague each constituent meta-ontology held independently.In §2, I explore the connection between a sort of Meinongianism and Truth. Some find it deeply intuitive that a true proposition is true in virtue of some relation that obtains between the proposition and reality. Some find it deeply intuitive that there are straightforwardly true propositions about nonexistent entities. A puzzle therein arises for those who have both intuitions. In this chapter, I develop this puzzle and explore the prospects of responding to it by appeal to the seemingly unprincipled response that some truths depend on being, and others do not. Ultimately, I argue that Meinongians have the machinery to offer a satisfying solution to the puzzle by way of a specific version of alethic pluralism. I conclude by preemptively responding to a number of objections.In §3, I explore the connection between ontological pluralism and mereological pluralism. I argue that ontological pluralism is well-positioned to motivate mereological pluralism and that mereological pluralism carries tremendous theoretical utility. The two views therein make an attractive package. Insofar as the ontological pluralist decides to embrace mereological pluralism, she will inherit the resources to resolve some perennial metaphysical puzzles. I conclude, among other things, that the ontological pluralist has strong reason to be a mereological pluralist, and that everyone has strong reason to take ontological pluralism even more seriously.In §4, I develop and defend a theory of time I call Meinongian Growing Block Theory, which deploys the metaontological resources of both Meinongianism and Ontological Pluralism. Initially, I articulate the view by juxtaposing it against two neighboring views, Meinongian Presentism and Presentist Existential Pluralism. I argue that Meinongian Growing Block Theory is preferable to these views and suggest reasons for thinking it will also fair well against new competitors from the Moving Spotlight and Fragmentalism camps as well.
The first chapter of this thesis will provide background from Thomistic metaphysics that is necessary in order to investigate Thomas’ understanding of gender. This is done by looking to Thomas’ ...understanding of the person as a unity of body and soul and the relationship between substance and accident. The chapter will also include an investigation of substantial form and the power of generation. Then, the second chapter will examine Thomas’ explicit argument for gender stemming from matter, his classification of gender as a unique inseparable accident, and John Finley’s argument for gender stemming from the soul based on his understanding of the power of generation as ‘cogenerative’. Finley’s argument will ultimately be shown to be unsuccessful, leaving us to conclude that gender must come from matter.
The paper seeks to place a metaphysical foundation for sexual difference, male and female, within a theory of individuation which supports the claim that the sexes are complementary. Individuation ...has long been an issue which philosophers have wrestled with and sexual difference only adds to the difficulty. The paper will look to the theories of Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus, both for individuation and sexual difference, before positing a theory of sexual difference of the author’s own thinking.The conclusion, using Scotus’ metaphysics and theory of individuation, will be that sexual difference is a proprium of the nature of animals. The distinction between the sexes is understood using Scotus’ modal distinction. The modal distinction between the sexes allows for difference to be introduced while remaining within one and the same formality. Scotus’ theory of individuation can then be utilized to understand how any given animal, within their species, can be either determined to one sex or the other or to both sexes, as may be the case by species, through the use of the specific and individual differences. The modal difference between the sexes will account for the biological reality of two sexual principles for the purposes of generation, while the two modes of the sexes being found in one and the same formality account for their equality, thus the sexes are integrally complementary.
Hylomorphism is a theory that has regained prominence in contemporary metaphysics, explaining the unity of composite material objects by appeal to a special metaphysical part of those objects: a ...structure or form. I begin by reviewing three prominent Neo-Aristotelian hylomorphic theories: that of Kit Fine, Kathrin Koslicki, and William Jaworski. Each of the three thinkers hold that any genuine material object with parts is a ‘substance,’ and that structures account for the existence of substances. Despite taking radically different positions on the nature of material objects and form’s role in accounting for their composition, they all hold a controversial principle: substances can have other substances as proper parts. For example, if a water molecule is a substance, the hydrogen and oxygen atoms that compose such a water molecule remain substances when they are that molecule’s proper parts. I argue that the principle that substances can have other substances as proper parts poses serious problems for the coherence of hylomorphism. However, if it is false that substances can have other substances as parts, hylomorphism can be shown not only to be a plausible theory, but the existence of entities functionally equivalent with substantial form is entailed by plausible assumptions about material composition. Aside from rejecting the principle that substances can have other substances as parts, these plausible assumptions are: that there are material objects with parts and that there are some objects that are not parts of other objects. I propose Thomas Aquinas’ metaphysics of material objects as an exemplary hylomorphic theory holding there can be at most one substantial form in each substance. His theory both illustrates the functional role of substantial forms in the composition of objects, and gives plausible answers to puzzles that seem to follow from rejecting the principle that substances have other substances as parts. After examining Aquinas’ metaphysics, I argue that Zhu Xi, a Song dynasty Confucian metaphysician, should be characterized as having developed a non-Aristotelian hylomorphism. Utilizing Zhu Xi’s theory, given his independence from the Aristotelian tradition, I construct an argument that theories of material composition, given the aforementioned plausible assumptions about the nature of composition, are committed to the existence of entities like substantial forms. I present Zhu Xi’s metaphysics in contrast to that of Kit Fine, arguing that whatever it is in virtue of which a substance is composed of its proper parts should be a metaphysical part of those substances, not a mind-dependent intensional principle. Consequently, accepting a framework in which there are mereologically composite material objects entails, on relatively weak assumptions, that these objects have substantial forms. Rather than saddle our metaphysics of material composition with unnecessary presuppositions, this fact that substantial forms play an implicit role in our metaphysics is an important feature of those theories. Hylomorphism is then not merely a plausible or appealing solution to problems of material composition, but a position entailed by any coherent metaphysics of ordinary material objects.
Critical Neuroscience Choudhury, Suparna; Slaby, Jan
2011, 2011-08-31, 2011-09-07
eBook
Critical Neurosciencebrings together multi-disciplinary scholars from around the world to explore key social, historical and philosophical studies of neuroscience, and to analyze the socio-cultural ...implications of recent advances in the field. Original, interdisciplinary approach explores the creative potential for engaging experimental neuroscience with social studies of neuroscienceFurthers the dialogue between neuroscience and the disciplines of the social sciences and humanitiesTranscends traditional scepticism, introducing novel ideas about ‘how to be critical’ in and about scienceFeatures contributions from eminent scholars including Steven Rose, Joseph Dumit, Laurence Kirmayer, Shaun Gallagher, Fernando Vidal, Allan Young and Joan Chiao
The book presents a theory of what the basic building blocks of the world are and argues that they can be reduced to three: a field, a set of values, and an actualizer. The theory is used to answer ...philosophical questions like: What are truth, existence, laws of nature, mind, free will, time, mathematical entities, and ethical values? The book is for people who like to ponder the big existential questions, including why there is anything at all.
Korijen filozofskih razmimoilaženja u XIII. stoljeću proizlazi iz dvaju tipova metafizike: metafizike bitka i metafizike bîti, odnosno njihovih dvaju načina poimanja bića. Te dvije vrste metafizike ...karakteriziraju dvije dominantne filozofske škole XIII. stoljeća, dominikansku i franjevačku. Glavni predstavnik dominikanske škole, sveti Toma Akvinski, ujedno je i začetnik metafizike bitka, a franjevačku školu predstavljaju sveti Bonaventura i blaženi Duns Scot s dvjema osnovnim metafizikama bîti. U radu se polazeći od Akvinčeva, Bonaventurina i Duns Scotova načina poimanja bića i njegovih počela izvodi njihov odgovor na šest temeljnih metafizičkih pitanja: Kakva je metafizička struktura bića?, Koja je zadnja zbiljnost bića?, Kako objasniti apsolutnu jednostavnost Božju i složenost stvorenja?, Je li biće analogno ili univočno?, Kako se individualiziraju bîti?U radu se je kroz metafizičku analizu pokušalo pokazati da pozicije franjevačkih mislilaca, iako se zaustavljaju na plićoj razini promatranja bivstvovanja, onoj na kojoj je bivstvovanje po sebi uvijek nekakvo određeno bivstvovanje, ipak uvođenjem pojma postojanja uspijevaju stvoriti model koji uspješno metafizički opisuje stvorenost bića, no ne uspijevaju izreći stvarnu metafizičku strukturu bića, dok se metafizika bitka svetoga Tome Akvinskog prepoznaje kao ona metafizika koja zahvaća i izriče „jest“ bića u svojoj izvornosti te tako istinski objašnjava metafizičku strukturu bića.
The root of philosophical disagreements in the 13th century arises from two types of metaphysics: the metaphysics of essence and the metaphysics of being, that is, their two ways of understanding being. These two types of metaphysics characterize the two dominant philosophical schools of the 13th century, Dominican and Franciscan. The main representative of the Dominican school is Saint Thomas Aquinas, withal the originator of the metaphysics of being, and the Franciscan school is represented by Saint Bonaventure and Blessed Duns Scotus with two basic metaphysics of essence. Starting from Aquinas, Bonaventure and Duns Scotus' way of understanding being and its beginnings, the paper derives their answer to six basic metaphysical questions: What is the metaphysical structure of being like? What is the ultimate reality of being? How to explain the absolute simplicity of God and the complexity of the created? Is being analogous or univocal? How are essences individualized?The paper tried to show through a metaphysical analysis that the positions of the Franciscan thinkers, although they stop at a shallower level of observation of being, the one where being in itself is always some kind of specified being; nevertheless, by introducing the concept of existence, they manage to create a model that successfully metaphysically describes the creation of being. But the Franciscan thinkers fail to express the real metaphysical structure of being, while the metaphysics of being of St. Thomas Aquinas is recognized as the metaphysics that grasps and expresses the existence of being in its originality and thus truly explains the metaphysical structure of being.
