Familiar Objects and their Shadows

Familiar Objects and their Shadows PDF Author: Crawford L. Elder
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139501127
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
Most contemporary metaphysicians are sceptical about the reality of familiar objects such as dogs and trees, people and desks, cells and stars. They prefer an ontology of the spatially tiny or temporally tiny. Tiny microparticles 'dog-wise arranged' explain the appearance, they say, that there are dogs; microparticles obeying microphysics collectively cause anything that a baseball appears to cause; temporal stages collectively sustain the illusion of enduring objects that persist across changes. Crawford L. Elder argues that all such attempts to 'explain away' familiar objects project downwards, onto the tiny entities, structures and features of familiar objects themselves. He contends that sceptical metaphysicians are thus employing shadows of familiar objects, while denying that the entities which cast those shadows really exist. He argues that the shadows are indeed really there, because their sources - familiar objects - are mind-independently real.

Familiar Objects and their Shadows

Familiar Objects and their Shadows PDF Author: Crawford L. Elder
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139501127
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 223

Get Book

Book Description
Most contemporary metaphysicians are sceptical about the reality of familiar objects such as dogs and trees, people and desks, cells and stars. They prefer an ontology of the spatially tiny or temporally tiny. Tiny microparticles 'dog-wise arranged' explain the appearance, they say, that there are dogs; microparticles obeying microphysics collectively cause anything that a baseball appears to cause; temporal stages collectively sustain the illusion of enduring objects that persist across changes. Crawford L. Elder argues that all such attempts to 'explain away' familiar objects project downwards, onto the tiny entities, structures and features of familiar objects themselves. He contends that sceptical metaphysicians are thus employing shadows of familiar objects, while denying that the entities which cast those shadows really exist. He argues that the shadows are indeed really there, because their sources - familiar objects - are mind-independently real.

Familiar Objects and Their Shadows

Familiar Objects and Their Shadows PDF Author: Crawford Elder
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781139010023
Category : Knowledge, Theory of
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Argues that sceptical metaphysicians employ shadows of familiar objects, while denying that the entities which cast those shadows really exist.

Substance and the Fundamentality of the Familiar

Substance and the Fundamentality of the Familiar PDF Author: Ross D. Inman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351660055
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Substance and the Fundamentality of the Familiar explicates and defends a novel neo-Aristotelian account of the structure of material objects. While there have been numerous treatments of properties, laws, causation, and modality in the neo-Aristotelian metaphysics literature, this book is one of the first full-length treatments of wholes and their parts. Another aim of the book is to further develop the newly revived area concerning the question of fundamental mereology, the question of whether wholes are metaphysically prior to their parts or vice versa. Inman develops a fundamental mereology with a grounding-based conception of the structure and unity of substances at its core, what he calls substantial priority, one that distinctively allows for the fundamentality of ordinary, medium-sized composite objects. He offers both empirical and philosophical considerations against the view that the parts of every composite object are metaphysically prior, in particular the view that ascribes ontological pride of place to the smallest microphysical parts of composite objects, which currently dominates debates in metaphysics, philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind. Ultimately, he demonstrates that substantial priority is well-motivated in virtue of its offering a unified solution to a host of metaphysical problems involving material objects.

Objects

Objects PDF Author: Daniel Z. Korman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191046469
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
What sorts of material objects are there? Many philosophers opt for surprising answers to this question that seem deeply at odds with how we ordinarily think about the material world. Some embrace radically eliminative views, on which there are far fewer objects than we ordinarily take there to be, while others go in for radically permissive views on which there are legions of extraordinary objects that somehow escape our notice, despite being highly visible and right before our eyes. In this book, Daniel Z. Korman defends our ordinary, intuitive judgments about which objects there are. The book responds to a wide variety of arguments that have driven people away from the intuitive view: arbitrariness arguments, debunking arguments, overdetermination arguments, arguments from vagueness and material constitution, and the problem of the many. It also criticizes attempts to show that permissive and eliminative views are, despite appearances, entirely compatible with our ordinary beliefs and intuitions.

Artefact Kinds

Artefact Kinds PDF Author: Maarten Franssen
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3319008013
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
This book is concerned with two intimately related topics of metaphysics: the identity of entities and the foundations of classification. What it adds to previous discussions of these topics is that it addresses them with respect to human-made entities, that is, artefacts. As the chapters in the book show, questions of identity and classification require other treatments and lead to other answers for artefacts than for natural entities. These answers are of interest to philosophers not only for their clarification of artefacts as a category of things but also for the new light they may shed on these issue with respect to to natural entities. This volume is structured in three parts. The contributions in Part I address basic ontological and metaphysical questions in relation to artefact kinds: How should we conceive of artefact kinds? Are they real kinds? How are identity conditions for artefacts and artefact kinds related? The contributions in Part II address meta-ontological questions: What, exactly, should an ontological account of artefact kinds provide us with? What scope can it aim for? Which ways of approaching the ontology of artefact kinds are there, how promising are they, and how should we assess this? In Part III, the essays offer engineering practice rather than theoretical philosophy as a point of reference. The issues addressed here include: How do engineers classify technical artefacts and on what grounds? What makes specific classes of technical artefacts candidates for ontologically real kinds, and by which criteria?​

The Meaning of Something

The Meaning of Something PDF Author: Fosca Mariani Zini
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303109610X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
This innovative volume investigates the meaning of ‘something’ in different recent philosophical traditions in order to rethink the logic and the unity of ontology, without forgetting to compare these views to earlier significative accounts in the history of philosophy. In fact, the revival of interest in “something” in the 19th and 20th centuries as well as in contemporary philosophy can easily be accounted for: it affords the possibility for asking the question: what is there? without engaging in predefined speculative assumptions The issue about “something” seems to avoid any naive approach to the question about what there is, so that it is treated in two main contemporary philosophical trends: “material ontology”, which aims at taking “inventory” of what there is, of everything that is; and “formal ontology”, which analyses the structural features of all there is, whatever it is. The volume advances cutting-edge debates on what is the first et the most general item in ontology, that is to say “something”, because the relevant features of the conceptual core of something are: non-nothingness, otherness. Something means that one being is different from others. The relationality belongs to something.: Therefore, the volume advances cutting-edge debates in phenomenology, analytic philosophy, formal and material ontology, traditional metaphysics.

Millikan and Her Critics

Millikan and Her Critics PDF Author: Dan Ryder
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118328086
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Millikan and Her Critics offers a unique critical discussion of Ruth Millikan's highly regarded, influential, and systematic contributions to philosophy of mind and language, philosophy of biology, epistemology, and metaphysics. These newly written contributions present discussion from some of the most important philosophers in the field today and include replies from Millikan herself. Comprises 13 new essays that critically examine the highly regarded and influential work of Ruth Millikan Covers a wide range of Millikan's most important work, from philosophy of mind and language to philosophy of biology Features contributions by some of the most important and influential philosophers working today Includes original replies to critics by Millikan

HCI International 2019 – Late Breaking Papers

HCI International 2019 – Late Breaking Papers PDF Author: Constantine Stephanidis
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030300331
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 612

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Book Description
This year the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2019, which was held in Orlando, Florida, USA, in July 2019, introduced the additional option of "late-breaking work", which applied both for papers and posters with the corresponding volumes of the proceedings. The 47 late-breaking papers included in this volume were published after the conference has taken place. They were organized in the following topical sections: user experience design and evaluation; information, visualization, and decision making; virtual and augmented reality; learning and games; human and task models in HCI; and design and user experience case studies.

The Giant Encyclopedia of Circle Time and Group Activities for Children 3 to 6

The Giant Encyclopedia of Circle Time and Group Activities for Children 3 to 6 PDF Author: Kathy Charner
Publisher: Gryphon House, Inc.
ISBN: 9780876591819
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 516

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Book Description
Contains more than six hundred circle time and group activities designed by teachers to use with children three to six years old, each including a suggested age, a list of materials, and step-by-step directions, and features lists of related books, songs, and poems.

The Cambridge Companion to Natural Law Ethics

The Cambridge Companion to Natural Law Ethics PDF Author: Tom Angier
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108422632
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 359

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Book Description
How do ethical norms relate to human nature? This comprehensive and interdisciplinary volume surveys the latest thinking on natural law.