
The Abstract and the Concrete
Further Essays in Ontology
Peter van Inwagen(Author)
Oxford University Press
Published on 7. May 2024
Book
Hardback
234 pages
978-0-19-287045-2 (ISBN)
Description
The Abstract and the Concrete presents nine essays in ontology by Peter van Inwagen. Three of the essays concern topics in meta-ontology: the idea of multiple modes of being; Carnap's idea that the questions of "ontology," insofar as they are meaningful at all, are questions about which linguistic frameworks it is expedient to employ; the concept of one object's being metaphysically more fundamental that another. Three of the essays concern various topics that pertain to the author's "lower-case" or "lightweight" platonism. (According to lightweight platonism, there are attributes-necessarily existent universals. These attributes are not constituents of substances, they cannot enter into causal relations, and it is false that an F object is F in virtue of instantiating the attribute of being F.) The remaining three essays examine proposed answers to particular ontological questions: the question of the validity of mathematical fictionalism; the question whether it is analytic that at any place at which some xs are arranged chairwise, there is there a chair; the question of what it means to say that colour is an illusion, and whether (in the sense determined) colour is an illusion.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 158 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
520 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-287045-2 (9780192870452)
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05/2024
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E-Book
03/2024
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OUP eBook
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Person
Peter van Inwagen is the John Cardinal O'Hara Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has delivered the Maurice Lectures at King's College, London, the Wilde Lectures on Natural Religion at Oxford University, the Stewart Lectures at Princeton University, and the Gifford Lectures at the University of St Andrews, where he received an honorary doctorate. He is the author of eight books and over two hundred essays and critical studies, and has had three books and four international conferences devoted to his work.
Author
John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Philosophy EmeritusJohn Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, University of Notre Dame
Content
1. Meta-ontology
1: Modes of Being and Quantification
2: The Neo-Carnapians>"
3: Dispensing with Ontological Levels: An Illustration
2. Platonism-of a sort
4: In Defense of Lightweight Platonism
5: Two Problems for a Truth-Centered Ontology
6: In Defense of Transcendent Universals
3. Topics in Ontology
7: Fictionalist Nominalism and Applied Mathematics
8: Against Analytic Existence Entailments
9: Color is an Illusion
1: Modes of Being and Quantification
2: The Neo-Carnapians>"
3: Dispensing with Ontological Levels: An Illustration
2. Platonism-of a sort
4: In Defense of Lightweight Platonism
5: Two Problems for a Truth-Centered Ontology
6: In Defense of Transcendent Universals
3. Topics in Ontology
7: Fictionalist Nominalism and Applied Mathematics
8: Against Analytic Existence Entailments
9: Color is an Illusion