
Fictionalism in Metaphysics
Mark Eli Kalderon(Editor)
Oxford University Press
Published on 7. July 2005
Book
Paperback/Softback
366 pages
978-0-19-928219-7 (ISBN)
Description
Fictionalism is the view that a serious intellectual inquiry need not aim at truth. It came to prominence in philosophy in 1980, when Hartry Field argued that mathematics does not have to be true to be good, and Bas van Fraassen argued that the aim of science is not truth but empirical adequacy. Both suggested that the acceptance of a mathematical or scientific theory need not involve belief in its content. Thus the distinctive commitment of fictionalism is that acceptance in a given domain of inquiry need not be truth-normed, and that the acceptance of a sentence from the associated region of discourse need not involve belief in its content.
In metaphysics fictionalism is now widely regarded as an option worthy of serious consideration. This volume represents a major benchmark in the debate: it brings together an impressive international team of contributors, whose essays (all but one of them appearing here for the first time) represent the state of the art in various areas of metaphysical controversy, relating to language, mathematics, modality, truth, belief, ontology, and morality.
In metaphysics fictionalism is now widely regarded as an option worthy of serious consideration. This volume represents a major benchmark in the debate: it brings together an impressive international team of contributors, whose essays (all but one of them appearing here for the first time) represent the state of the art in various areas of metaphysical controversy, relating to language, mathematics, modality, truth, belief, ontology, and morality.
Reviews / Votes
Kalderon's collection of eleven papers, written by top philosophers in the field, represents the breadth and width of the topic... The papers are all of extremely high quality, and contain important original work. * Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Scholars and students of philosophy
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
556 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-928219-7 (9780199282197)
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Schweitzer Classification
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Mark Eli Kalderon
Fictionalism in Metaphysics
Book
07/2005
Oxford University Press
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Fictionalism in Metaphysics
E-Book
07/2005
1st Edition
OUP eBook
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Person
Edited by Mark Eli Kalderon, University College London
Contributors: Gideon Rosen Kendall Walton Stephen Yablo Seahwa Kim James A. Woodbridge Frederick Kroon Daniel Nolan Cian Dorr Richard Joyce David Lewis Simon Blackburn
Contributors: Gideon Rosen Kendall Walton Stephen Yablo Seahwa Kim James A. Woodbridge Frederick Kroon Daniel Nolan Cian Dorr Richard Joyce David Lewis Simon Blackburn
Content
Introduction ; 1. Problems in the history of fictionalism ; 2. Metaphor and prop oriented make-believe ; 3. The myth of seven ; 4. Modal fictionalism and analysis ; 5. Truth as a pretence ; 6. Belief about nothing in particular ; 7. Fictionalist attitudes about fictional matters ; 8. What we disagree about when we disagree about ontology ; 9. Moral fictionalism ; 10. Quasi-realism is fictionalism ; 11. Quasi-realism no fictionalism