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Williamson On Modality
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Book Synopsis Williamson on Modality by : Juhani Yli-Vakkuri
Download or read book Williamson on Modality written by Juhani Yli-Vakkuri and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Timothy Williamson is one of the most influential living philosophers working in the areas of logic and metaphysics. His work in these areas has been particularly influential in shaping debates about metaphysical modality, which is the topic of his recent provocative and closely-argued book Modal Logic as Metaphysics (2013). This book comprises ten essays by metaphysicians and logicians responding to Williamson’s work on metaphysical modality, as well as replies by Williamson to each essay. In addition, it contains an original essay by Williamson, ‘Modal science,’ concerning the role of modal claims in natural science. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy.
Book Synopsis Modal Logic as Metaphysics by : Timothy Williamson
Download or read book Modal Logic as Metaphysics written by Timothy Williamson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-28 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Timothy Williamson gives an original and provocative treatment of deep metaphysical questions about existence, contingency, and change, using the latest resources of quantified modal logic. Contrary to the widespread assumption that logic and metaphysics are disjoint, he argues that modal logic provides a structural core for metaphysics.
Download or read book Modality written by Bob Hale and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-03-25 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The philosophy of modality investigates necessity and possibility, and related notions—are they objective features of mind-independent reality? If so, are they irreducible, or can modal facts be explained in other terms? This volume presents new work on modality by established leaders in the field and by up-and-coming philosophers. Between them, the papers address fundamental questions concerning realism and anti-realism about modality, the nature and basis of facts about what is possible and what is necessary, the nature of modal knowledge, modal logic and its relations to necessary existence and to counterfactual reasoning. The general introduction locates the individual contributions in the wider context of the contemporary discussion of the metaphysics and epistemology of modality.
Book Synopsis Williamson on Modality by : Juhani Yli-Vakkuri
Download or read book Williamson on Modality written by Juhani Yli-Vakkuri and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Timothy Williamson is one of the most influential living philosophers working in the areas of logic and metaphysics. His work in these areas has been particularly influential in shaping debates about metaphysical modality, which is the topic of his recent provocative and closely-argued book Modal Logic as Metaphysics (2013). This book comprises ten essays by metaphysicians and logicians responding to Williamson’s work on metaphysical modality, as well as replies by Williamson to each essay. In addition, it contains an original essay by Williamson, ‘Modal science,’ concerning the role of modal claims in natural science. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy.
Book Synopsis The Philosophy of Philosophy by : Timothy Williamson
Download or read book The Philosophy of Philosophy written by Timothy Williamson and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-09-27 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The expanded new edition of one of the most influential and controversial books about the nature of philosophy published in the past several decades The Philosophy of Philosophy presents an original, unified concept of philosophy as a non-natural science. In this provocative work, distinguished philosopher Timothy Williamson challenges widely-held assumptions and clarifies long-standing misconceptions about the methodology and nature of philosophical inquiry. The author rejects the standard narratives of contemporary philosophy developed from naturalism, the linguistic turn, postmodern irony, and other prominent trends of the twentieth century. Viewing the method of philosophy as evolving from non-philosophical pursuits, Williamson provides readers with fresh insight into the “self-image” of philosophy and offers new ways of understanding what philosophy is and how it actually works. Now in its second edition, this landmark volume comprises the original book and the author’s subsequent work. New topics include the recent history of analytic philosophy, assessments of experimental philosophy, theories of concepts and understanding, Wittgensteinian approaches, popular philosophy, naturalism, morally-loaded examples in philosophy, philosophical applications of scientific methods, and many more. This edition features the author’s latest thoughts on a variety of issues, autobiographical reflections, and replies to critics. Proposes an alternative narrative about the nature of philosophy Argues that the common assumption of philosophical exceptionalism is false Highlights the similarities between philosophy and the other sciences in both methodology and subject matter Explores why contemporary philosophy has failed to articulate an adequate methodology Emphasizes increasing the methodological standards of reasoning in philosophy The Philosophy of Philosophy, Second Edition remains essential reading for philosophers, scholars, graduate and advanced undergraduate students in philosophy, and other readers with a sustained interest in the method and rationale of the doing of philosophy.
Book Synopsis Engagement and Metaphysical Dissatisfaction by : Barry Stroud
Download or read book Engagement and Metaphysical Dissatisfaction written by Barry Stroud and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-01-14 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We all have beliefs to the effect that if a certain thing were to happen a certain other thing would happen. We also believe that some things simply must be so, with no possibility of having been otherwise. And in acting intentionally we all take certain things to be good reason to believe or do certain things. In this book Barry Stroud argues that some beliefs of each of these kinds are indispensable to our having any conception of a world at all. That means no one could consistently dismiss all beliefs of these kinds as merely ways of thinking that do not describe how things really are in the world as it is independently of us and our responses. But the unacceptability of any such negative "unmasking" view does not support a satisfyingly positive metaphysical "realism." No metaphysical satisfaction is available either way, given the conditions of our holding the beliefs whose metaphysical status we wish to understand. This does not mean we will stop asking the metaphysical question. But we need a better understanding of how it can have whatever sense it has for us. This challenging volume takes up these large, fundamental questions in clear language accessible to a wide philosophical readership.
Book Synopsis Knowledge Through Imagination by : Amy Kind
Download or read book Knowledge Through Imagination written by Amy Kind and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Imagination is celebrated as our vehicle for escape from the mundane here and now. It transports us to distant lands of magic and make-believe. It provides us with diversions during boring meetings or long bus rides. It enables creation of new things that the world has never seen. Yet the focus on imagination as a means of escape from the real world minimizes the fact that imagination seems also to furnish us with knowledge about it. Imagination seems an essential component in our endeavor to learn about the world in which we live--whether we're planning for the future, aiming to understand other people, or figuring out whether two puzzle pieces fit together. But how can the same mental power that allows us to escape the world as it currently is also inform us about the world as it currently is? The ten original essays in Knowledge Through Imagination, along with a substantial introduction by the editors, grapple with this neglected question; in doing so, they present a diverse array of positions ranging from cautious optimism to deep-seated pessimism. Many of the essays proceed by considering specific domains of inquiry where imagination is often employed--from the navigation of our immediate environment, to the prediction of our own and other peoples' behavior, to the investigation of ethical truth. Other essays assess the prospects for knowledge through imagination from a more general perspective, looking at issues of cognitive architecture and basic rationality. Blending perspectives from philosophy of mind, cognitive science, epistemology, aesthetics, and ethics, Knowledge Through Imagination sheds new light on the epistemic role of imagination.
Download or read book Tetralogue written by Timothy Williamson and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "For those new to philosophy, 'Tetralogue' is a marvellous way into the subject. For those who are old hands, it neatly poses serious questions about truth and falsity, relativism and dogma."--Dust jacket flap.
Book Synopsis The Nature of Contingency by : Alastair Wilson
Download or read book The Nature of Contingency written by Alastair Wilson and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book defends a radical new theory of contingency as a physical phenomenon. Drawing on the many-worlds approach, it argues that quantum theories are best understood as telling us about the space of genuine possibilities, rather than as telling us solely about actuality.
Book Synopsis Modality and Explanatory Reasoning by : Boris Kment
Download or read book Modality and Explanatory Reasoning written by Boris Kment and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-09-18 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the ground-breaking work of Saul Kripke, David Lewis, and others in the 1960s and 70s, one dominant interest of analytic philosophers has been in modal truths, which concerns the questions of what is possible and what is necessary. However, there is considerable controversy over the source and nature of necessity. In Modality and Explanatory Reasoning, Boris Kment takes a novel approach to the study of modality that places special emphasis on understanding the origin of modal notions in everyday thought. Kment argues that the concepts of necessity and possibility originate in a common type of thought experiment—counterfactual reasoning—that allows us to investigate explanatory connections. This procedure is closely related to the controlled experiments of empirical science. Necessity is defined in terms of causation and other forms of explanation such as grounding, the relation that connects metaphysically fundamental facts to non-fundamental ones. Therefore, contrary to a widespread view, explanation is more fundamental than modality. The study of modal facts is important for philosophy, not because these facts are of much metaphysical interest in their own right, but because they provide evidence about explanatory relationships. In the course of developing this position, the book offers new accounts of possible worlds, counterfactual conditionals, essential truths and their role in grounding, and a novel theory of how counterfactuals relate to causation and explanation.
Book Synopsis The Routledge Handbook of Modality by : Otávio Bueno
Download or read book The Routledge Handbook of Modality written by Otávio Bueno and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-29 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modality - the question of what is possible and what is necessary - is a fundamental area of philosophy and philosophical research. The Routledge Handbook of Modality is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising thirty-five chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook is divided into seven clear parts: worlds and modality essentialism, ontological dependence, and modality modal anti-realism epistemology of modality modality in science modality in logic and mathematics modality in the history of philosophy. Within these sections the central issues, debates and problems are examined, including possible worlds, essentialism, counterfactuals, ontological dependence, modal fictionalism, deflationism, the integration challenge, conceivability, a priori knowledge, laws of nature, natural kinds, and logical necessity. The Routledge Handbook of Modality is essential reading for students and researchers in epistemology, metaphysics and philosophy of language. It will also be very useful for those in related fields in philosophy such as philosophy of mathematics, logic and philosophy of science.
Book Synopsis Philosophical Method: a Very Short Introduction by : Timothy Williamson
Download or read book Philosophical Method: a Very Short Introduction written by Timothy Williamson and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-08-27 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are philosophers trying to achieve? How can they succeed? Does philosophy make progress? Is it in competition with science, or doing something completely different, or neither? Timothy Williamson tackles some of the key questions surrounding philosophy in new and provocative ways, showing how philosophy begins in common sense curiosity, and develops through our capacity to dispute rationally with each other. Discussing philosophy's ability to clarify our thoughts, he explains why such clarification depends on the development of philosophical theories, and how those theories can be tested by imaginative thought experiments, and compared against each other by standards similar to those used in the natural and social sciences. He also shows how logical rigour can be understood as a way of enhancing the explanatory power of philosophical theories. Drawing on the history of philosophy to provide a track record of philosophical thinking's successes and failures, Williams overturns widely held dogmas about the distinctive nature of philosophy in comparison to the sciences, demystifies its methods, and considers the future of the discipline. From thought experiments, to deduction, to theories, this Very Short Introduction will cause you to totally rethink what philosophy is. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable. Previously published in hardback as Doing Philosophy
Book Synopsis A Companion to the Philosophy of Language by : Bob Hale
Download or read book A Companion to the Philosophy of Language written by Bob Hale and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-02-15 with total page 1176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Providing up-to-date, in-depth coverage of the central question, and written and edited by some of the foremost practitioners in the field, this timely new edition will no doubt be a go-to reference for anyone with a serious interest in the philosophy of language.” Kathrin Glüer-Pagin, Stockholm University Now published in two volumes, the second edition of the best-selling Companion to the Philosophy of Language provides a complete survey of contemporary philosophy of language. The Companion has been greatly extended and now includes a monumental 17 new essays – with topics chosen by the editors, who curated suggestions from current contributors – and almost all of the 25 original chapters have been updated to take account of recent developments in the field. In addition to providing a synoptic view of the key issues, figures, concepts, and debates, each essay introduces new and original contributions to ongoing debates, as well as addressing a number of new areas of interest, including two-dimensional semantics, modality and epistemic modals, and semantic relationism. The extended “state-of-the-art” chapter format allows the authors, all of whom are internationally eminent scholars in the field, to incorporate original research to a far greater degree than competitor volumes. Unrivaled in scope, this volume represents the best contemporary critical thinking relating to the philosophy of language.
Book Synopsis Mere Possibilities by : Robert Stalnaker
Download or read book Mere Possibilities written by Robert Stalnaker and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-08 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It seems reasonable to believe that there might have existed things other than those that in fact exist, or have existed. But how should we understand such claims? Standard semantic theories exploit the Leibnizian metaphor of a set of all possible worlds: a proposition might or must be true if it is true in some or all possible worlds. The actualist, who believes that nothing exists except what actually exists, prefers to talk of possible states of the world, or of ways that a world might be. But even the actualist still faces the problem of explaining what we are talking about when we talk about the domains of other possible worlds. In Mere Possibilities, Robert Stalnaker develops a framework for clarifying this problem, and explores a number of actualist strategies for solving it. Some philosophers have hypothesized a realm of individual essences that stand as proxies for all merely possible beings. Others have argued that we are committed to the necessary existence of everything that does or might exist. In contrast, Mere Possibilities shows how we can make sense of ordinary beliefs about what might and must exist without making counterintuitive metaphysical commitments. The book also sheds new light on the nature of metaphysical theorizing by exploring the interaction of semantic and metaphysical issues, the connections between different metaphysical issues, and the nature of ontological commitment.
Book Synopsis The Metaphysics of Knowledge by : Keith Hossack
Download or read book The Metaphysics of Knowledge written by Keith Hossack and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2007-09-20 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Keith Hossack presents an original approach to philosophy founded on the thesis that knowledge is an absolutely fundamental relation. He takes knowledge as the key to understanding a wide range of issues in metaphysics, philosophical logic, and philosophy of mind and language.
Book Synopsis Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds by : Edouard Machery
Download or read book Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds written by Edouard Machery and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds, Edouard Machery argues that resolving many traditional and contemporary philosophical issues is beyond our epistemic reach and that philosophy should re-orient itself toward more humble, but ultimately more important intellectual endeavors. Any resolution to many of these contemporary issues would require an epistemic access to metaphysical possibilities and necessities, which, Machery argues, we do not have. In effect, then, Philosophy Within Its Proper Bounds defends a form of modal skepticism. The book assesses the main philosophical method for acquiring the modal knowledge that the resolution of modally immodest philosophical issues turns on: the method of cases, that is, the consideration of actual or hypothetical situations (which cases or thought experiments describe) in order to determine what facts hold in these situations. Canvassing the extensive work done by experimental philosophers over the last 15 years, Edouard Machery shows that the method of cases is unreliable and should be rejected. Importantly, the dismissal of modally immodest philosophical issues is no cause for despair - many important philosophical issues remain within our epistemic reach. In particular, reorienting the course of philosophy would free time and resources for bringing back to prominence a once-central intellectual endeavor: conceptual analysis.
Download or read book Modality and Tense written by Kit Fine and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-07-14 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Kit Fine draws together a series of essays, three of them previously unpublished, on possibility, necessity, and tense.
