Writing the book of the world [electronic resource] / Theodore Sider
- Author:
- Sider, Theodore
- Published:
- Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2011.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (xiv, 318 pages) : illustrations
- Access Online:
- ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu
- Contents:
- Machine generated contents note: 1.Structure -- 1.1.Structure: a first look -- 1.2.Philosophical skepticism about structure -- 1.3.Structure in metaphysics: a preview -- 2.Primitivism -- 2.1.Understanding -- 2.2.Primitivism supported -- 2.3.Epistemology -- 2.4.Against reduction -- 2.5.Against subjectivity -- 2.6.The privilege of the physical -- 3.Connections -- 3.1.Explanation and laws -- 3.2.Reference magnetism -- 3.3.Induction and confirmation -- 3.4.Intrinsic structure in physical spaces -- 4.Substantivity -- 4.1.Nonsubstantive questions -- 4.2.Substantivity characterized -- 4.3.Conventionality -- 4.4.Subjectivity -- 4.5.Epistemic value -- 4.6.Objectivity of structure -- 5.Metametaphysics -- 5.1.The challenge of metaphysical deflationism -- 5.2.Personal identity, causation -- 5.3.The metaphysics room -- 5.4.Substantivity in nonfundamental disputes -- 5.5.A test case: extended simples -- 5.6.Metametaphysics as just more metaphysics -- 6.Beyond the predicate -- 6.1.The reason to generalize -- 6.2.Inapplicability of the similarity test -- 6.3.No entities -- 6.4.Unclear epistemology? -- 6.5.Logical conventionalism -- 7.Questions -- 7.1.Complete? -- 7.2.Pure? -- 7.3.Purity and connection -- 7.4.Metaphysical semantics -- 7.5.Completeness and purity reformulated -- 7.6.Metaphysics after conceptual analysis -- 7.7.Metaphysical semantics for quantifiers -- 7.8.Metaphysics and the study of language -- 7.9.Nonfundamental ground -- 7.10.Subpropositional? -- 7.11.Absolute? -- 7.11.1.Absolutism and comparative structure -- 7.11.2.Absolutism and infinite descent -- 7.12.Determinate? -- 7.13.Fundamental? -- 8.Rivals -- 8.1.Fine's concepts -- 8.2.First Finean view: grounding and reality -- 8.2.1.Ground and purity -- 8.2.2.Ground and infinite descent -- 8.3.Second Finean view: reality -- 8.3.1.Explanation of fundamental truths -- 8.3.2.Combinatorialism about fundamentality -- 8.3.3.Combinatorialism about determinacy -- 8.3.4.No fundamental truths -- 8.3.5.Nihilism and deflationism -- 8.4.Truthmaking -- 8.5.Truthmaking as a theory of fundamentality -- 8.6.Schaffer: entity-grounding -- 8.7.Entity-fundamentality -- 9.Ontology -- 9.1.Ontological deflationism -- 9.2.Ontological realism -- 9.3.Ontologese -- 9.4.Predicates not the issue -- 9.5.Quantifier variance -- 9.5.1.Quantifier variance and domain restriction -- 9.6.Objections to quantifier variance -- 9.6.1.The semantic argument -- 9.6.2.No foundation -- 9.6.3.No epistemic high ground -- 9.6.4.Indispensability -- 9.7.Easy ontology -- 9.8.Analyticity -- 9.9.Against easy ontology -- 9.10.Other forms of easy ontology -- 9.11.Metaontology and conceptions of fundamentality -- 9.12.Ontological commitment -- 9.13.Quantifiers versus terms -- 9.14.NonQuinean first-order ontology -- 9.15.Higher-order quantification -- 10.Logic -- 10.1.Fundamental logic -- 10.2.Hard choices -- 10.3.Nonfundamental metalogic -- 10.4.Logical pluralism -- 10.5.Objectivity in model theory -- 10.6.Classical logic and fundamentality -- 11.Time -- 11.1.Presentism -- 11.2.Presentist ideology: quantified tense logic -- 11.3.Is the dispute over presentism substantive? -- 11.4.Passage -- 11.5.Williamson on saturation and contingency -- 11.6.Change and saturation -- 11.7.Talk of saturation is legitimate -- 11.8.The metaphysics of saturation -- 11.9.Varieties of passage -- 12.Modality -- 12.1.No fundamental modality -- 12.2.A Humean strategy for reduction -- 12.3.Logical consequence and mathematical truth -- 12.4.Analyticity -- 12.5.Laws of metaphysics -- 12.6.Determinates and determinables -- 12.7.Contextualism -- 12.8.The necessary a posteriori -- 12.9.Micro-reduction -- 12.10.De re modality -- 12.11.Family resemblances -- 12.12.Spreading arbitrariness -- 13.A Worldview.
- Summary:
- Theodore Sider presents a vision of metaphysics centred on the idea of structure. To describe the world we must use concepts that 'carve at the joints', so that conceptual structure matches reality's structure. This approach illuminates a wide range of topics, such as time, modality, ontology, and the status of metaphysics itself.
- Subject(s):
- ISBN:
- 9780191732096 (ebook)
0191732095 (ebook) - Bibliography Note:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
View MARC record | catkey: 28936517