Author: Ricki Bliss
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009115677
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 144
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Book Description
There is a long lineage of philosophers concerned with coming to understand what explains everything broadly construed, or within a certain, restricted domain. We call such explanations ultimate explanations. Contemporarily, philosophers of a certain stripe have devoted much attention to the notion of fundamentality - that there is something which is without explanation. This Element explores some of the connections between fundamentality and ultimate explanations both contemporarily and historically.
Author: Yannic Kappes
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3111069508
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 206
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Book Description
This book develops and applies a novel kind of explanation: Empty-Base Explanation. While ordinary explanations have a tripartite structure involving an explanandum, a base of reasons why the explanandum obtains, and a link that connects the reasons to the explanandum, this book argues that there are explanations whose corresponding set of reasons is empty. This novel idea is located in the theoretical background of several fundamental philosophical issues. For example, it provides a convincing kind of ultimate or final explanation that completely and conclusively explains a phenomenon without involving other phenomena for which further explanations could be demanded. The possibility and fruitfulness of empty-base explanation is defended by general considerations from the theory of explanation, as well as concrete applications to the practice of explanation by status, the explanation of logical theorems, causal connections, and laws of nature, self-explanation, the use of IBE in metaphysics, the notion of zero-ground (which it provides with a solid theoretical footing), and ultimate explanation and its application to philosophical cosmology, the debate about the PSR, and the question of why there is anything at all. For this book, Yannic Kappes has received the 2022 De Gruyter Prize for Ontology and Metaphysics from the German Society for Analytic Philosophy (GAP).
Author: Matteo Morganti
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009238914
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 141
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Book Description
This Element presents and critically examines the relationship between metaphysics and the sciences. Section 1 provides a brief introduction. Section 2 looks at the methodological issues that arise when metaphysics and science get into contact, which is a much-debated aspect of the larger dispute concerning philosophical 'naturalism' and 'anti-naturalism'. A taxonomy of possible views is offered. Section 3 looks more specifically at milder forms of naturalism about metaphysics, which attempt in various ways to make it 'continuous' with science while preserving some degree of autonomy for it. Section 4 adds some reflections on what might be regarded as the most pressing open problem when it comes to doing scientifically oriented metaphysics (but also when practising metaphysics or science in isolation): the problem concerning theory choice and the value of non-empirical factors in determining which explanation of certain phenomena should be preferred.
Author: Michael Raven
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351258834
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 549
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Book Description
Some of philosophy’s biggest questions, both historically and today, are in-virtue-of questions: In virtue of what is an action right or wrong? In virtue of what am I the same person my mother bore? In virtue of what is an artwork beautiful? Philosophers attempt to answer many of these types of in-virtue-of questions, but philosophers are also increasingly focusing on what an in-virtue-of question is in the first place. Many assume, at least as a working hypothesis, that in-virtue-of questions involve a distinctively metaphysical kind of determinative explanation called “ground.” This Handbook surveys the state of the art on ground as well as its connections and applications to other topics. The central issues of ground are discussed in 37 chapters, all written exclusively for this volume by a wide range of leading experts. The chapters are organized into the following sections: I. History II. Explanation and Determination III. Logic and Structure IV. Connections V. Applications Introductions at the start of each section provide an overview of the section’s contents, and a list of Related Topics at the end of each chapter points readers to other germane areas throughout the volume. The resulting volume is accessible enough for advanced students and informative enough for researchers. It is essential reading for anyone hoping to get clearer on what the biggest questions of philosophy are really asking.
Author: Kerry McKenzie
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316997995
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 84
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Book Description
A suite of questions concerning fundamentality lies at the heart of contemporary metaphysics. The relation of grounding, thought to connect the more to the less fundamental, sits at the heart of those debates in turn. Since most contemporary metaphysicians embrace the doctrine of physicalism and thus hold that reality is fundamentally physical, a natural question is how physics can inform the current debates over fundamentality and grounding. This Element introduces the reader to the concept of grounding and some of the key issues that animate contemporary debates around it, such as the question of whether grounding is 'unified' or 'plural' and whether there exists a fundamental level of reality. It moves on to show how resources from physics can help point the way towards their answers - thus furthering the case for a naturalistic approach to even the most fundamental of questions in metaphysics.
Author: Christopher Daly
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137344555
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 698
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Book Description
This Handbook contains twenty-six original and substantive papers examining a wide selection of philosophical methods. Drawing upon an international range of leading contributors, it will help shape future debates about how philosophy should be done. The papers will be of particular interest to researchers and high-level undergraduates.
Author: Elly Vintiadis
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019875860X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 284
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Book Description
Brute facts are facts that don't have explanations. They are instrumental in our attempts to provide adequate justifications for other facts or phenomena. Brute facts inform many people's views about the structure of the world, and are part of philosophical interpretations in metaphysics and the philosophy of science. Yet, despite the considerable literature on explanation, the question of bruteness has been left largely unexamined. The chapters in Brute Facts address this gap in academic thought by exploring the central considerations which surround this topic. How can we draw a distinction between facts that can reasonably be thought of as brute and facts for which further explanation is possible? Can we explain something and gain understanding by appealing to brute facts? Is naturalism inconsistent with the existence of (non-physical) brute facts? Can modal facts be brute facts? Are emergent facts brute? This volume brings together contributions by authors who offer different answers to these questions. In presenting a range of different viewpoints on these matters, Brute Facts engages with major debates in contemporary philosophy concerning modality, naturalism, consciousness, reduction and explanation.
Author: Mirosław Szatkowski
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311066481X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 507
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Book Description
The old philosophical discipline of metaphysics – after having been pronounced dead by many – has enjoyed a significant revival within the last thirty years, due to the application of the methods of analytic philosophy. One of the major contributors to this revival is the outstanding American metaphysician Peter van Inwagen. This volume brings together twenty-two scholars, who, in commemoration of Prof. van Inwagen's 75th birthday, ponder the future prospects of metaphysics in all the richness to which it has now returned. It is only natural that logical and epistemological reflections on the significance of metaphysics – sometimes called “meta-metaphysics” – play a considerable role in most of these papers. The volume is further enriched by an interview with Peter van Inwagen himself.
Author: Joshua Rasmussen
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030237524
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 286
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Book Description
This book provides an up to date, high-level exchange on God in a uniquely productive style. Readers witness a contemporary version of a classic debate, as two professional philosophers seek to learn from each other while making their cases for their distinct positions. In their dialogue, Joshua Rasmussen and Felipe Leon examine classical and cutting-edge arguments for and against a theistic explanation of general features of reality. The book also provides original lines of thought based on the authors’ own contributions to the field, and offers a productive and innovative inquiry into on one of the biggest questions people ask: what is the ultimate explanation of things?
Author: Fabrice Correia
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139789589
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 321
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Book Description
Some of the most eminent and enduring philosophical questions concern matters of priority: what is prior to what? What 'grounds' what? Is, for instance, matter prior to mind? Recently, a vivid debate has arisen about how such questions have to be understood. Can the relevant notion or notions of priority be spelled out? And how do they relate to other metaphysical notions, such as modality, truth-making or essence? This volume of new essays, by leading figures in contemporary metaphysics, is the first to address and investigate the metaphysical idea that certain facts are grounded in other facts. An introduction introduces and surveys the debate, examining its history as well as its central systematic aspects. The volume will be of wide interest to students and scholars of metaphysics.
