The Metaphysics Within Physics

The Metaphysics Within Physics PDF Author: Tim Maudlin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199218218
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
What does physics tell us about metaphysics? Tim Maudlin's philosophical examination of the fundamental structure of the world as presented by physics challenges the most widely accepted philosophical accounts of laws of nature, universals, the direction of time and causation.

The Metaphysics Within Physics

The Metaphysics Within Physics PDF Author: Tim Maudlin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199218218
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
What does physics tell us about metaphysics? Tim Maudlin's philosophical examination of the fundamental structure of the world as presented by physics challenges the most widely accepted philosophical accounts of laws of nature, universals, the direction of time and causation.

One and Many in Aristotle's Metaphysics

One and Many in Aristotle's Metaphysics PDF Author: Edward C. Halper
Publisher: Parmenides Publishing
ISBN: 1930972474
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
The problem of the one and the many is central to ancient Greek philosophy, but surprisingly little attention has been paid to Aristotle's treatment of it in the Metaphysics. This omission is all the more surprising because the Metaphysics is one of our principal sources for thinking that the problem is central and for the views of other ancient philosophers on it.The Central Books of the Metaphysics are widely recognized as the most difficult portion of a most difficult work. Halper uses the problem of the one and the many as a lens through which to examine the Central Books. What he sees is an extraordinary degree of doctrinal cogency and argumentative coherence in a work that almost everyone else supposes to be some sort of patchwork. Rather than trying to elucidate Aristotle's doctrines-most of which have little explicitly to do with the problem, Halper holds that the problem of the one and the many, in various formulations, is the key problematic from which Aristotle begins and with which he constructs his arguments. Thus, exploring the problem of the one and the many turns out to be a way to reconstruct Aristotle's arguments in the Metaphysics. Armed with the arguments, Halper is able to see Aristotle's characteristic doctrines as conclusions. These latter are, for the most part, supported by showing that they resolve otherwise insoluble problems. Moreover, having Aristotle's arguments enables Halper to delimit those doctrines and to resolve the apparent contradiction in Aristotle's account of primary ousia, the classic problem of the Central Books. Although there is no way to make the Metaphysics easy, this very thorough treatment of the text succeeds in making it surprisingly intelligible.

Metaphysics and Oppression

Metaphysics and Oppression PDF Author: John McCumber
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253213167
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
"In this stunning philosophical accomplishment, McCumber sheds important new light on the history of substance metaphysics and Heidegger's challenge to metaphysical thinking. . . . Well-documented, brilliant, definitely a major contribution to philosophy!" —Choice In this compelling work, John McCumber unfolds a history of Western metaphysics that is also a history of the legitimation of oppression. That is, until Heidegger. But Heidegger himself did not see how his conception of metaphysics opened doors to challenge the domination encoded in structures and institutions—such as slavery, colonialism, and marriage—that in the past have given order to the Western world.

The Metaphysics Within Physics

The Metaphysics Within Physics PDF Author: Tim Maudlin
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191607649
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
What fundamental account of the world is implicit in physical theory? Physics straightforwardly postulates quarks and electrons, but what of the more intangible elements, such as laws of nature, universals, causation and the direction of time? Do they have a place in the physical structure of the world? Tim Maudlin argues that the ontology derived from physics takes a form quite different from those most commonly defended by philosophers. Physics postulates irreducible fundamental laws, eschews universals, does not require a fundamental notion of causation, and makes room for the passage of time. In a series of linked essays The Metaphysics Within Physics outlines an approach to metaphysics opposed to the Humean reductionism that motivates much analytical metaphysics.

Introduction to Metaphysics

Introduction to Metaphysics PDF Author: Jean Grondin
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231527233
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Jean Grondin completes the first history of metaphysics and respects both the analytical and the Continental schools while transcending the theoretical limitations of each. He reviews seminal texts by Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and Augustine. He follows the theological turn in the metaphysical thought of Avicenna, Anselm, Aquinas, and Duns Scotus, and he revisits Descartes and the cogito; Spinoza and Leibniz's rationalist approaches; Kant's reclaiming of the metaphysical tradition; and post-Kantian practice up to Hegel. He engages with twentieth century innovations that upended the discipline, particularly Heidegger's revival of the question of Being and the rediscovery of the metaphysics of existence by Sartre and the Existentialists, language by Gadamer and Derrida, and transcendence by Levinas. Metaphysics is often dismissed as a form or epoch of philosophy that must be overcome, yet by promoting a full understanding of its platform and processes, Grondin reveals its cogent approach to reality and foundational influence on modern philosophy and science. By restoring the value of metaphysics for contemporary audiences, Grondin showcases the rich currents and countercurrents of metaphysical thought and its future possibilities.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness PDF Author: Martin Heidegger
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474272061
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
Written in 1938/9, Mindfulness (translated from the German Besinnung) is Martin Heidegger's second major being-historical treatise. Here, Heidegger develops some of his key concepts and themes including truth, nothingness, enownment, art and Be-ing and discusses the Greeks, Nietzsche and Hegel at length. In addition to the main text, the text also includes two further important essays, 'A Retrospective Look at the Pathway' (1937/8) and 'The Wish and the Will (On Preserving What is Attempted)' (1937/8), in which Heidegger surveys his unpublished works and discusses his relationship to Catholic and Protestant Christianity and reflects on his life's path. This is a major translation of a key text from one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century, now available in the Bloomsbury Revelations Series.

The Metaphysics

The Metaphysics PDF Author: Aristotle
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141912014
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
The Metaphysics presents Aristotle's mature rejection of both the Platonic theory that what we perceive is just a pale reflection of reality and the hardheaded view that all processes are ultimately material. He argued instead that the reality or substance of things lies in their concrete forms, and in so doing he probed some of the deepest questions of philosophy: What is existence? How is change possible? And are there certain things that must exist for anything else to exist at all? The seminal notions discussed in The Metaphysics - of 'substance' and associated concepts of matter and form, essence and accident, potentiality and actuality - have had a profound and enduring influence, and laid the foundations for one of the central branches of Western philosophy.

The Metaphysics of German Idealism

The Metaphysics of German Idealism PDF Author: Martin Heidegger
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509540121
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
This volume comprises the lecture course that Heidegger gave in 1941 on the metaphysics of German Idealism. The first part of the lecture course contains a preliminary consideration of the distinction between ground and existence. The elucidation of the conceptual history includes a striking confrontation with Kierkegaard’s and Jaspers’ concepts of existence, as well as an elucidation of the concept of existence in Being and Time, which Heidegger distinguishes from the former concepts. Heidegger’s self-interpretation is not an end in itself, however, but rather a way of pointing to Schelling’s distinction between ground and existence, whose root and inner necessity and whose various versions Heidegger discusses subsequently. The second part of the lecture course is focused on Schelling’s “freedom treatise,” which Heidegger regards as the pinnacle of the metaphysics of German Idealism. Heidegger’s consideration of Schelling’s distinction between ground and existence finds its guiding thread in the introduction of the realms of being – eternal or finite, each being is a joining of the ground of existence and existence itself. In a subsequent overview, Heidegger discusses the relation of the distinction between ground and existence to the essence of human freedom and to the essence of the human. On the basis of this discussion, it becomes possible to grasp the connection between freedom and evil in Schelling’s system. This important work by Heidegger, published here in English for the first time, will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy and to anyone interested in Heidegger’s work.

Introduction to Metaphysics

Introduction to Metaphysics PDF Author: Martin Heidegger
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300186126
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics is one of the most important works written by this towering figure in twentieth-century philosophy. It includes a powerful reinterpretation of Greek thought, a sweeping vision of Western history, and a glimpse of the reasons behind Heidegger's support of the Nazi Party in the 1930s. Heidegger tries to reawaken the "question of Being" by challenging some of the most enduring prejudices embedded in Western philosophy and in our everyday practices and language. Furthermore, he relates this question to the insights of Greek tragedy into the human condition and to the political and cultural crises of modernity. This new translation makes this work more accessible to students than ever before. It combines smoothness with accuracy and provides conventional translations of Greek passages that Heidegger translated unconventionally. There are also extensive notes, a German-English glossary, and an introduction that discusses the history of the text, its basic themes, and its place in Heidegger's oeuvre.

Ways of Being

Ways of Being PDF Author: Charlotte Witt
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501711504
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
Charlotte Witt continues her highly regarded exploration of Aristotle's metaphysics in a book devoted to the ontological distinction between potentiality and actuality. She focuses on Metaphysics book ix, which provides the most sustained discussion of this distinction. Witt rejects the conventional reading of this key text—that Aristotle differentiated between the two concepts solely to further the investigation of substance. Instead, in an original interpretation of his work, she argues that his development of the distinction between "being x potentially" and "being x actually" allowed Aristotle to develop an intrinsically hierarchical and normative vision of reality.For Witt, Aristotle's views about being shed light on his puzzling use of gender language in his descriptions of reality. This language has become an important issue for feminist scholars who have noted that in Aristotle's metaphysics of substance form is sometimes associated with the male, and matter with the female. Witt's interpretation that Aristotelian reality is intrinsically hierarchical and normative, but not intrinsically gendered, offers a new, important understanding of a controversial aspect of Aristotle's metaphysics.