Related Research Articles
Existence is the state of having being or reality in contrast to nonexistence and nonbeing. Existence is often contrasted with essence: the essence of an entity is its essential features or qualities, which can be understood even if one does not know whether the entity exists.
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is often characterized as first philosophy, implying that it is more fundamental than other forms of philosophical inquiry. Metaphysics is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some modern theorists understand it as an inquiry into the conceptual schemes that underlie human thought and experience.
Ontology is the philosophical study of being. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of reality and every entity within it. To articulate the basic structure of being, ontology examines what all entities have in common and how they are divided into fundamental classes, known as categories. An influential distinction is between particular and universal entities. Particulars are unique, non-repeatable entities, like the person Socrates. Universals are general, repeatable entities, like the color green. Another contrast is between concrete objects existing in space and time, like a tree, and abstract objects existing outside space and time, like the number 7. Systems of categories aim to provide a comprehensive inventory of reality, employing categories such as substance, property, relation, state of affairs, and event.
Essentialism is the view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their identity. In early Western thought, Platonic idealism held that all things have such an "essence"—an "idea" or "form". In Categories, Aristotle similarly proposed that all objects have a substance that, as George Lakoff put it, "make the thing what it is, and without which it would be not that kind of thing". The contrary view—non-essentialism—denies the need to posit such an "essence". Essentialism has been controversial from its beginning. In the Parmenides dialogue, Plato depicts Socrates questioning the notion, suggesting that if we accept the idea that every beautiful thing or just action partakes of an essence to be beautiful or just, we must also accept the "existence of separate essences for hair, mud, and dirt".
Scientific realism is the view that the universe described by science is real regardless of how it may be interpreted. A believer of scientific realism takes the universe as described by science to be true, because of their assertion that science can be used to find the truth about both the physical and metaphysical in the Universe.
In logic and philosophy, a property is a characteristic of an object; a red object is said to have the property of redness. The property may be considered a form of object in its own right, able to possess other properties. A property, however, differs from individual objects in that it may be instantiated, and often in more than one object. It differs from the logical/mathematical concept of class by not having any concept of extensionality, and from the philosophical concept of class in that a property is considered to be distinct from the objects which possess it. Understanding how different individual entities can in some sense have some of the same properties is the basis of the problem of universals.
Scientific essentialism, a view espoused by Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam, maintains that there exist essential properties that objects possess necessarily. In other words, having such and such essential properties is a necessary condition for membership in a given natural kind. For example, tigers are tigers in virtue of possessing a particular set of genetic properties, but identifying properties are nonessential properties. If a tiger lost a leg, or didn't possess stripes, we would still call it a tiger. They are not necessary for being a member of the class of tigers.
Philosophical realism – usually not treated as a position of its own but as a stance towards other subject matters – is the view that a certain kind of thing has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it exists even in the absence of any mind perceiving it or that its existence is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder. This includes a number of positions within epistemology and metaphysics which express that a given thing instead exists independently of knowledge, thought, or understanding. This can apply to items such as the physical world, the past and future, other minds, and the self, though may also apply less directly to things such as universals, mathematical truths, moral truths, and thought itself. However, realism may also include various positions which instead reject metaphysical treatments of reality entirely.
David Malet Armstrong, often D. M. Armstrong, was an Australian philosopher. He is well known for his work on metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, and for his defence of a factualist ontology, a functionalist theory of the mind, an externalist epistemology, and a necessitarian conception of the laws of nature.
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions by being critical and generally systematic and by its reliance on rational argument. It involves logical analysis of language and clarification of the meaning of words and concepts.
A disposition is a quality of character, a habit, a preparation, a state of readiness, or a tendency to act in a specified way.
Richard Newell Boyd was an American philosopher, who spent most of his career teaching philosophy at Cornell University where he was Susan Linn Sage Professor of Philosophy and Humane Letters Emeritus. He specialized in epistemology, the philosophy of science, language, and mind.
Entity realism, sometimes equated with referential realism, is a philosophical position within the debate about scientific realism. It is a variation of realism that restricts warranted belief to only certain entities.
Quietism in philosophy sees the role of philosophy as broadly therapeutic or remedial. Quietist philosophers believe that philosophy has no positive thesis to contribute; rather, it defuses confusions in the linguistic and conceptual frameworks of other subjects, including non-quietist philosophy. For quietists, advancing knowledge or settling debates is not the job of philosophy, rather philosophy should liberate the mind by diagnosing confusing concepts.
Stephen Dean Mumford is a British philosopher, who is currently Head of Department and Professor of Metaphysics in the Department of Philosophy at Durham University. Mumford is best known for his work in metaphysics on dispositions and laws, but has also made contributions in the philosophy of sport.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to metaphysics:
In the philosophy of science, structuralism asserts that all aspects of reality are best understood in terms of empirical scientific constructs of entities and their relations, rather than in terms of concrete entities in themselves.
"The Natural Ontological Attitude" (1984) is the name of a paper published by philosopher Arthur Fine in which he coins the term "natural ontological attitude" (NOA). It deals with the philosophy of science. He published a sequel, "And Not Antirealism Either" in the same year, and both papers were later anthologized in the book The Shaky Game (1986).
In philosophy, naturalism is the idea that only natural laws and forces operate in the universe. In its primary sense, it is also known as ontological naturalism, metaphysical naturalism, pure naturalism, philosophical naturalism and antisupernaturalism. "Ontological" refers to ontology, the philosophical study of what exists. Philosophers often treat naturalism as equivalent to materialism, but there are important distinctions between the philosophies.
Stathis Psillos is a Greek philosopher of science. He is Professor of Philosophy of Science and Metaphysics at the University of Athens, Greece and a member of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy of the University of Western Ontario. In 2013–15, he held the Rotman Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Science at the University of Western Ontario, Canada.
References
- ↑ "Tree – David Chalmers" . Retrieved 22 July 2020.
- ↑ "Staff Directory - Philosophy Program - La Trobe University". Archived from the original on 7 March 2011. Retrieved 3 March 2011.
- ↑ "About – Philosopher.io". philosopher.io. Retrieved 2 December 2018.
- ↑ "Fellow Profile: Brian Ellis". Australian Academy of the Humanities. Retrieved 22 April 2024.
- ↑ Stephen Mumford, "Kinds, Essences, Powers" Ratio (new series) XVIII (4 December 2005), 420–436.
- 1 2 3 Brian, Ellis (2009). "CAUSAL POWERS AND CATEGORICAL PROPERTIES". philsci-archive.pitt.edu. Retrieved 2 December 2018.
