Questions tagged [metaphysics]
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the essence of things, of the fundamental nature of being and the world and the principles that organize the universe. Metaphysics is supposed to answer the question "What is the nature of reality?"
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An exposition and argument for ontological pluralism
Ontological Pluralism: the doctrine that there are different fundamental ways of being.
To put it more specifically to illustrate the point (although this not statement that ontological pluralists are ...
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Does Kant implicitly commit the paralogism of pure reason when saying that to have a representation it is necessary to accompany it with 'I think'?
In Caygill's Kant Dictionary entry of 'I Think' there is this part:
Kant further claims that 'I think' is the necessary vehicle/form/accompaniment of experience: to have a representation it is ...
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How does one differentiate epistemological and ontological claims?
I'm taking an introductory philosophy course and I find it fascinating. I can't really figure out an assignment though because I'm a bit foggy on what the difference between ontological and ...
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What would be Gilbert Ryle's necessary and sufficient conditions for being a human being?
One of my students asked me this question and I can't answer it. I thought it was a great question. Any suggestions on an equally good answer?
(I'm not a trained philosopher, I'm a historian. I teach ...
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Does Descartes conclude that imperfection implies perfection?
In the third meditation, does Descartes' knowledge of his limitations, or his imperfections, lead to his conclusion that there must be something limitless, something perfect?
In his third meditation, ...
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According to Aquinas, what is the relationship between the substantial form of a bodily being and its act of existing, ie. its esse?
Consider, for example, an existing bodily being. Because it is bodily, we know that it is composed of prime matter and substantial form. Also, because the bodily being is existing (not just made up in ...
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Attributes of God in Spinoza’s “Ethics”
In Spinoza’s Ethics, he remarks that God/Nature has infinitely many attributes. However, in the Ethics, he only identifies and discusses two of these attributes: thought and extension, which account ...
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What are some ways of understanding plural predication (and what are some academic resources on the matter)?
The particular case I'm thinking about has to do with existence. Peter Van Inwagen writes:
'When I say that affirmation of existence is denial of the number zero, I
mean only that to say that Fs exist ...
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Regarding objects being concrete and properties being abstract
For those who believe that objects are concrete things and properties are abstract things, what do you make of sensory properties?
Our brains perceive sensory qualities first and build (concepts of) &...
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How does Fichte account for the existence of inter-subjective reality?
I have read many entries on Fichte online. There is never any reference to the question of the origin of inter-subjective reality. How do we apparently see the same world?
There does not seem to be ...
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Why are there 8 Deductions, and not 6, in Plato's Parmenides?
In Plato's Parmenides, we have the 8 Deductions that go something like this (this applies, as best as I can see, to both the standard and non-standard models that the SEoP describes. All this is ...
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Formal deduction of Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism
In Process and Reality Whitehead starts off the investigation by giving his categoreal scheme - different types of categories and their derivatives, as well as some axioms. If I understand correctly, ...
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To what extent is the notion of "common" of philosophical interest?
The 2021 theme for a french competitive philosophical exam is: "the common". I'm not sure the expression really makes sense in English. In French, it is the adjective "commun" ( ...
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What is the "Factive Turn" in epistemology?
In 1967 Richard Rorty edited/published what I consider to be one of the finest philosophical anthologies of the Twentieth Century. The Linguistic Turn: Essays in Philosophical Method, formally ...
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What happened to ( aristotelian) substantial forms in cartesian ontology? On which ground ( metaphysical or physical) are they rejected?
In aristotelian philosophy, there are no bare particulars ( contrary to what is the case in Plato, according to P.V. Spade) but internally structured ( substantial) particulars in which 2 "parts"/...
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Has Alexandre Grothendieck ever expounded a particular stance on metaphysics or ontology?
It seems that in Recoltes et Semailles, he does go into quite a bit of philosophizing. the only thing of relevance I've found is that he notes how Riemann "in passing" said how he thought perhaps the "...
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Understanding 'existence' and 'being' in debates about ordinary objects
Quine has brought forward his definition of existence: 'To be is to be the value of a bound variable.' But has also taught us that the sciences ultimately determine what actually exists contrary to ...
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Are there degrees of rationality/plausibility to assumptions?
There are many kinds of premises, in every possible field. I'll limit this question to metaphysics, although it can definitely be applied to each and every scientific/philosophical study.
For example,...
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On the distinction between "objecthood" and "knowability" in Kantian philosophy
What pre-Copernican philosophy treats as two distinct
matters-objecthood and knowability-are thus [in Kant's CPR] treated as
one.
[...]
In pre-Copernican philosophy, there is a clear ...
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Thorough analysis of Kant's "conditions of possibility"
Is anyone aware of a thorough (mathematical) treatment/analysis of the concept of Kant's "Bedingungen der Möglichkeit" of something (conditions of possibility)?
I thought about it in the following ...
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Difference between the correspondence and the picture theory of meaning/language
Was Wittgenstein's picture theory of meaning/language, as posited in the Tractatus, and which was closely aligned with his analytic realism/logical atomism, simply an elucidation and elaboration of ...
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Has Spinoza been disproved by modern physics?
As I understood it Spinoza claims everything has Extension, it occupies space.
But in physics there are things called point particles which are zero dimensional, they don't occupy space.
So for ...
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Does the unobserved past exist in a super position
Does the unobserved past exist in a super position in the sense of quantum mechanics? Has anyone seen this question asked before? If the question is meaningful, what answer seems most likely. If the ...
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Do we live in a post-Meinong-versus-Russell/Quine world?
From a 2022 review of the collection Non-Being: New Essays on the Metaphysics of Non-existence:
This book argues, by omission, that we are in a post-Meinong-versus-Russell/Quine world. This is a ...
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About the world as representation
In "The World as Will and Representation", how can Schopenhauer say that the world is a representation if he himself EXISTS in his representation of the world? Isn't there a contradiction in ...
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Are there any sources linking Schopenhauerian metaphysics (will as thing-in-itself) with our contemporary understanding of physics?
I'm especially interested if there are any attempts at reconciling Schopenhauer's metaphysical will with the seeming indeterministic nature of quantum physics. Thank you.
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Metaphysical indeterminacy and necessity
This is similar to my last question, but now I am asking about a specific/different interpretation of vagueness.
To fit metaphysical indeterminacy into this picture Barnes and
Williams [claim]... the ...
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Does technology erode the subject or inflate the subject, and , are there good refutations of David Skrbinas philosophy of technology?
My question largely revolves around the work of one Chad Haag, he is a philosophy undergrad with a masters in comparative literature, he fled to India to avoid paying student loans and is a pretty ...
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platinga's actualism and introduction of essences
I am reading Plantinga's "Actualism and Possible Worlds" and I am struggling to see why he needs to introduce his idea of essences to resolve the following issue:
The actualist holds that:
(...
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What difference does Aquinas's 'actus essendi' really make?
According to Wikipedia,
Aristotle didn't have the notion of actus essendi. In fact, the
contribution of Aquinas to the philosophy of being is precisely that
he discovered that all Aristotelian acts ...
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Is Deleuze an Intuitionist?
I am reading Difference and Repitition currently by Deleuze. In it he describes his metaphysics as subverting identity, and instead replacing how people could process the world as an endless series of ...
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Turing's bridging argument of conflating mathematical logic and the philosophy of mind?
So I read this paper and I'll quote the relevant parts:
'Turing's machines are humans who calculate
On Computable Numbers' thus took on the
aspect of a hybrid paper: an attempt to integrate what ...
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Are information, matter and energy improper concepts?
In Proper and Improper concepts (1927) Carnap argued for the distinction between proper concepts (the ones that are explicitly defined)
”It is essential to a proper concept that for any object it is ...
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What happens to statements like cause must precede effect for the mental events for this model?
My understanding is that for this model (epiphenomenalism (?)) is there isn't mental causation rather a kind of mapping between physical and mental events?
What happens to statements like cause must ...
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Do things correspond to carvings of reality?
I have found many papers about “carving reality at its joints” but all of them discussed carving reality into kinds, supposed to cluster things, themselves always considered as already given. Though I ...
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Does the Empiricist Aspect of Kantian Idealism Refute Mellasioux's Anti-Correlationist Argument in "After Finitude"?
In After Finitude by Quentin Mellasioux, QM argues that the existence of the Arche-fossil creates a conflict between the intersubjective objectivism of the current scientific paradigm and the ...
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What is an object's properties?
What can we consider an object's properties, for example, when can we consider an object's properties as 'changing'? For example, if I move an object from my desk to my table, has it changed? If I ...
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Can the logic used by continental philosophers like Hegel be formalized by mathematicians?
Can the logic used by continental philosophers like Hegel be formalized by mathematicians? I heard the logic used by Hegel and Heidegger is different from the logic used by analytical philosophers ...
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Are questions truth-apt; what is the use of assigning questions a truth-value?
Is John black (or white)?
Yes he is black.
No he is not (black).
I don’t see how can the question be truth-apt and what use is there in assigning (or even being able to assign) a truth-value to the ...
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Why is the argument from synthetic a priori cognition to the subjectivity of what is cognized independent of the "appearance" premise?
In Paul Guyer's Kant, section "A Life in Work", the author claims this:
this argument from synthetic a priori cognition to the subjectivity of what is cognized is independent of the general ...
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Brute facts and the burden of proof
I'm trying my best to understand Della Rocca's article "PSR", which I believe convincingly shows that that one cannot reasonably hold that some facts are brute while others are not without a ...
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What is the philosophical position that a metaphysical debate is caused by different mental models?
I'm looking for authors, papers, and hopefully, the name of the philosophical position that I describe here. I've seen a couple of papers so I know that they exist, but I can't recall the authors or ...
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How does Yablo's paradox affect the theory of truth?
Question: What does Yablo's paradox tell us about what a theory of truth should look like?
I have been reading Leitgeb's What Theories of Truth Should be Like, and he discusses what a 'good' theory of ...
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Do the rules of basic logic have to presupposed to gain philosophical knowledge?
First, let me apologize if my question is nonsensical in any sense. I do not have any philosophical training whatsoever, but I am really interested in some philosophical questions.
I was thinking ...
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Please complete this expression
Longtime ago I heard someone say this, I need to know the correct wording and source of this expression. The basic idea is expression of how human society has changed over the last few hundred years. ...
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Is it possible for us to definitively determine the correct metaphysics?
This question came up for me when I began considering metaphysical realism and metaphysical idealism.
Realists claim that there exists an objective world independent of consciousness, though we only ...
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Is Bohm's Implicate and Explicate order similar to Schopenhauer's Will and Representation?
Bohm considered Implicate order to be fundamental and holistic, while Explicate order was only derivative. Similarly to Schopenhauer who had his principium individuationis, and considered ...
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What does Spinoza mean by Acquiescentia in se ipso?
In Part V of Spinoza’s Ethics the pinnacle of human freedom and understanding is discussed as the viewpoint from eternal blessedness. How are we to characterize or interpret this doctrine of ...
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What does the term "critical realism" mean in 2021
I cannot help but notice the increasing tendency of late to ambiguate the term “critical,” ostensibly in the service of rhetorical ends.
My concern here is with the sense of that term in the concept ...
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What do you call something that is not a substance in philosophy?
Is the mind a substance in dual aspect monism?
In philosophy, "substance" is like "atom", which is the ultimate
independent real existence not depending on other entities, is the
...
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