Download or read book METAPHYSICS FACTS AND FALLACIES written by Andreas Sofroniou and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book deals with Metaphysics as a branch of philosophy which studies the most general categories, concepts and descriptions of ourselves and the world; causality, substance, ontology, time, and reality. Metaphysical questions can ask whether our actions are subject to causality, which gives rise to the problem of free will, and the question of whether our mental experiences involve a separate substance from body is a major issue in the philosophy of mind. Although metaphysics dates back to the ancient Greeks, the rise of science led to attempts by philosophers to limit the claims of metaphysics, and earlier in the last century scientifically minded philosophers such as the logical positivists claimed that metaphysical assertions were meaningless. In modern times the term used for the interpretation of Metaphysics is widely miscomprehended. The misunderstanding of the subject of Metaphysics extends to the mystical and esoteric feelings of the oriental religions and conceptions of therapeutic methods.
Download or read book Metaphysics Fact S and Fallacies written by Andreas Sofroniou and published by . This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Metaphysics as a branch of philosophyMetaphysics is the Greek term which, in simple terms, it means, 'the things after the physics' (from Aristotle's works META TA PHYSICA = that branch of philosophy which studies the most general categories and concepts which are presupposed in descriptions of ourselves and the world. Examples are causality, substance, ontology, time, and reality. Metaphysical questions have a very broad scope. Whereas the physical scientist might ask 'How does x cause y?' the metaphysician asks 'What does it mean for anything to cause anything else?' Whereas the chemist might investigate particular substances, the metaphysician asks what it means to be a substance, and whether there is one basic substance, or many. Metaphysical questions can become the subject of more specialised philosophical inquiry. We can ask whether our actions are subject to causality, which gives rise to the problem of free will, and the question of whether our mental experiences involve a separate substance from body is a major issue in the philosophy of mind. Although metaphysics dates back to the ancient Greeks, there have been occasions on which its status as a legitimate inquiry have been questioned. The rise of science in the 17th century led to attempts by philosophers such as Hume and Locke to limit the claims of metaphysics, and earlier in the last century scientifically minded philosophers such as the logical positivists claimed that metaphysical assertions were meaningless. SECTION 2: RELATED SUBJECTSAl-Farabi (c.873-950), Islamic philosopherHe commented on the logical works of Aristotle and the political works of Plato, combining ideas from both in his principal work, The Ideal City. This hierarchical society would be headed by a philosopher-prophet, from whom lower ranks would derive their authority. The same structure is evident in his metaphysics, in which all levels of intelligence and life emanate necessarily from the One, or God, and in his ranking of kinds of knowledge. Philosophical knowledge, acquired through logic, is the highest exercise of reason, but religious knowledge, which dresses itself in symbols accessible to the imagination of lesser thinkers, also has its place.Analytic philosophy This is a broad movement in 20th-century philosophy, influential chiefly in Austria, the UK, and the USA, which regards central philosophical problems as primarily demanding clarification or analysis of such notions as meaning, truth, and necessity. Although analytical philosophy is a loosely unified tradition, rather than a specific doctrine, there has been broad agreement on some specific matters. First, philosophy is a distinctive kind of enquiry, which employs methods different from those of the natural or social sciences; additionally, unlike, for instance, biology or economics, it is not addressed to any distinctive realm of facts.Philosophy does not seek to construct theories which build upon or add to our knowledge of the world, but to clarify the knowledge and beliefs we already have. Secondly, this clarification is to be achieved by analysis of the language in which our non-philosophical, common-sense, or scientific knowledge is expressed. This framework leaves ample room for internal divisions. There is, for instance, disagreement between Russell's view that this kind of clarification will yield answers to the traditional questions of metaphysics and epistemology, and Wittgenstein's contention that such questions are the products of confusions which the careful analysis of language will enable us to avoid. A related dispute concerns whether philosophical analysis can itself be conducted in a systematic way, using the tools and techniques of mathematical logic, as the logical positivists held, or whether resolution of philosophical problems demands piecemeal attention to specific areas of ordinary language.
Download or read book Metaphysics and the Representational Fallacy written by Heather Dyke and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-07-26 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an investigation into metaphysics: its aims, scope, methodology and practice. Dyke argues that metaphysics should take itself to be concerned with investigating the fundamental nature of reality, and suggests that the ontological significance of language has been grossly exaggerated in the pursuit of that aim.
Download or read book Against Facts written by Arianna Betti and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2015-07-10 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An argument that the major metaphysical theories of facts give us no good reason to accept facts in our catalog of the world. In this book Arianna Betti argues that we have no good reason to accept facts in our catalog of the world, at least as they are described by the two major metaphysical theories of facts. She claims that neither of these theories is tenable—neither the theory according to which facts are special structured building blocks of reality nor the theory according to which facts are whatever is named by certain expressions of the form “the fact that such and such.” There is reality, and there are entities in reality that we are able to name, but, Betti contends, among these entities there are no facts. Drawing on metaphysics, the philosophy of language, and linguistics, Betti examines the main arguments in favor of and against facts of the two major sorts, which she distinguishes as compositional and propositional, giving special attention to methodological presuppositions. She criticizes compositional facts (facts as special structured building blocks of reality) and the central argument for them, Armstrong's truthmaker argument. She then criticizes propositional facts (facts as whatever is named in “the fact that” statements) and what she calls the argument from nominal reference, which draws on Quine's criterion of ontological commitment. Betti argues that metaphysicians should stop worrying about facts, and philosophers in general should stop arguing for or against entities on the basis of how we use language.
Download or read book Metaphysics and the Representational Fallacy written by Heather Dyke and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Facts and Values written by Giancarlo Marchetti and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-11-03 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection offers a synoptic view of current philosophical debates concerning the relationship between facts and values, bringing together a wide spectrum of contributors committed to testing the validity of this dichotomy, exploring alternatives, and assessing their implications. The assumption that facts and values inhabit distinct, unbridgeable conceptual and experiential domains has long dominated scientific and philosophical discourse, but this separation has been seriously called into question from a number of corners. The original essays here collected offer a diversity of responses to fact-value dichotomy, including contributions from Hilary Putnam and Ruth Anna Putnam who are rightly credited with revitalizing philosophical interest in this alleged opposition. Both they, and many of our contributors, are in agreement that the relationship between epistemic developments and evaluative attitudes cannot be framed as a conflict between descriptive and normative understanding. Each chapter demonstrates how and why contrapositions between science and ethics, between facts and values, and between objective and subjective are false dichotomies. Values cannot simply be separated from reason. Facts and Values will therefore prove essential reading for analytic and continental philosophers alike, for theorists of ethics and meta-ethics, and for philosophers of economics and law.
Download or read book Kant on the Sources of Metaphysics written by Marcus Willaschek and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-29 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Detailed exploration of the Transcendental Dialectic, in which Kant uncovers the sources of metaphysics in human reason.
Download or read book The End of Existence written by Garvin Rampersad and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The aim of this text is to counter the paradoxes of causality and induction as presented by empirical scepticism, though the work is not a dry critique of others' efforts in this area. In order to address these issues, the author presents his instinctive belief in the interconnectedness of the world's elements from a conceptual point of view. The work is not epistemological, but metaphysical and logical, and the assumptions are made in these areas. The principal concept is membership, which appears in logic, language and metaphysics. Truth, existence and reference are shown to be forms of membership and, as such, invalid concepts. The famous paradoxes stretch from that of the liar to Russell's result from this misconcept, which is responsible for the paradoxes of causality and induction.
Download or read book The Naturalistic Fallacy written by Neil Sinclair and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a definitive guide to the text, history and philosophy behind the most influential argument in the history of ethics.
Download or read book The Zero Fallacy and Other Essays in Neoclassical Philosophy written by Charles Hartshorne and published by Open Court Publishing. This book was released on 1997 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For seven decades Charles Hartshorne has presented his philosophical themes with ingenuity and deep historical awareness, comparing his positions in illuminating fashion with those of major figures from Plato to Kant to Popper. Integral to Hartshorne's thinking have been bold, fresh interpretations of such notions as God, freedom, change, creativity, aesthetic meaning, the social character of experience, and generalized causal possibility with a place for probabilities and open possibilities.
Download or read book Science and Metaphysics written by Wilfrid Sellars and published by . This book was released on 1968 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Art of Reasoning written by Samuel Neil and published by . This book was released on 1853 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Conjectures and Refutations written by Karl Raimund Popper and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 614 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conjectures and Refutations is one of Karl Popper's most wide-ranging and popular works, notable not only for its acute insight into the way scientific knowledge grows, but also for applying those insights to politics and to history. It provides one of the clearest and most accessible statements of the fundamental idea that guided his work: not only our knowledge, but our aims and our standards, grow through an unending process of trial and error.
Download or read book Cosmos the Soul and God written by Charles London Arnold and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2015-06-14 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Cosmos, the Soul and God: A Monistic Interpretation of the Facts and Findings of Science Permission having been granted Sir Oliver Lodge to embody in the preface of the present book certain passages from his recent important work, "Life and Matter," the author takes this opportunity to express his profound gratitude to his benefactor for the great privilege accorded him. This eminent scientist, in the book from which the following quotations are made, has rendered a most valuable service to the cause of truth, not only in exposing the speculative fallacies of Professor Ernst Haeckel of Jena, but in suggesting certain fundamental philosophical principles and their application to the solution of many hitherto insoluble problems of the universe and of human experience. It will readily be seen by the reader how fittingly these quotations are made to constitute a preface to this volume. "Before everything, a philosopher should aim to be all-inclusive; before everything, a man of science should aim at being definite, clear, and accurate. An attempt at combination is an ambitious attempt which may legitimately be made. Positive contributions, either to fact or to system, may be real and should be welcome. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Download or read book Facts about Metaphysics written by Julie ann and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-12-30 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of metaphysics is very comprehensive.The more aspects you learn, the more you understand this field.Metaphysics has an inspirational value.Read this book to know more
Download or read book The Common Sense the Mathematics and the Metaphysics of Money written by John Badlam Howe and published by . This book was released on 1881 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Facts and Fallacies of Christian Science written by Amos Williams Patten and published by . This book was released on 1893 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
