Download or read book Nonexistent Objects written by Professor of Philosophy & Linguistics Terence Parsons and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book Terence Parsons revives the older tradition of taking such objects at face value. Using various modern techniques from logic and the philosophy of language, he formulates a metaphysical theory of nonexistent objects. The theory is given a formalization in symbolism rich enough to contain definite descriptions, modal operators, and epistemic contexts, and the book includes a discussion which relates the formalized theory explicitly to English.

Download or read book Nonexistent Objects written by K.J. Perszyk and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-09 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Issues surrounding the status and nature of `nonexistent objects' constitute one of philosophy's oldest and densest thickets. In this book Perszyk takes his readers surefootedly through this thicket, informed both historically and at the level of contemporary discussion of relevant themes. His main aim is to develop a `bundle' or `set of properties' interpretation of Meinong's theory of nonexistent objects (as opposed to a set of properties neo-Meinongian metaphysics), and to defend this nonstandard interpretation against competing views in both the philosophical and scholarly literature on Meinong. The Meinong who emerges is neither the hero nor the villain his friends and foes have commonly led us to believe. This clearly written book is a valuable addition both to the literature on Meinong and to contemporary metaphysics of modality. It is written for students and professionals interested in these, and related, areas.

Download or read book Nonexistent Objects in Buddhist Philosophy written by Zhihua Yao and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-01-23 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can we know what there is not? This book examines the historical development of the concept of the cognition of nonexistent objects in several major Buddhist philosophical schools. Beginning with a study of the historical development of the concept in Mahasamghika, Darstantika, Yogacara and Sautrantika, it evaluates how successfully they have argued against the extreme view of their main opponent the Sarvastivadins and established their view that one can know what there is not. It also includes thematic studies on the epistemological issues of nonexistence, discussing making sense of empty terms, controversies over negative judgments, and a proper classification of the conceptions of nothing or nonexistence. Taking a comparative approach to these topics, this book considers contemporary Western philosophers such as Husserl, Heidegger, Meinong and Russell alongside representative figures of the Buddhist Pramana School. Based on first-hand study of primary sources in Sanskrit, Chinese and Tibetan, Nonexistent Objects in Buddhist Philosophy makes available the rich discussions and debates on the epistemological issues of nonexistence in Buddhist philosophy to students and researchers in Asian and comparative philosophy.

Download or read book The Nonexistent written by Anthony Everett and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-08-29 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthony Everett gives a philosophical defence of the common-sense view that there are no such things as fictional people, places, and things. He argues that our talk and thought about such fictional objects takes place within the scope of a pretense, and that we gain little but lose much by accepting fictional realism.

Download or read book Towards Non Being written by Graham Priest and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2005-05-19 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Towards Non-Being presents an account of the semantics of intentional language - verbs such as 'believes', 'fears', 'seeks', 'imagines'. Graham Priest's account tackles problems concerning intentional states which are often brushed under the carpet in discussions of intentionality, such as their failure to be closed under deducibility. Drawing on the work of the late Richard Routley (Sylvan), it proceeds in terms of objects that may be either existent or non-existent, atworlds that may be either possible or impossible. Since Russell, non-existent objects have had a bad press in Western philosophy; Priest mounts a full-scale defence. In the process, he offers an account of both fictional and mathematical objects as non-existent.The book will be of central interest to anyone who is concerned with intentionality in the philosophy of mind or philosophy of language, the metaphysics of existence and identity, the philosophy or fiction, the philosophy of mathematics, or cognitive representation in AI.

Download or read book The Objects of Thought written by Tim Crane and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-09 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tim Crane addresses the ancient question of how it is possible to think about what does not exist. He argues that the representation of the non-existent is a pervasive feature of our thought about the world, and that to understand thought's representational power ('intentionality') we need to understand the representation of the non-existent.

Download or read book Abstract Objects written by E. Zalta and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 1983-06-30 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, I attempt to lay the axiomatic foundations of metaphysics by developing and applying a (formal) theory of abstract objects. The cornerstones include a principle which presents precise conditions under which there are abstract objects and a principle which says when apparently distinct such objects are in fact identical. The principles are constructed out of a basic set of primitive notions, which are identified at the end of the Introduction, just before the theorizing begins. The main reason for producing a theory which defines a logical space of abstract objects is that it may have a great deal of explanatory power. It is hoped that the data explained by means of the theory will be of interest to pure and applied metaphysicians, logicians and linguists, and pure and applied epistemologists. The ideas upon which the theory is based are not essentially new. They can be traced back to Alexius Meinong and his student, Ernst Mally, the two most influential members of a school of philosophers and psychologists working in Graz in the early part of the twentieth century. They investigated psychological, abstract and non-existent objects - a realm of objects which weren't being taken seriously by Anglo-American philoso phers in the Russell tradition. I first took the views of Meinong and Mally seriously in a course on metaphysics taught by Terence Parsons at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst in the Fall of 1978. Parsons had developed an axiomatic version of Meinong's naive theory of objects.

Download or read book Eliminativism Objects and Persons written by Jiri Benovsky and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-09-03 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Eliminativism, Objects, and Persons, Jiri Benovsky defends the view that he doesn't exist. In this book, he also defends the view that this book itself doesn't exist. But this did not prevent him to write the book, and although in Benovsky's view you don't exist either, this does not prevent you to read it. Benovsky defends a brand of non-exceptionalist eliminativism. Some eliminativists, typically focusing on ordinary material objects such as chairs and hammers, make exceptions, for instance for blue whales (that is, living beings) or for persons (that is, conscious organisms). Benovsky takes one by one all types of allegedly existing objects like chairs, whales, and persons and shows that from the metaphysical point of view they are more trouble than they are worth—we are much better off without them. He thus defends an eliminativist view about ordinary objects as well as the 'no-Self' view, where he explores connections between metaphysics, phenomenology, and Buddhist thought. He then also considers the case of aesthetic objects, focusing on musical works and photographs, and shows that the claim of their non-existence solves the many problems that arise when one tries to find an appropriate ontological category for them, and that such an eliminativist view is more natural than what we might have thought. The arguments provided here are always topic-specific: each type of entity is given its own type of treatment, thus proving a varied and solid foundation for a generalized, non-exceptionalist, full-blown eliminativist worldview.

Download or read book Fictional Objects written by Stuart Brock and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses a range of philosophical questions about fictional characters and fictional objects, with implications for metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language.

Download or read book Nothingness in Asian Philosophy written by Jeeloo Liu and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-13 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A variety of crucial and still most relevant ideas about nothingness or emptiness have gained profound philosophical prominence in the history and development of a number of South and East Asian traditions—including in Buddhism, Daoism, Neo-Confucianism, Hinduism, Korean philosophy, and the Japanese Kyoto School. These traditions share the insight that in order to explain both the great mysteries and mundane facts about our experience, ideas of "nothingness" must play a primary role. This collection of essays brings together the work of twenty of the world’s prominent scholars of Hindu, Buddhist, Daoist, Neo-Confucian, Japanese and Korean thought to illuminate fascinating philosophical conceptualizations of "nothingness" in both classical and modern Asian traditions. The unique collection offers new work from accomplished scholars and provides a coherent, panoramic view of the most significant ways that "nothingness" plays crucial roles in Asian philosophy. It includes both traditional and contemporary formulations, sometimes putting Asian traditions into dialogue with one another and sometimes with classical and modern Western thought. The result is a book of immense value for students and researchers in Asian and comparative philosophy. Chapter 20 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Download or read book Alexius Meinong The Shepherd of Non Being written by Dale Jacquette and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-07-13 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the thought of Alexius Meinong, a philosopher known for his unconventional theory of reference and predication. The chapters cover a natural progression of topics, beginning with the origins of Gegenstandstheorie, Meinong’s theory of objects, and his discovery of assumptions as a fourth category of mental states to supplement his teacher Franz Brentano’s references to presentations, feelings, and judgments. The chapters explore further the meaning and metaphysics of fictional and other nonexistent intended objects, fine points in Meinongian object theory are considered and new and previously unanticipated problems are addressed. The author traces being and non-being and aspects of beingless objects including objects in fiction, ideal objects in scientific theory, objects ostensibly referred to in false science and false history and intentional imaginative projection of future states of affairs. The chapters focus on an essential choice of conceptual, logical, semantic, ontic and more generally metaphysical problems and an argument is progressively developed from the first to the final chapter, as key ideas are introduced and refined. Meinong studies have come a long way from Bertrand Russell’s off-target criticisms and recent times have seen a rise of interest in a Meinongian approach to logic and the theory of meaning. New thinkers see Meinong as a bridge figure between analytic and continental thought, thanks to the need for an adequate semantics of meaning in philosophy of language and philosophy of mind, making this book a particularly timely publication.​

Download or read book God Existence and Fictional Objects written by John-Mark L. Miravalle and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: God and fictional objects are central topics within philosophy, but rarely do the respective discussions overlap. Until now the two fields have remained independent. Applying the debate about fictional objects to issues of theology for the first time, John-Mark L. Miravalle bridges these two fields and presents a new approach to notions of God, creatures, and existence. Miravalle explains why meinongianism, which holds that certain things can serve as intentional objects with properties, even though they do not exist, can facilitate talk of nonexistence better than other metaphysical viewpoints, such as platonism, modal realism and pretense-theory. He identifies points of connection between theology and nonexistents and uses meinongianism to buttress the cosmological and ontological arguments for God's existence. As a result he is able to explore fresh solutions to problems of classical theism, from the necessary existence of God and creation ex nihilo to free will and the problem of evil. By revealing how a particular account of fictional objects is especially harmonious with and supportive of the major claims of traditional theism, Miravalle makes a major contribution to theistic metaphysics.

Download or read book Nonexistent Objects written by K. J. Perszyk and published by . This book was released on 2014-01-15 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Unconventional Flying Objects written by Hill, Paul R. and published by Hampton Roads Publishing. This book was released on 2014-06-01 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paul Hill was a well-respected NASA scientist when, in the early 1950s, he had a UFO sighting. Soon after, he built the first flying platform and was able to duplicate the UFO's tilt-to-control maneuvers. Official policy, however, prevented him from proclaiming his findings. "I was destined," says Hill, "to be as unidentified as the flying objects." For the next twenty-five years, Hill acted as an unofficial clearinghouse at NASA, collecting and analyzing sightings' reports for physical properties, propulsion possibilities, dynamics, etc. To refute claims that UFOs defy the laws of physics, he had to make "technological sense... of the unconventional object." After his retirement from NASA, Hill finally completed his remarkable analysis. This book, published posthumously, presents his findings that UFOs "obey, not defy, the laws of physics." Vindicating his own sighting and thousands of others, he proves that UFO technology is not only explainable, but attainable.

Download or read book Death and Nonexistence written by Palle Yourgrau and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-03 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dead are gone. They count for nothing. Yet, if we count the dead, their number is staggering. And they account for most of what is great about civilization. Compared to the greatness of the dead, the accomplishments of the living are paltry. Which is it then: are the dead still there to be counted or not? And if they are still there, where exactly is "there"? We are confronted with the ancient paradox of nonexistence bequeathed us by Parmenides. The mystery of death is the mystery of nonexistence. A successful attempt to provide a metaphysics of death, then, must resolve the paradox of nonexistence. That is the aim of this study. At the same time, the metaphysics of death, of ceasing to exist, must serve as an account of birth, of coming to exist; the primary thesis of this book is that this demands going beyond existence and nonexistence to include what underlies both, which one can call, following tradition, "being." The dead and the unborn are therefore objects that lack existence but not being. Nonexistent objects - not corpses, or skeletons, or memories, all of which are existent objects - are what are "there" to be counted when we count the dead.

Download or read book Meinong on Meaning and Truth written by Anna Sierszulska and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study aims at exposing Meinong's ideas that may be of interest to analytic philosophers. It contains all the basic information concerning Meinong's theory of objects with a special focus upon 'objectives', which are Meinong's propositions. Meinong's theory of meaning and his epistemological views are discussed in detail. An outline of his conception of truth, which is classified as firmly realistic, is followed by a review of the critical works touching upon Meinong's epistemological ideas. Finally, Meinong's theory of objects is presented as inspiring the development of Meinongian logics, with his Aussersein as the prototype of an all-inclusive semantic domain. The issues considered include reference of terms and sentences as well as the general features of a Meinongian-style semantics.

Download or read book Deflating Existential Consequence written by Jody Azzouni and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2004 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If we take mathematical statements to be true, must we also believe in the existence of abstract invisible mathematical objects? This text claims that the way to escape such a commitment is to accept true statements which are about objects that don't exist in any sense at all.