Download or read book The Structure of Objects written by Kathrin Koslicki and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2008-04-17 with total page 539 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kathrin Koslicki offers an analysis of ordinary materials objects, those material objects to which we take ourselves to be committed in ordinary, scientifically informed discourse. She focuses particularly on the question of how the parts of such objects are related to the wholes which they compose. Many philosophers today find themselves in the grip of an exceedingly deflationary conception of what it means to be an object. According to this conception, any plurality of objects, no matter how disparate or gerrymandered, itself composes an object, even if the objects in question fail to exhibit interesting similarities, internal unity, cohesion, or causl interaction amongst each other. This commitment to initially counterintuitive objects follows from the belief that no principled set of criteria is available by means of which to distinguish intuitively gerrymandered objects from commonsensical ones; the project of this book is to persuade the reader that systematic principles can be found by means of which composition can be restricted, and hence that we need not embrace this deflationary approach to the question of what it means to be an object. To this end, a more full-blooded neo-Aristotelian account of parthood and composition is developed according to which objects are structured wholes: it is integral to the existence and identity of an object, on this conception, that its parts exhibit a certain manner of arrangement. This structure-based conception of parthood and composition is explored in detail, along with some of its historical precursors as well as some of its contemporary competitors.
Download or read book The Structure of Objects written by Kathrin Koslicki and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2008-04-17 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The objects we encounter in ordinary life and scientific practice - cars, people, houses, molecules, etc. - have long been a fruitful source of perplexity for metaphysicians. This title gives an analysis of those material objects to which we take ourselves to be committed in our ordinary, scientifically informed discourse.
Download or read book The Objects of Thought written by Tim Crane and published by . 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 Objects and Information Structure written by Mary Dalrymple and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-02 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A cross-linguistic study of how objects are affected by information structure.
Download or read book Habitat Structure written by S.S. Bell and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We conceived the idea for this book after teaching a graduate seminar on 'Habitat Complexity' at The University of South Florida. Discussions during the seminar led us to conclude that similar goals were to be found in studies of the topic that spanned the breadth of ecological research. Yet, the exact meaning of 'habitat structure', and the way in which it was measured, seemed to differ widely among subdisciplines. Our own research, which involves several sorts of ecology, convinced us that the differences among subdisciplines were indeed real ones, and that they did inhibit communica tion. We decided that interchange of ideas among researchers working in marine ecology, plant-animal interactions, physiological ecology, and other more-or-less independent fields would be worthwhile, in that it might lead to useful generalizations about 'habitat structure'. To foster this interchange of ideas. we organized a symposium to attract researchers working with a wide variety of organisms living in many habitats, but united in their interest in the topic of 'habitat structure'. The symposium was held at The University of South Florida's Chinsegut Hill Conference Center, in May. 1988. We asked participants to think about 'habitat structure' in new ways; to synthesize important, but fragmented, information; and. perhaps. to consider ways of translating ideas across systems. The chapters contained in this book reflect the participants' attempts to do so. The book is divided into four parts, by major themes that we have found useful categorizations.
Download or read book Macroscopic Metaphysics written by Paul Needham and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-01-08 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about our ordinary concept of matter in the form of enduring continuants and the processes in which they are involved in the macroscopic realm. It emphasises what science rather than philosophical intuition tells us about the world, and chemistry rather than the physics that is more usually encountered in philosophical discussions. The central chapters dealing with the nature of matter pursue key steps in the historical development of scientific conceptions of chemical substance. Like many contemporary discussions of material objects, it relies heavily on mereology. The classical principles are applied to the mereological structure of regions of space, intervals of time, processes and quantities of matter. Quantities of matter, which don’t gain or lose parts over time, are distinguished from individuals, which are typically constituted of different quantities of matter at different times. The proper treatment of the temporal aspect of the features of material objects is a central issue in this book, which is addressed by investigating the conditions governing the application of predicates relating time and other entities. Of particular interest here are relations between quantities of matter and times expressing substance kind, phase and mixture. Modal aspects of these features are taken up in the final chapter.
Download or read book A Theory of Objects written by Martin Abadi and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-09-08 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By developing object calculi in which objects are treated as primitives, the authors are able to explain both the semantics of objects and their typing rules, and also demonstrate how to develop all of the most important concepts of object-oriented programming languages: self, dynamic dispatch, classes, inheritance, protected and private methods, prototyping, subtyping, covariance and contravariance, and method specialization. An innovative and important approach to the subject for researchers and graduates.
Download or read book Hegel Kant and the Structure of the Object written by Robert Stern and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-09-11 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hegel's holistic metaphysics challenges much recent ontology with its atomistic and reductionist assumptions; Stern offers us an original reading of Hegel and contrasts him with his predecessor, Kant.
Download or read book Boundary Objects and Beyond written by Geoffrey C. Bowker and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2016-02-26 with total page 559 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The multifaceted work of the late Susan Leigh Star is explored through a selection of her writings and essays by friends and colleagues. Susan Leigh Star (1954–2010) was one of the most influential science studies scholars of the last several decades. In her work, Star highlighted the messy practices of discovering science, asking hard questions about the marginalizing as well as the liberating powers of science and technology. In the landmark work Sorting Things Out, Star and Geoffrey Bowker revealed the social and ethical histories that are deeply embedded in classification systems. Star's most celebrated concept was the notion of boundary objects: representational forms—things or theories—that can be shared between different communities, with each holding its own understanding of the representation. Unfortunately, Leigh was unable to complete a work on the poetics of infrastructure that further developed the full range of her work. This volume collects articles by Star that set out some of her thinking on boundary objects, marginality, and infrastructure, together with essays by friends and colleagues from a range of disciplines—from philosophy of science to organization science—that testify to the wide-ranging influence of Star's work. Contributors Ellen Balka, Eevi E. Beck, Dick Boland, Geoffrey C. Bowker, Janet Ceja Alcalá, Adele E. Clarke, Les Gasser, James R. Griesemer, Gail Hornstein, John Leslie King, Cheris Kramarae, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, Karen Ruhleder, Kjeld Schmidt, Brian Cantwell Smith, Susan Leigh Star, Anselm L. Strauss, Jane Summerton, Stefan Timmermans, Helen Verran, Nina Wakeford, Jutta Weber
Download or read book Thinking with Objects written by Domenico Bertoloni Meli and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2006-11-17 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Bertoloni Meli reexamines such major texts as Galileo's Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences, Descartes' Principles of Philosophy, and Newton's Principia, and in them finds a reliance on objects that has escaped proper understanding. From Pappus of Alexandria to Guidobaldo dal Monte, Bertoloni Meli sees significant developments in the history of mechanical experimentation, all of them crucial for understanding Galileo. Bertoloni Meli uses similarities and tensions between dal Monte and Galileo as a springboard for exploring the revolutionary nature of seventeenth-century mechanics.' (Back cover)
Download or read book Objects Structures and Logics written by Gianluigi Oliveri and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited collection casts light on central issues within contemporary philosophy of mathematics such as the realism/anti-realism dispute; the relationship between logic and metaphysics; and the question of whether mathematics is a science of objects or structures. The discussions offered in the papers involve an in-depth investigation of, among other things, the notions of mathematical truth, proof, and grounding; and, often, a special emphasis is placed on considerations relating to mathematical practice. A distinguishing feature of the book is the multicultural nature of the community that has produced it. Philosophers, logicians, and mathematicians have all contributed high-quality articles which will prove valuable to researchers and students alike.
Download or read book The Democracy of Objects written by Levi R. Bryant and published by Good Press. This book was released on 2023-11-28 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since Kant, philosophy has been obsessed with epistemological questions pertaining to the relationship between mind and world and human access to objects. In The Democracy of Objects, Bryant proposes that we break with this tradition and once again initiate the project of ontology as first philosophy. Drawing on the object-oriented ontology of Graham Harman, as well as the thought of Roy Bhaskar, Gilles Deleuze, Niklas Luhman, Aristotle, Jacques Lacan, Bruno Latour and the developmental systems theorists, Bryant develops a realist ontology that he calls "onticology". This ontology argues that being is composed entirely of objects, properties, and relations such that subjects themselves are a variant of objects. Drawing on the work of the systems theorists and cyberneticians, Bryant argues that objects are dynamic systems that relate to the world under conditions of operational closure. In this way, he is able to integrate the most vital discoveries of the anti-realists within a realist ontology that does justice to both the material and cultural. Onticology proposes a flat ontology where objects of all sorts and at different scales equally exist without being reducible to other objects and where there are no transcendent entities such as eternal essences outside of dynamic interactions among objects. Contents: Towards a Finally Subjectless Object Grounds For a Realist Ontology The Paradox of Substance Virtual Proper Being The Interior of Objects Regimes of Attraction, Parts, and Structure The Four Theses of Flat Ontology
Download or read book Religious Objects as Psychological Structures written by Moshe Halevi Spero and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1992-06-15 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second aspect of his argument is that these two distinct but parallel lines allow one to conceptualize the revolutionary possibility of transference displacements--the shift of religious symbology--not only from interpersonal relationships onto the God concept (Freud's model) but also from an objective human-God relationship onto interpersonal relationships.
Download or read book On the Existence of Digital Objects written by Yuk Hui and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2016-02-29 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Digital objects, in their simplest form, are data. They are also a new kind of industrial object that pervades every aspect of our life today—as online videos, images, text files, e-mails, blog posts, Facebook events.Yet, despite their ubiquity, the nature of digital objects remains unclear. On the Existence of Digital Objects conducts a philosophical examination of digital objects and their organizing schema by creating a dialogue between Martin Heidegger and Gilbert Simondon, which Yuk Hui contextualizes within the history of computing. How can digital objects be understood according to individualization and individuation? Hui pursues this question through the history of ontology and the study of markup languages and Web ontologies; he investigates the existential structure of digital objects within their systems and milieux. With this relational approach toward digital objects and technical systems, the book addresses alienation, described by Simondon as the consequence of mistakenly viewing technics in opposition to culture. Interdisciplinary in philosophical and technical insights, with close readings of Husserl, Heidegger, and Simondon as well as the history of computing and the Web, Hui’s work develops an original, productive way of thinking about the data and metadata that increasingly define our world.
Download or read book The System of Objects written by Jean Baudrillard and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The System of Objects is a tour de force—a theoretical letter-in-a-bottle tossed into the ocean in 1968, which brilliantly communicates to us all the live ideas of the day. Pressing Freudian and Saussurean categories into the service of a basically Marxist perspective, The System of Objects offers a cultural critique of the commodity in consumer society. Baudrillard classifies the everyday objects of the “new technical order” as functional, nonfunctional and metafunctional. He contrasts “modern” and “traditional” functional objects, subjecting home furnishing and interior design to a celebrated semiological analysis. His treatment of nonfunctional or “marginal” objects focuses on antiques and the psychology of collecting, while the metafunctional category extends to the useless, the aberrant and even the “schizofunctional.” Finally, Baudrillard deals at length with the implications of credit and advertising for the commodification of everyday life. The System of Objects is a tour de force of the materialist semiotics of the early Baudrillard, who emerges in retrospect as something of a lightning rod for all the live ideas of the day: Bataille’s political economy of “expenditure” and Mauss’s theory of the gift; Reisman’s lonely crowd and the “technological society” of Jacques Ellul; the structuralism of Roland Barthes in The System of Fashion; Henri Lefebvre’s work on the social construction of space; and last, but not least, Guy Debord’s situationist critique of the spectacle.
Download or read book Making Objects and Events written by Simon J. Evnine and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-07-07 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Simon J. Evnine explores the view (which he calls amorphic hylomorphism) that some objects have matter from which they are distinct but that this distinctness is not due to the existence of anything like a form. He draws on Aristotle's insight that such objects must be understood in terms of an account that links what they are essentially with how they come to exist and what their functions are (the coincidence of formal, final, and efficient causes). Artifacts are the most prominent kind of objects where these three features coincide, and Evnine develops a detailed account of the existence and identity conditions of artifacts, and the origins of their functions, in terms of how they come into existence. This process is, in general terms, that they are made out of their initial matter by an agent acting with the intention to make an object of the given kind. Evnine extends the account to organisms, where evolution accomplishes what is effected by intentional making in the case of artifacts, and to actions, which are seen as artifactual events.
Download or read book The Structure of the World written by Steven French and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Steven French articulates and defends the bold claim that there are no objects in the world. He draws on metaphysics and philosophy of science to argue for structural realism—the position that we live in a world of structures—and defends a form of eliminativism about objects that sets laws and symmetry principles at the heart of ontology.
