Perhaps no one has done more in the last 30 years to advance thinking in the metaphysics of modality than has Alvin Plantinga. Collected here are some of his most important essays on this influential subject. Dating back from the late 1960's to the present, they...

Editeur : Oxford University Press
Parution : 2003-03-27

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The major divide in contemporary epistemology is between those who embrace and those who reject a priori knowledge. Albert Casullo provides a systematic treatment of the primary epistemological issues associated with the controversy. By freeing the a priori from...

Editeur : Oxford University Press
Parution : 2003-03-13

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This provocative book refurbishes the traditional account of freedom of will as reasons-guided "agent" causation, situating its account within a general metaphysics. O'Connor's discussion of the general concept of causation and of ontological reductionism v. emergence...

Editeur : Oxford University Press
Parution : 2002-11-14

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Philip Pettit has drawn together here a series of interconnected essays on three subjects to which he has made notable contributions. The first part of the book deals with the rule-following character of thought. The second discusses the many factors to which choice is...

Editeur : Clarendon Press
Parution : 2002-10-31

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Philosophical naturalism, according to which philosophy is continuous with the natural sciences, has dominated the Western academy for well over a century; but Michael Rea claims that it is without rational foundation, and that the costs of embracing it are surprisingly...

Editeur : Clarendon Press
Parution : 2002-08-01

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This book offers a defense of the tensed theory of time, a critique of the New Theory of Reference, and an argument that simultaneity is absolute. Although Smith rejects ordinary language philosophy, he shows how it is possible to argue from the nature of language to...

Editeur : Oxford University Press
Parution : 2002-08-01

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Gardeners, poets, lovers, and philosophers are all interested in the redness of roses; but only philosophers wonder how it is that two different roses can share the same property. Are red things red because they resemble each other? Or do they resemble each other...

Editeur : Clarendon Press
Parution : 2002-07-04

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We say "the grass is green" or "lemons are yellow" to state what everyone knows. But are the things we see around us really colored, or do they only look that way because of the effects of light rays on our eyes and brains? Is color somehow "unreal" or "subjective" and...

Editeur : Oxford University Press
Parution : 2002-03-14

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How do things persist? Are material objects spread out through time just as they are spread out through space? Or is temporal persistence quite different from spatial extension? This key question lies at the heart of any metaphysical exploration of the material world,...

Editeur : Clarendon Press
Parution : 2002-01-03

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Four-Dimensionalism defends the thesis that the material world is composed of temporal as well as spatial parts. This defense includes a novel account of persistence over time, new arguments in favour of the four-dimensional ontology, and responses to the challenges...

Editeur : Clarendon Press
Parution : 2001-10-25

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There are no statues. Or rocks. Or chairs. Or stars. But there are microscopic objects arranged statuewise and rockwise and chairwise and starwise. Moreover, there are--in addition to microscopic objects arranged humanwise--composite human beings. Or so Trenton Merricks...

Editeur : Clarendon Press
Parution : 2001-05-24

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In this wide-ranging philosophical work, Koons takes on two powerful dogmas--anti-realism and materialism.In doing so, Koons develops an elegant metaphysical system that accounts for such phenomena as information, mental representation, our knowledge of logic,...

Editeur : Oxford University Press
Parution : 2000-11-16

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The concepts of identity, existence, predication, necessity, and truth are at the centre of philosophy and have rightly received sustained attention. Yet Colin McGinn believes that orthodox views of these topics are misguided in important ways. Philosophers and...

Editeur : Clarendon Press
Parution : 2000-11-09

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Thoughts often cause deeds. Actions are done for reasons. But do actions and their mental causes also have descriptions that do not involve reasons? Various considerations can make it seem that human mental events must be biochemical events. Paul Pietroski, however,...

Editeur : Oxford University Press
Parution : 2000-03-23

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Ilkka Niiniluoto comes to the rescue of scientific realism, showing that reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated. Philosophical realism holds that the aim of a particular discourse is to make true statements about its subject-matter. Niiniluoto surveys the...

Editeur : OUP Oxford
Parution : 1999-12-09

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This provocative study exposes the ways in which Wittgenstein's philosophical views have been misunderstood, including the failure to recognize the reductionist character of Wittgenstein's work. Author John Cook provides well-documented proof that Wittgenstein did not...

Editeur : Oxford University Press
Parution : 1999-11-04

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In this book, Scott Soames illuminates the notion of truth and the role it plays in our ordinary thought, as well as in our logical, philosophical, and scientific theories. Part I addresses crucial background issues, including the identification of the bearers of truth,...

Editeur : Oxford University Press
Parution : 1998-12-17

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Jonathan Lowe argues that metaphysics should be restored to a central position in philosophy, as the most fundamental form of rational inquiry, whose findings underpin those of all other disciplines. He portrays metaphysics as charting the possibilities of existence, by...

Editeur : Clarendon Press
Parution : 1998-10-08

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Frank Jackson champions the cause of conceptual analysis as a basic method of philosophical inquiry. In recent years conceptual analysis has been undervalued and, Jackson suggests, widely misunderstood; he argues that there is nothing especially mysterious about it and...

Editeur : Clarendon Press
Parution : 1998-01-08

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Michael Tooley presents a major new philosophical study of time and its relation to causation. The nature of time has always been one of the most fascinating and perplexing problems of philosophy. In recent years it has become the focus of vigorous debate between...

Editeur : Clarendon Press
Parution : 1997-02-20

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