In order to perfectly describe the world, it is not enough to speak truly. In this ambitious and ground-breaking book, Theodore Sider argues that for a representation to be fully successful, truth is not enough; the representation must also use the right concepts-concepts that 'carve at the joints'-so that its conceptual structure matches reality's structure. There is an object...
In order to perfectly describe the world, it is not enough to speak truly. In this ambitious and ground-breaking book, Theodore Sider argues that for a representation to be fully successful, truth is not enough; the representation must also use the right concepts-concepts that 'carve at the joints'-so that its conceptual structure matches reality's structure. There is an objectively correct way to 'write the book of the world'. Sider's argument begins from the assertion that metaphysics is about the fundamental structure of reality. Not about what's necessarily true; not about what properties are essential; not about conceptual analysis; and not about what there is. While inquiry into necessity, essence, concepts, or ontology might help to illuminate reality's structure, the ultimate goal is insight into this structure. Sider argues that part of the theory of structure is an account of how structure connects to other concepts. For example, structure can be used to illuminate laws of nature, explanation, reference, induction, physical geometry, substantivity, conventionality, objectivity, and metametaphysics. Another part is an account of how structure behaves. Since structure is a way of thinking about fundamentality, Sider's account implies distinctive answers to questions about the nature of fundamentality. These answers distinguish his theory of structure from other recent theories of fundamentality, including Kit Fine's theory of ground and reality, the theory of truthmaking, and Jonathan Schaffer's theory of ontological dependence.
作者简介
· · · · · ·
Theodore Sider is Frederick J. Whiton Chair of Philosophy at Cornell University. He completed his PhD at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and has previously held positions at New York University, the University of Rochester, Syracuse University, and Rutgers University. He is the author of Riddles of Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics (OUP, 2005), Four-Dimensionali...
Theodore Sider is Frederick J. Whiton Chair of Philosophy at Cornell University. He completed his PhD at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and has previously held positions at New York University, the University of Rochester, Syracuse University, and Rutgers University. He is the author of Riddles of Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics (OUP, 2005), Four-Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time (OUP, 2001), and a textbook: Logic for Philosophy (OUP, 2010).
原文摘录
· · · · · ·
Lewis’s idea is not to stick with the original descriptivist constraint on correct interpretations (“correct interpretations are those that make every sentence in S true”) and add more sentences to S; it is rather to modify descriptivism by adding an additional constraint. That constraint is not that ‘Predicates stand for natural properties and relations’ must come out true on a correct interpretation; it is rather, and more simply, that predicates must stand for natural properties and relations in a correct interpretation. (查看原文)
1 有用 Aubade 2022-04-03 19:32:16
太喜欢第10章了，好恨以前没好好读逻辑哲学。在意逻辑的原因并不仅是它自身引起的讨论，更重要的是它在形而上学中的位置：为什么是逻辑（而不是如Shaffer说的实体）在世界中占据了底层的位置
0 有用 初繁言 2023-01-12 17:03:19 美国
补标经典。玻璃一样剔透又犀利，值得反复回来看。
0 有用 right choice 2024-05-05 20:44:41 四川
一刷世界之书
1 有用 Surrounded 2019-01-24 13:35:59
这可能是我最喜欢的一本2010年代哲学书。
0 有用 BvW Bear 2024-09-14 05:56:52 奥地利
对源于柏拉图《斐德罗篇》的“joint-carvingness”概念的出色发挥