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Actualism
In analytic philosophy, actualism is the view that everything there ''is'' (i.e., everything that has ''being'', in the broadest sense) is actual. Another phrasing of the thesis is that the domain of unrestricted quantification ranges over all and only actual existents. The denial of actualism is possibilism, the thesis that there are some entities that are ''merely possible'': these entities have being but are not actual and, hence, enjoy a "less robust" sort of being than do actually existing things. An important, but significantly different notion of possibilism known as '' modal realism'' was developed by the philosopher David Lewis. On Lewis's account, the actual world is identified with the physical universe of which we are all a part. Other possible worlds exist in exactly the same sense as the actual world; they are simply spatio-temporally unrelated to our world, and to each other. Hence, for Lewis, "merely possible" entities—entities that exist in other possible w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intentionality
''Intentionality'' is the power of minds to be about something: to represent or to stand for things, properties and states of affairs. Intentionality is primarily ascribed to mental states, like perceptions, beliefs or desires, which is why it has been regarded as the characteristic ''mark of the mental'' by many philosophers. A central issue for theories of intentionality has been the problem of ''intentional inexistence'': to determine the ontological status of the entities which are the objects of intentional states. An early theory of intentionality is associated with Anselm of Canterbury's ontological argument for the existence of God, and with his tenets distinguishing between objects that exist in the understanding and objects that exist in reality. The idea fell out of discussion with the end of the medieval scholastic period, but in recent times was resurrected by empirical psychologist Franz Brentano and later adopted by contemporary phenomenological philosopher Edmu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modal Realism
Modal realism is the view propounded by philosopher David Lewis that all possible worlds are real in the same way as is the actual world: they are "of a kind with this world of ours." It is based on the following tenets: possible worlds exist; possible worlds are not different in kind from the actual world; possible worlds are irreducible entities; the term ''actual'' in ''actual world'' is indexical, i.e. any subject can declare their world to be the actual one, much as they label the place they are "here" and the time they are "now". ''Extended modal realism'' is a form of modal realism that involves ontological commitments not just to ''possible worlds'' but also to ''impossible worlds''. Objects are conceived as being spread out in the modal dimension, i.e. as having not just spatial and temporal parts but also modal parts. This contrasts with Lewis' modal realism according to which each object only inhabits one possible world. Common arguments for modal realism refer to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Merrihew Adams
Robert Merrihew Adams (born September 8, 1937) is an American analytic philosopher, specializing in metaphysics, philosophy of religion, ethics, and the history of early modern philosophy. Life and career Adams was born on September 8, 1937, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He taught for many years at the University of California, Los Angeles, before moving to Yale University in the early 1990s as the Clark Professor of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics. As chairman, he helped revive the philosophy department after its near-collapse due to personal and scholarly conflicts between analytical and Continental philosophers. Adams retired from Yale in 2004 and taught part-time at the University of Oxford in England, where he was a senior research fellow of Mansfield College. In 2009 he became a Distinguished Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Adams's late wife, Marilyn McCord Adams, was also a philosopher, working on medieval philo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Analytic Philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Scandinavia, and continues today. Analytic philosophy is often contrasted with continental philosophy, coined as a catch-all term for other methods prominent in Europe. Central figures in this historical development of analytic philosophy are Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Other important figures in its history include the logical positivists (particularly Rudolf Carnap), W. V. O. Quine, and Karl Popper. After the decline of logical positivism, Saul Kripke, David Lewis, and others led a revival in metaphysics. Elizabeth Anscombe, Peter Geach, Anthony Kenny and others brought analytic approach to Thomism. Analytic philosophy is characterized by an empha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ontological Commitment
An ontological commitment of a language is one or more objects postulated to exist by that language. The 'existence' referred to need not be 'real', but exist only in a universe of discourse. As an example, legal systems use vocabulary referring to 'legal persons' that are collective entities that have rights. One says the legal doctrine has an ''ontological commitment'' to non-singular individuals. In information systems and artificial intelligence, where an ontology refers to a specific vocabulary and a set of explicit assumptions about the meaning and usage of these words, an ontological commitment is an agreement to use the shared vocabulary in a coherent and consistent manner within a specific context. In philosophy, a "theory is ontologically committed to an object only if that object occurs in ''all'' the ontologies of that theory." Background The sentence “Napoleon is one of my ancestors” apparently commits us only to the existence of two individuals (i.e., Napoleon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Definite Descriptions
In formal semantics and philosophy of language, a definite description is a denoting phrase in the form of "the X" where X is a noun-phrase or a singular common noun. The definite description is ''proper'' if X applies to a unique individual or object. For example: " the first person in space" and " the 42nd President of the United States of America", are proper. The definite descriptions "the person in space" and "the Senator from Ohio" are ''improper'' because the noun phrase X applies to more than one thing, and the definite descriptions "the first man on Mars" and "the Senator from some Country" are ''improper'' because X applies to nothing. Improper descriptions raise some difficult questions about the law of excluded middle, denotation, modality, and mental content. Russell's analysis As France is currently a republic, it has no king. Bertrand Russell pointed out that this raises a puzzle about the truth value of the sentence "The present King of France is bald." The sen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vulcan (hypothetical Planet)
Vulcan was a theorized planet that some pre-20th century astronomers thought existed in an orbit between Mercury and the Sun. Speculation about, and even purported observations of, intermercurial bodies or planets date back to the beginning of the 17th century. The case for their probable existence was bolstered by the French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier who, by 1859, had confirmed unexplained peculiarities in Mercury's orbit and predicted they had to be the result of gravitational influences of another unknown nearby planet or series of asteroids. A French amateur astronomer's report that he had observed an object passing in front of the Sun that same year led Le Verrier to announce the long sought after planet, which he gave the name Vulcan, had been discovered at last. Many searches were conducted for Vulcan over the following decades, but despite several claimed observations, its existence could not be confirmed. The need for the planet as an explanation for Mercury's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ontological Commitment
An ontological commitment of a language is one or more objects postulated to exist by that language. The 'existence' referred to need not be 'real', but exist only in a universe of discourse. As an example, legal systems use vocabulary referring to 'legal persons' that are collective entities that have rights. One says the legal doctrine has an ''ontological commitment'' to non-singular individuals. In information systems and artificial intelligence, where an ontology refers to a specific vocabulary and a set of explicit assumptions about the meaning and usage of these words, an ontological commitment is an agreement to use the shared vocabulary in a coherent and consistent manner within a specific context. In philosophy, a "theory is ontologically committed to an object only if that object occurs in ''all'' the ontologies of that theory." Background The sentence “Napoleon is one of my ancestors” apparently commits us only to the existence of two individuals (i.e., Napoleon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paraphrase
A paraphrase () is a restatement of the meaning of a text or passage using other words. The term itself is derived via Latin ', . The act of paraphrasing is also called ''paraphrasis''. History Although paraphrases likely abounded in oral traditions, paraphrasing as a specific educational exercise dates back to at least Roman times, when the author Quintilian recommended it for students to develop dexterity in language. In the Middle Ages, this tradition continued, with authors such as Geoffrey of Vinsauf developing schoolroom exercises that included both rhetorical manipulations and paraphrasing as a way of generating poems and speeches. Paraphrasing seems to have dropped off as a specific exercise that students learn, a drop off that largely coincides with the removal of Classical texts from the core of Western education. There is, however, renewed interest in the study of paraphrases, given concerns around plagiarism and original authorship. Analysis A paraphrase typicall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
State Of Affairs (philosophy)
In philosophy, a state of affairs (german: Sachverhalt), also known as a situation, is a way the actual world must be in order to make some given ''proposition'' about the actual world true; in other words, a state of affairs is a ''truth-maker'', whereas a proposition is a ''truth-bearer''. Whereas states of affairs either ''obtain'' or ''fail-to-obtain'', propositions are either ''true'' or ''false''. Some philosophers understand the term "states of affairs" in a more restricted sense as a synonym for "fact". In this sense, there are no states of affairs that do not obtain. David Malet Armstrong is well known for his defence of a factualism, a position according to which the world is a world of facts and not a world of things. Overview States of affairs are complex entities: they are built up from or constituted by other entities. Atomic states of affairs are constituted by one particular and one property exemplified by this particular. For example, the state of affairs that Socr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Malet Armstrong
David Malet Armstrong (8 July 1926 – 13 May 2014), often D. M. Armstrong, was an Australian philosopher. He is well known for his work on metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, and for his defence of a factualist ontology, a functionalist theory of the mind, an externalist epistemology, and a necessitarian conception of the laws of nature. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008. Keith Campbell said that Armstrong's contributions to metaphysics and epistemology "helped to shape philosophy's agenda and terms of debate", and that Armstrong's work "always concerned to elaborate and defend a philosophy which is ontically economical, synoptic, and compatibly continuous with established results in the natural sciences". Life and career After studying at the University of Sydney, Armstrong undertook a B.Phil. at the University of Oxford and a Ph.D. at the University of Melbourne. He taught at Birkbeck College in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alvin Plantinga
Alvin Carl Plantinga (born November 15, 1932) is an American analytic philosopher who works primarily in the fields of philosophy of religion, epistemology (particularly on issues involving epistemic justification), and logic. From 1963 to 1982, Plantinga taught at Calvin University before accepting an appointment as the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He later returned to Calvin University to become the inaugural holder of the Jellema Chair in Philosophy. A prominent Christian philosopher, Plantinga served as president of the Society of Christian Philosophers from 1983 to 1986. He has delivered the Gifford Lectures two times and was described by ''Time'' magazine as "America's leading orthodox Protestant philosopher of God". In 2014, Plantinga was the 30th most-cited contemporary author in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was awarded the Templeton Prize in 2017. Some of Pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
