Individuals, Essence and Identity: Themes of Analytic MetaphysicsAndrea Clemente Bottani, Massimiliano Carrara, P. Giaretta Andrea Bottani Massimiliano Carrara Pierdaniele Giaretta What do we do when we do metaphysics? The aim of this introduction is to give a provisional answer to this question, and then to explain the subtitle of the volume. It is easy to observe that when we do meta physics we engage in a linguistic activity, mainly consisting of uttering declarative sentences that are not very clear to most people. That is true, but, of course, it is not very informative. What do we speak of when we do metaphysics? A traditional answer could be: we speak of what things really are, so suggesting that things can appear in a way that is different from the way they really are. So understood, meta physics is about the sense, or the senses, of "real being". A question that immediately arises is whether the sense of being is unique or is different for different types of things. Another question is whether it is possible that something could appear to be, but really not be. Modem analytic metaphysicians usually answer that the sense of being is unique, while acknowledging that there are different kinds of things, and that to say that something could appear to be but really not be is a plain contradiction, unless what is understood is that it could appear to us that there is something having such and such features, but viii Individuals, Essence, and Identity really there is no such a thing. |
Contents
The Question of Realism | 3 |
Words and Objects | 49 |
Being and Essence in Contemporary Interpretations of Aristotle | 79 |
Some Comments on Prof Enrico Bertis Paper Being and Essence in Contemporary Interpretations of Aristotle | 109 |
Existence Identity and an Aristotelian Tradition | 127 |
Orenstein on Existence and Identity | 151 |
A Case Study | 163 |
Kinds Essence and Natural Necessity | 189 |
Williamson on Vagueness Identity and Leibnizs Law | 305 |
Origins and Identities | 319 |
Forbes on Origins and Identities | 341 |
Leibniz Composite Substances and the Persistence of Organic Things | 355 |
On Naturalising Leibniz a Reply to Anthony Savile | 369 |
Temporal Parts and Identity Across Time | 387 |
Van Inwagen on Temporal Parts and Identity Across Time | 413 |
Change and ChangeErsatz | 427 |
a Commentary on EJ Lowes Paper | 207 |
On the Notion of Identity in Aristotle | 217 |
Sameness in Aristotles Topics | 239 |
Identity and Supervenience | 247 |
Comments on Wigginss Paper Identity and Supervenience | 267 |
Vagueness Identity and Leibnizs Law | 273 |
Starting Over | 451 |
List of Contributors | 477 |
Bibliography | 479 |
497 | |
Other editions - View all
Individuals, Essence and Identity: Themes of Analytic Metaphysics A. Bottani,Massimiliano Carrara,P. Giaretta No preview available - 2010 |
Individuals, Essence and Identity Andrea Clemente Bottani,Massimiliano Carrara,P. Giaretta No preview available - 2014 |
Common terms and phrases
1-objects adverb pasting animal antifactualist argument Aristotelian Aristotelian objects Aristotle Aristotle's assignment Bottani brainstem causal Cicero claim clearly distinct clearly identical conception contingent counterfactual conditional definite description denote determinate dominant monad entities essential example existence existential express fact factual factualist false Forbes free logic genus given ground identical nor clearly indeterminate individual instantiation interpretation intrinsic intuition Inwagen Jonathan Lowe kind language Leibniz Leibniz's Law Lewis-part linguistic logical form m-l ship matter means Metaph metaphysical modal monad names natural necessity nonfactual notion ontological particular Paul's Peter van Inwagen philosophers plausible possible world predicate predicate logic principle problem propagule properties proposition quantifiers question Quine real content reason reducible refer relation seems semantic sense sentence simple singular terms sortal species statement substance supervenience suppose t₁ temporal counterpart tence theory thesis things tion true truth University vague identity Wiggins zygote
References to this book
How Things Might Have Been:Individuals, Kinds, and Essential Properties ... Penelope Mackie No preview available - 2006 |