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Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction

Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction
Author
ISBN
1557782040
Weight
2.00 lbs
Cover
Paper

Pages
240

Size
6x9

Date Available
1999/11/30


Index , Notes , Bibliography
Price:
$16.95 (16.95)
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“An engaging and challenging introduction to metaphysics, informed by contemporary developments in philosophy
and science, by one of the most innovative modem contributors to the field.” –Robert Kane, University of Texas, Austin “An original introduction to metaphysics that draws on the most recent developments in philosophy of language and
philosophy of mind.” –Ernest Sosa, Brown University “Post pursues difficult but exciting issues in a genuinely introductory way, with elegance, clarity, and wit. He will
provoke many students into wanting to pursue the arguments beyond the introductory level.” –Alasdair MacIntyre, University of Notre Dame “...the elaboration of Ruth Garrett Millikan’s theory of biosemantics in support of nonreductive materialism is a real
contribution to the field.” –Lynne Rudder Baker, University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Middlebury College Metaphysics offers a thoughtful and engaging introduction to metaphysics, the theory of what if anything are the origins, the nature, the meaning and the unity of all there is that is clear, sometimes humorous, and accessible to all students, while covering topics of considerable contemporary interest. John Post’s book takes account of not only the wisdom of the past, but recent developments in the sciences, literary theory, politics and metaphysic itself. The book’s wide scope explores questions of concern to any human being: the nature of truth; subjectivity and objectivity; the existence of God; and more. In addition, Metaphysics covers topics not found in current texts, such as contemporary anti-metaphysics, including deconstruction; realism versus anti-realism; fact and value; and new ideas about consciousness, intentionality, and value.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Is Metaphysics Possible?
What Is Metaphysics?
Metaphysics Versus Essentialism
A Challenge for Metaphysics
2. Language and Reality
Linguistic Antimetaphysics
Positivism
Contingency
Indeterminacy of Meaning
Structuralism
Deconstruction
Realism
Essentialist?
Totalizing?
Slave to Common Sense?
Noumenal?
Final?
3. Piercing the Veil of Language
Truth and Metaphysics
Causal Theories of Reference
Biosemantics
4. Why Does Anything at All Exist?
A Traditional Answer
Principles of Sufficient Reason
Mystery and Ultimate Explanation
Is There a Ground of Beings?
What Is a Thing?
Does the Universe Have a Beginning?
5. Unifying the Phenomena
The Thales Project
Nonreductive Unifications
Nonreductive Determination?
Connective Generalizations
Dependency, Bruteness, Evidence
Determination via History
Determination-at-a-Distance
Global Determination
6. Metaphysics and Human Being
Intentionality
Consciousness
Value
Antirealism and Meaninglessness
The Arguments from Disagreement and Queerness
Queerness and Proper Function
Bioethics
An Argument for the Determinacy of Valuation
7. God
Ideas of God
Is the Idea of God Coherent?
Faith and Reason
Arguments for the Existence of God
Arguments Against the Existence of God
Epilogue: Metaphysics and Meaningful Existence
Bibliography
Index

JOHN F. POST is a professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University and the author of Faces of Existence: An Essay in Nonreductive Metaphysics.

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