Mind and Modality

Mind and Modality
Author: Vesa Hirvonen
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2006-05-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9047409671

This volume offers a wide-ranging and profound collection of essays on philosophical psychology and conceptions of modality from antiquity to the present day, with some essays on the philosophy of religion as well.

Thoughts

Thoughts
Author: Stephen Yablo
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2008-11-27
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0199266468

In these twelve essays Stephen Yablo presents a modern-day examination of Cartesian themes in the metaphysics of mind, including mental/physical dualism, the possibility of disembodied existence, conceivability as a guide to possibility, the nature of solipsistic content, and how the mind affects the course of physical events.

Modality and Theory of Mind Elements Across Languages

Modality and Theory of Mind Elements Across Languages
Author: Werner Abraham
Publisher: ISSN
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre: Cognitive grammar
ISBN: 9783110270198

Modality is the way a speaker modifies her declaratives and other speech acts to optimally assess the common ground of knowledge and belief of the addressee with the aim to optimally achieve understanding and an assessment of relevant information exchange. The contributions in this collection provide insight into modal techniques used in various languages from different areas of the world

Engagement and Metaphysical Dissatisfaction

Engagement and Metaphysical Dissatisfaction
Author: Barry Stroud
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2011-01-14
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199781133

We all have beliefs to the effect that if a certain thing were to happen a certain other thing would happen. We also believe that some things simply must be so, with no possibility of having been otherwise. And in acting intentionally we all take certain things to be good reason to believe or do certain things. In this book Barry Stroud argues that some beliefs of each of these kinds are indispensable to our having any conception of a world at all. That means no one could consistently dismiss all beliefs of these kinds as merely ways of thinking that do not describe how things really are in the world as it is independently of us and our responses. But the unacceptability of any such negative "unmasking" view does not support a satisfyingly positive metaphysical "realism." No metaphysical satisfaction is available either way, given the conditions of our holding the beliefs whose metaphysical status we wish to understand. This does not mean we will stop asking the metaphysical question. But we need a better understanding of how it can have whatever sense it has for us. This challenging volume takes up these large, fundamental questions in clear language accessible to a wide philosophical readership.

God, Modality, and Morality

God, Modality, and Morality
Author: William E. Mann
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2015
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199370761

In one new and sixteen previously published essays, William E. Mann presents a modern interpretation of a traditional theory in philosophical theology, according to which God is a metaphysically simple, necessarily existing, personal being. Mann addresses such issues as God's independence and sovereignty, God's relationship to creation, and humans' relationship to God.

Quality and Content

Quality and Content
Author: Joseph Levine
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2018
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0198800088

Joseph Levine draws together a series of essays in which he has developed his distinctive approach to philosophy of mind. He defends a materialist view of the mind against various challenges, and offers illuminating studies of consciousness, phenomenal concepts, mental representation, demonstrative thought, and cognitive phenomenology.

Williamson on Modality

Williamson on Modality
Author: Juhani Yli-Vakkuri
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 452
Release: 2018-10-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1351730045

Timothy Williamson is one of the most influential living philosophers working in the areas of logic and metaphysics. His work in these areas has been particularly influential in shaping debates about metaphysical modality, which is the topic of his recent provocative and closely-argued book Modal Logic as Metaphysics (2013). This book comprises ten essays by metaphysicians and logicians responding to Williamson’s work on metaphysical modality, as well as replies by Williamson to each essay. In addition, it contains an original essay by Williamson, ‘Modal science,’ concerning the role of modal claims in natural science. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy.

Structure and the Metaphysics of Mind

Structure and the Metaphysics of Mind
Author: William Jaworski
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2016
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0198749562

Structure and the Metaphysics of Mind is the first book to show how hylomorphism can be used to solve mind-body problems--persistent problems understanding how thought, feeling, perception, and other mental phenomena fit into the physical world described by our best science. Hylomorphism claims that structure is a basic ontological and explanatory principle. Some individuals, paradigmatically living things, consist of materials that are structured or organized in various ways. Those structures are responsible for individuals being the kinds of things they are, and having the kinds of powers or capacities they have. From a hylomorphic perspective, mind-body problems are byproducts of a worldview that rejects structure. Hylomorphic structure carves out distinctive individuals from the otherwise undifferentiated sea of matter and energy described by our best physics, and it confers on those individuals distinctive powers, including the powers to think, feel, and perceive. A worldview that rejects hylomorphic structure lacks a basic principle which distinguishes the parts of the physical universe that can think, feel, and perceive from those that can't, and without such a principle, the existence of those powers in the physical world can start to look inexplicable and mysterious. But if mental phenomena are structural phenomena, as hylomorphism claims, then they are uncontroversially part of the physical world, for on the hylomorphic view, structure is uncontroversially part of the physical world. Hylomorphism thus provides an elegant way of solving mind-body problems.

Modal Logic as Metaphysics

Modal Logic as Metaphysics
Author: Timothy Williamson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 481
Release: 2013-03-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 019955207X

Timothy Williamson gives an original and provocative treatment of deep metaphysical questions about existence, contingency, and change, using the latest resources of quantified modal logic. Contrary to the widespread assumption that logic and metaphysics are disjoint, he argues that modal logic provides a structural core for metaphysics.