Thought and world : the hidden necessities / James Ross.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ross, James F., 1931-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Necessity (Philosophy).

Philosophy of nature.

Physical Description:

xi, 235 pages : music ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Notre Dame, Ind. : University of Notre Dame Press, [2008]

Summary:

James Ross is a creative and independent thinker in contemporary metaphysics and philosophy of mind. In this concise metaphysical essay, he argues clearly and analytically that meaning, truth, impossibility, natural necessity, and our intelligent perception of nature fit together into a distinctly realist account of thought and world.

Ross articulates a moderate realism about repeatable natural structures and our abstractive ability to discern them that poses a challenge to many of the common assumptions and claims of contemporary analytic philosophy. He develops a broadly Aristotelian metaphysics that recognizes the "hidden necessities" of things, which are disclosed through the sciences, which ground his account of real impossibility as a kind of vacuity, and which require the immateriality of the human ability to understand. Those ideas are supported by a novel account of false judgment. Ross aims to offer an analytically and historically respectable alternative to the prevailing positions of many British and American philosophers.

Contents:

Introduction: Structural realism

Necessities : earned truth and made truth

Real impossibility

What might have been

Truth

Perception and abstraction

Emergent consciousness and irreducible understanding

Real natures : software everywhere

Going wrong with the master of falsity.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 207-215) and index.

ISBN:

9780268040567

0268040567

9780268040574

0268040575

OCLC:

227031659