Empty ideas : a critique of analytic philosophy / Peter Unger.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Unger, Peter K.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Reality.

Substance (Philosophy).

Matter--Philosophy.

Matter.

Analysis (Philosophy).

Physical Description:

xiv, 258 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2014]

Contents:

1 How Empty is Mainstream Philosophy? 1

1 Most Recent Mainstream Proposals Are Concretely Empty Ideas 4

2 A Working Idea of Concrete Reality 10

3 Observing the Concretely Empty in Some Recent Mainstream Philosophy 11

4 Our Central Distinction and Three That Have Been Philosophically Salient 16

5 The Concretely Empty the Analytically Empty and Mainstream Philosophy 20

2 Promising Examples of Concretely Substantial Philosophy 25

1 Some Pretty Promising Examples of Concretely Substantial Philosophy 25

2 The Substantial Scientiphicalism of Mainstream Philosophy 31

3 Memory, History and Emptiness 36

4 Various Specifications of Scientiphicalism and Various Departures from Scientiphicalism 39

5 Interactionist Entity Dualism and the Problem of Causal Pairings 42

6 Exploring Philosophical Thoughts that May Be Analytically Empty Ideas 46

3 Thinkers and What They Can Think About: Empty Issues and Individualistic Powers 47

1 Language, Thought and History 49

2 Thinking about "The External World" 55

3 Earth, Twin Earth and History 60

4 The Banality of" Successfully Investigating Unfamiliar Individuals 65

5 A Concretely Substantial Possibility: Individualistically Directed Powers 68

6 The Propensity to Acquire Individualistic Powers and Its Historical Manifestation 70

7 A Concretely Substantial Possibility: Individualistically Directed Mental Powers 73

8 Generalistic Propensities to Acquire Real-kind Directed Mental Powers 75

9 Wishful Blindness to Emptiness: Putnam's "Transcendental" Pronouncement 76

10 Reading Modal Claims Substantially and Widening Our Philosophical Horizons 78

4 The Origins of Material Individuals: Empty Issues and SEQU Entialistic Powers 81

1 The Origin of a Particular Wooden Table 83

2 Some Thoughts about Tables and Some Thoughts about Shmables 86

3 Origination Conditions, Persistence Conditions, and Boxing a Logical Compass 89

4 A Tenet of Scientiphicalism: Basic Individuals Have No "Memory-like" Propensity 91

5 How a Wooden Table Could Have First Been Made from a Hunk of Ice 94

6 Tood and Ticc, a Table First Made of Wood and a Table First Made of Ice 97

7 Using Modal Terms Substantially: The Case of Determinism 99

8 Distinctive Material Objects and These Objects' Distinctive Matter 100

9 Sequentialistically Propensitied Concrete Particulars 104

10 Wooden Tables, Ice, and Sequentialistically Propensitied Concrete Particulars 106

5 The Persistence of Material Individuals: Empty Issues and Self-Directed Propensity 109

1 Material Sculptures and Pieces of Matter 109

2 Are There Inconveniently Persisting Material Individuals? 114

3 Pieces, Lumps and Hunks: A Problematic Plethora of Persisting Individuals? 118

4 Is There a Plethora of Extraordinary Persisting Individuals? 120

5 Ordinary and Not So Ordinary Persisting Material Individuals 122

6 Using These Sentences Differently and Expressing Substantial Ideas 125

7 Fundamentals of Fundamental Material Persistents 129

6 Empty Debates about Material Matters 134

1 Matter Distributed Particulately but Not Even a Single Material Individual? 136

2 Matter Distributed Particulately, but Only a Single Material Individual? 137

3 Matter and Material Objects: Salient Positions on Empty Questions 138

4 The Debate about Complex Material Individuals 139

5 An Exploration of the Salient Debate: Popular Paraphrases, Problematic Parallels 143

6 Complex Material Individuals and Arrangements of Simple Material Individuals 145

7 Mereological Sums of Simple Material Individuals: Fusions, Fusions Everywhere 146

8 Sums of Simple Physical Entities and Complex Ordinary Material Individuals 149

9 Four Distinct Sorts of Spatial Inhabitants: Material Mereological Sums, Material Arrangements, Complex Material Objects, and (Complex) Ordinary Individuals 150

Worldy Appendix 156

Are There Any Concrete Worlds, Including Even the Actual World? 156

7 Individuals, Properties and Time: A Few Substantial Thoughts and Many Empty Ideas 160

1 Are There Really Any Properties or Are There Only AH the Propertied Individuals? 162

2 The Temporal, the Empty and the Substantial: First Part 170

3 The Temporal, the Empty and the Substantial: Second Part 175

4 Is There a Real Need That Properties (Alone) Suitably Serve? First Part 179

5 Is There a Real Need That Properties (Alone) Suitably Serve? Second Part 182

8 What Will Become of Us: Empty Issues and Substantial Speculations 187

1 Locke's Proposed Persons 190

2 Locke's Lame Legacy 192

3 Beyond Locke, but Not beyond Philosophical Thoughts Both Incorrect and Empty 197

4 So-Called Commonseusical Materialism 202

5 So-Called Commonscnsical Materialism and the Mental Problems of the Many 204

6 Might You Be a Quite Simple Physical Thing? If So, What Will Become of You? 208

7 Articulating Our Argument for a Substantial Dualist View of Ourselves 211

8 How an Immaterial Soul May, or May Not, Survive the Death of Its Body 215

9 If We Should Become Disembodied Souls, Will We Be Experiencing Souls? 216 10. If We Become Experiencing Disembodied Souls, Will We Be Fortunate Souls? 218

9 When Will There Be Some Serious New Substantial Philosophy? 223

1 Concretely Substantial Ideas about Mutually Isolated Concrete Worlds: First Part 225

2 Concretely Substantial Ideas about Mutually Isolated Concrete Worlds: Second Part 231

3 Some Substantial Philosophical Thoughts about Actual Concrete Reality 234

4 Scientific Philosophers and Serious New Substantial Philosophy 239

5 Philosophy May Mine and Refine What Even the Most Ambitious Sciences Produce 240

6 Concrete Reality and Modest Philosophy 243.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-254) and index.

ISBN:

9780199330812

0199330816

OCLC:

870290958