Centering and extending : an essay on metaphysical sense / Steven G. Smith.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Smith, Steven G., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Metaphysics.

Physical Description:

xi, 220 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Albany : State University of New York Press, [2017]

Summary:

An original metaphysical proposal building on classical and contemporary sources. In Centering and Extending, Steven G. Smith retrieves and refashions some of the best ideas of classical and early modern metaphysics to support insight into the natures of mental and material beings and their relations. Avoiding what he critiques as distortive paths of idealism, materialism, repressive monism, and overly permissive pluralism, Smith builds his framework on centering and extending as universal principles of formation. Identifying the basic consistency of being with these principles in symmetrical partnership enables a naturalist process view that, unlike Whitehead's, does not overbalance toward the subjective and teleological and, unlike Deleuze and Guattari's, does not overbalance toward the material and chaotic. This view supports useful conceptions of mind and matter, form and energy, reason and cause, and a layered world order without relying on a blind concept of supervenience or emergence. It also respects and reinforces a division of roles between metaphysical sense-making and spiritual determinations of meaningfulness. Steven G. Smith is Jennie Carlisle Golding Professor of Philosophy at Millsaps College. He is the author of several books, including Worth Doing, also published by SUNY Press.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Metaphysical Sense 1

World and Life 1

Sense and Meaningfulness 6

Sense, Success, and Satisfaction 10

The Metaphysical Kind of Sense 12

The Parmenidean Topic of Being 15

Metaphysical Sense and Meaningfulness 18

Chapter 2 Platonism 23

Being 23

Forms 26

Soul 35

Matter 45

Lessons of Platonism 46

Chapter 3 Cartesianism 53

Cartesian Dualism 53

Spinozan Duality 57

Leibnizian Monadology 60

Monadology and Meaningfulness 67

Bergsonian Dualism 72

Bergsonism and Meaningfulness 81

Chapter 4 Centering and Extending 85

The Way In: Concepts of the Right Kind 85

The Proposal 87

A Note on Nonreductive Physicalism 104

A Note on Panexperientialist Physicalism 105

A Note on Deleuze and Guattari's Metaphysics 107

Chapter 5 Naturalism and Mind 109

Intentionality 111

Consciousness and Actuality 115

The Causal Relevance of the Mental 124

Soul as Natural 138

Chapter 6 World Order 143

Richness, Complexity, and Organization 143

Levels of Being 145

The Harmony of the World 161

Ultimate Sense and Meaningfulness 171.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Smith, Steven G., author. Entering and extending.

ISBN:

9781438464237

1438464231

OCLC:

970395634