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

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Unger, Peter K., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Reality--Philosophy.

Reality.

Substance (Philosophy).

Matter--Philosophy.

Matter.

Analysis (Philosophy).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 258 pages)

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

During the middle of the twentieth century, philosophers generally agreed that, by contrast with science, philosophy should offer no substantial thoughts about the general nature of concrete reality. Instead, philosophers offered conceptual truths. It is widely assumed that, since 1970, things have changed greatly. This book lays crucial challenges at the door of mainstream analytic philosophy, for Unger argues persuasively that (contrary to its explicit self-conception), a great deal of recent philosophy has been concerned with merely conceptual issues - nothing 'concretely substantial'.

Contents:

1. How empty is mainstream philosophy?

Most recent mainstream proposals are concretely empty ideas

A working idea of concrete reality

Observing the concretely empty in some recent mainstream philosophy

Our central distinction and three that have been philosophically salient

The concretely empty, the analytically empty and mainstream philosophy

2. Promising examples of concretely substantial philosophy.

Some pretty promising examples of concretely substantial philosophy

The substantial scientiphicalism of mainstream philosophy

Memory, history and emptiness

Various specifications of scientiphicalism and various departures from scientiphicalism

Interactionist entity dualism and the problem of causal pairings

Exploring philosophical thoughts that may be analytically empty ideas

3. Thinkers and what they can think about : empty issues and individualistic powers.

Language, thought and history

Thinking about "the external world"

Earth, twin Earth and history

The banality of successfully investigating unfamiliar individuals

A concretely substantial possibility : individualistically directed powers

The propensity to acquire individualistic powers and its historical manifestation

A concretely substantial possibility : individualistically directed mental powers

Generalistic propensities to acquire real-kind directed mental powers

Wishful blindness to emptiness : Putnam's "transcendental" pronouncement

Reading modal claims substantially and widening our philosophical horizons

4. The origins of material individuals : empty issues and sequentialistic powers

The origin of a particular wooden table

Some thoughts about tables and some thoughts about shmables

Origination conditions, persistence conditions, and boxing a logical compass

A tenet of scientiphicalism : basic individuals have no "memory-like" propensity

How a wooden table could have first been made from a hunk of ice

Tood and tice, a table first made of wood and a table first made of ice

Using modal terms substantially : the case of determinism

Distinctive material objects and these objects' distinctive matter

Sequentialistically propensitied concrete particulars

Wooden tables, ice, and sequentialistically propensitied concrete particulars

5. The persistence of material individuals : empty issues and self-directed propensity.

Material sculptures and pieces of matter

Are there inconveniently persisting material individuals?

Pieces, lumps and hunks : a problematic plethora of persisting individuals?

Is there a plethora of extraordinary persisting individuals?

Ordinary and not so ordinary persisting material individuals

Using these sentences differently and expressing substantial ideas

Fundamentals of fundamental material persistents

6. Empty debates about material matters.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on July 9, 2014).

ISBN:

0-19-933083-2

0-19-937852-5