Making things up / Karen Bennett.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bennett, Karen, 1971- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Metaphysics.

Ontology.

Relation (Philosophy).

Causation.

First philosophy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 260 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2017.

Summary:

We frequently speak of certain things or phenomena being built out of or based in others. 'Making Things Up' concerns these relations, which connect more fundamental things to less fundamental things: Karen Bennett calls these 'building relations'. She aims to illuminate what it means to say that one thing is more fundamental than another.

Contents:

1. Introduction

2. Building I: Breaking ground. 2.1. Some building relations ; 2.2. Two main axes of difference ; 2.3. What is a unity thesis? ; 2.4. Monism(s) and unity theses ; 2.5. Against generalist monism about building relations

3. Building II: Characterizing the class. 3.1. Methodology ; 3.2. Directedness ; 3.3. Necessitation ; 3.4. Generativity ; 3.5. Ought more be added? ; 3.6. Wrapping up

4. Causing. 4.1. Two kinds of causal taint ; 4.2. The first kind of causal taint : causation is a building relation ; 4.3. The second kind of causal taint : some particular building relations are themselves causal ; 4.4. Back to two kinds of causal taint

5. Absolute fundamentality. 5.1. Methodological preliminaries ; 5.2. Independence ; 5.3. Completeness ; 5.4. The relation between independence and completeness ; 5.5. Interlude : Is budding well-founded? ; 5.6. In defense of independence over completeness ; 5.7. Naturalness ; 5.8. The relation between independence and naturalness ; 5.9. In defense of independence over naturalness ; 5.10. Resisting three arguments against defining it at all

6. Relative fundamentality. 6.1. Accounting for relative fundamentality ; 6.2. Two kinds of primitivism about relative fundamentality ; 6.3. Characterizing relative fundamentality in terms of building ; 6.4. Sketching and rejecting a toy account ; 6.5. The messy reality ; 6.6. Clarifying the overall picture ; 6.7. Other matters arising ; 6.8. Deflationism vs. sophisticated primitivism

7. Building building? 7.1. What is the question, exactly? ; 7.2. Arguing for anti-primitivism ; 7.3. Upwards anti-primitivism ; 7.4. The opposition ; 7.5. All in all

8. In defense of the nonfundamental. 8.1. Flatworldism ; 8.2. Against flatworldism ; 8.3. Metaphysics is not the study of fundamental reality ; 8.4. The overall picture

Appendix: Objections to the second frade of causal involvement.

Notes:

This edition previously issued in print: 2017.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-19-251972-7

0-19-183963-9

0-19-150514-5