Familiar Objects and their Shadows / by Crawford L. Elder.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Elder, Crawford, author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in philosophy.

Cambridge studies in philosophy

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Reality.

Phenomenalism.

Knowledge, Theory of.

Metaphysics.

Ontology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 210 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Other Title:

Familiar Objects & their Shadows

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Most contemporary metaphysicians are sceptical about the reality of familiar objects such as dogs and trees, people and desks, cells and stars. They prefer an ontology of the spatially tiny or temporally tiny. Tiny microparticles 'dog-wise arranged' explain the appearance, they say, that there are dogs; microparticles obeying microphysics collectively cause anything that a baseball appears to cause; temporal stages collectively sustain the illusion of enduring objects that persist across changes. Crawford L. Elder argues that all such attempts to 'explain away' familiar objects project downwards, onto the tiny entities, structures and features of familiar objects themselves. He contends that sceptical metaphysicians are thus employing shadows of familiar objects, while denying that the entities which cast those shadows really exist. He argues that the shadows are indeed really there, because their sources - familiar objects - are mind-independently real.

Contents:

Introduction

1. Two false friends of an ontology of familiar objects

2. Conventionalism as ontological relativism

3. Realism about material objects: persistence, persistence conditions, and natural kinds

4. Ontological preference for the temporally small

5. Ontological preference for microphysical causes

6. Ontological preference for the spatially small

7. A third false friend of familiar objects: universal mereological composition

8. Concluding Hegelian postscript

Appendix: 'mutually interfering' dimensions of difference.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-107-22070-X

1-139-01273-8

1-283-01719-9

9786613017192

1-139-00949-4

1-139-00897-8

1-139-01002-6

1-139-00787-4

1-139-00676-2

0-511-76012-4

OCLC:

707068364