The Metaphysics of Knowledge presents the thesis that knowledge is an absolutely fundamental relation, with an indispensable role to play in metaphysics, philosophical logic, and philosophy of mind and language. Knowledge has been generally assumed to be a propositional attitude like belief. But Keith Hossack argues that knowledge is not a relation to a content; rather, it a relation to a fact. This point of view allows us to explain many of the concepts of philosophical logic in terms of (...) knowledge. Hossack provides a theory of facts as structured combinations of particulars and universals, and presents a theory of content as the property of a mental act that determines its value for getting knowledge. He also defends a theory of representation in which the conceptual structure of a content is taken to picture the fact it represents. This permits definitions to be given of reference, truth, and necessity in terms of knowledge. Turning to the metaphysics of mind and language, Hossack argues that a conscious state is one that is identical with knowledge of its own occurrence. This allows us to characterize subjectivity, and, by illuminating the "I"-concept, allows us to gain a better understanding of the concept of a person. Language is then explained in terms of knowledge, as a device used by a community of persons for exchanging knowledge by testimony. The Metaphysics of Knowledge concludes that knowledge is too fundamental to be constituted by something else, such as one's functional or physical state; other things may cause knowledge, but do not constitute it. (shrink)

Atomism denies that complexes exist. Common-sense metaphysics may posit masses, composite individuals and sets, but atomism says there are only simples. In a singularist logic, it is difficult to make a plausible case for atomism. But we should accept plural logic, and then atomism can paraphrase away apparent reference to complexes. The paraphrases require unfamiliar plural universals, but these are of independent interest; for example, we can identify numbers and sets with plural universals. The atomist paraphrases would fail if plurals (...) presuppose complexes: but an Appendix shows that reference to complexes is not required in the semantics of plurals. (shrink)

Keith Hossack's thesis is that knowledge is a conceptually primitive and metaphysically fundamental relation between a mind and a fact. He argues that in terms of the simple relation of knowledge we can analyze central notions of epistemology, of semantics, of modality and a priori knowledge, of psychology, and of linguistics. He does so in a framework that includes a fairly rich faculty psychology and that stresses causation: knowledge can be caused by belief, but because knowledge is simple, it (...) is not any kind of belief. He regards his enterprise as metaphysics, and he proceeds in a rather grand manner. The beginning of his Preface might remind one of the opening paragraphs of Leibniz's The Monadology.If knowledge is a simple relation between minds and facts, then we want to know a bit about facts. Hossack takes facts to consist in universals being instantiated among things. He favours a view of universals as respects in which things resemble each other, but his theory is at least officially silent about which universals exist, leaving that as a matter for scientific inquiry. But he takes metaphysics to be a science. Here he is being coy, and it is worth making out how. Hossack uses multigrade relations; these are relations of no fixed polyadicity that for any natural number n may be instantiated by n things. Vectors are bearers of such relations. The relation among working men of uniting to form a union is a multigrade relation, and the founders of the International Workers of the World are a vector bearing this relation. (shrink)

The Identity Thesis, proposed by Reid for the case of sensations, and extended by Brentano to conscious states generally, says that a state is conscious iff it is identical with introspective knowledge of its own instantiation. The Thesis offers simple explanations of a number of puzzling features of introspective self-knowledge, and unites the problems of introspection, consciousness and knowledge in the single problem of the metaphysical nature of conscious states. It does nothing to solve the latter problem, but it does (...) entail that a functionalist account of consciousness is incomplete without an exact functionalist definition of knowledge itself. (shrink)

A historical investigation of the exclusion of Africa and Asia from modern histories of philosophy.

This paper develops an account of consciousness in action. Both consciousness and action are related to knowledge. A voluntary action is defined as a volition, or something intentionally effected by means of such volitions. Volitions are conscious mental acts whose proper function is to make their content true. A mental act is the exercise of a power of mind and a conscious mental act is identical with knowledge of its own phenomenal character. This set of definitions elucidates the relations between (...) consciousness, action and knowledge. (shrink)

The state of affairs of some things falling under a predicate is supposedly a single entity that collects these things as its constituents. But whether we think of a state of affairs as a fact, a proposition or a possibility, problems will arise if we adopt a plural logic. For plural logic says that any plurality include themselves, so whenever there are some things, the state of affairs of their plural self-inclusion should be a single thing that collects them all. (...) This leads to paradoxes analogous to those that afflict naïve set theory. Here I suggest that they are the very same paradoxes, because sets can be reduced to states of affairs. However, to obtain a consistent theoretical reduction we must restrict the usual axiom scheme of Comprehension for plural logic to ‘stratified’ formulas, to avoid viciously circular definitions. I prove that with this modification to the background plural logic, the theory of states of affairs is consistent; moreover, it yields the axioms of the familiar set theory NFU. (shrink)

What is exemplification? A proposition that attributes a property to an object is true if the object exemplifies the property. But according to the correspondence theory, a proposition is true if the corresponding fact exists. So if the correspondence theory is correct, an exemplification of a temporal property by an object is simply the concrete circumstance of the object’s having the property. But since not all properties are temporal, not all exemplifications are circumstances, and we need to recognise timeless as (...) well as temporal facts. This distinction allows us to solve the problem of converse relations, and to give an account of the logically complex facts which deduction allows us to know. (shrink)

How (Not) to Be Secular is what Jamie Smith calls "your hitchhiker's guide to the present" -- it is both a reading guide to Charles Taylor's monumental work A Secular Age and philosophical guidance on how we might learn to live in our times. Taylor's landmark book A Secular Age (2007) provides a monumental, incisive analysis of what it means to live in the post-Christian present -- a pluralist world of competing beliefs and growing unbelief. Jamie Smith's book is a (...) compact field guide to Taylor's insightful study of the secular, making that very significant but daunting work accessible to a wide array of readers. Even more, though, Smith's How (Not) to Be Secular is a practical philosophical guidebook, a kind of how-to manual on how to live in our secular age. It ultimately offers us an adventure in self-understanding and maps out a way to get our bearings in today's secular culture, no matter who "we" are -- whether believers or skeptics, devout or doubting, self-assured or puzzled and confused. This is a book for any thinking person to chew on. (shrink)

This chapter provides an introduction to higher-order metaphysics as well as to the contributions to this volume. We discuss five topics, corresponding to the five parts of this volume, and summarize the contributions to each part. First, we motivate the usefulness of higher-order quantification in metaphysics using a number of examples, and discuss the question of how such quantifiers should be interpreted. We provide a brief introduction to the most common forms of higher-order logics used in metaphysics, and indicate a (...) number of questions which can be raised in such systems using logical vocabulary alone. Using a further example, we return to applications of higher-order logics in metaphysics. We also mention key developments in the history of higher-order logic as it pertains to metaphysics. Finally, we mention certain arguments which have been raised against the use of higher-order logic, and some ways of responding to them. (shrink)

Practical deliberation often involves conditional judgements about what will (likely) happen if certain alternatives are pursued. It is widely assumed that the conditionals useful in deliberation are counterfactual or subjunctive conditionals. Against this, I argue that the conditionals of deliberation are indicatives. Key to the argument is an account of the relation between 'straightforward' future-directed conditionals like ' If the house is not painted, it will soon look quite shabby' and * "w e r e ' ' e d F (...) D C s like ' If the house were not to be painted, it would soon look quite shabby': an account on which both of these types of FDCs are grouped with the indicatives for semantic treatment and on which, while conditionals of both types are properly used in means/ends deliberations, those of the ' were'ed-up variety are especially well suited for that purpose. (shrink)

In the traditional form of canonical quantization, certain field components (not having “conjugate” momenta) must be regarded as noncanonical. This long-known distinction enters modern gauge theories, when they are canonically quantized as by Kugo and Ojima. We avoid that peculiarity by not using any conjugate “momenta” at all. In our formulation, canonical quantization can be related to Feynman's path integral.

Aggregating individuals’ consistent attitudes might produce inconsistent collective attitudes. Some groups therefore need the capacity to form attitudes that are irreducible to those of their members. Such groups, group-agent realists argue, are agents in control of their own attitude formation. In this paper, however, I show how group-agent realism overlooks the important fact that groups consist of strategically interacting agents. Only by eliminating group agency from our social explanations can we see how individuals vote strategically to gain control of their (...) groups and produce collective attitudes we cannot make sense of if we treat groups as agents. (shrink)

'Pataphysics: The Poetics of an Imaginary Science is a survey that attempts to describe a hypothetic philosophy--the avant-garde pseudo-science imagined by Alfred Jarry. 'Pataphysics is a supplement to metaphysics, accenting it, then replacing it, in order to create a philosophic alternative, whose discipline can study cases, not of conception, but of exception: variance , alliance , and deviance . 'Pataphysics synthesizes the romantic schism between a literal, scientized discourse and a figural, poeticized discourse, and my thesis suggests that this revision (...) of the signifier "science" by 'pataphysics is symptomatic of a postmodern transition in science from a paradigm of absolutism to a paralogy of relativism. Structured as a descriptive explication, which emphasizes a theoretical perspective, this survey is divided into five chapters: the first chapter recounts the history of the conflict between science and poetry ; the second chapter examines the avant-garde pseudo-science of 'pataphysics itself ; and finally, the last three chapters discuss the influence of 'pataphysics upon the poetics of its subsequent successors . While my thesis focuses upon theories of textual poetics rather than poetry itself , my thesis does nevertheless strive to be as conceptually encyclopedic as 'pataphysics itself: instead of normalizing 'pataphysics within one theoretical perspective, this survey alludes intermittently to 'pataphysical enterprises that constitute exceptions to such a genealogy of Jarryites. What is at stake is the status of poetry in a world of science. How might poetry reclaim its own viable truth? How might science benefit from its own poetic irony? For the postmodern condition, such questions have already opened up a novel space for speculative imagination; hence, this survey presents itself as a kind of primer for a future of possible research. (shrink)

In this short but meaty book, Peter Unger questions the objective answers that have been given to central problems in philosophy. As Unger hypothesizes, many of these problems are unanswerable, including the problems of knowledge and scepticism, the problems of free will, and problems of causation and explanation. In each case, he argues, we arrive at one answer only relative to an assumption about the meaning of key terms, terms like "know" and like "cause," even while we arrive at an (...) opposite answer relative to quite different assumptions, but equally arbitrary assumptions, about what the key terms mean. (shrink)

This article explores the enduring mysteries of consciousness and the afterlife, two enigmatic topics that have fascinated humanity for ages. Despite extensive scientific efforts, the existence of an afterlife remains unproven, and understanding consciousness remains a significant challenge. The research introduces innovative hypotheses through simple thought experiments with empirical evidence and robust theoretical foundations. It delves into the complexities of consciousness, its relationship with the brain, and the need for interdisciplinary approaches encompassing physics, psychology, and philosophy. Boldly contemplating the probability (...) of a continuous consciousness after death, the study argues that existing evidence strongly supports this idea. Beyond theoretical implications, it envisions practical outcomes, suggesting that insights into these mysteries could enhance human well-being and contribute to a more harmonious world. In summary, this article embarks on a quest to shed light on age-old questions about consciousness and the afterlife. Through fresh methodologies, it aims to provide new perspectives that could reshape our understanding of existence and inspire intellectuals to positive individual and societal advancements. -/- . (shrink)

Neoplatonic allegorical interpretation expounds how literary texts present philosophical ideas in an enigmatic and coded form, offering an alternative path to the divine truths. The Neoplatonist Porphyry’s _On the Cave of the Nymphs_ is one of the most significant allegorical interpretation handed down to us from Antiquity. This monograph, exclusively dedicated to the analysis of _On the Cave of Nymphs_, demonstrates that Porphyry interprets Homer’s verse from Odyssey 13.102-112 to convey his philosophical thoughts, particularly on the material world, relationship between (...) soul and body and the salvation of the soul through the doctrines of Plato and Plotinus. The Homeric cave of the nymphs with two gates is a station where the souls descend into genesis and ascend to the intelligible realm. Porphyry associates Odysseus’ long wanderings with the journey of the soul and its salvation from the irrational to rational through escape from all toils of the material world. (shrink)