If, as Augustine taught, the rational powers of the mind are made in the image of the Trinity, it stands to reason that there would be discernible parallels between trinitarian relations and epistemological relations. According to Bonaventure, the Trinity in general, and the Word in particular, provides the model and guarantor for human knowledge. Since knowledge is inherently relational, the basic relations of causality, similitude, and assimilation and expression that Bonaventure finds operative within the Trinity are also key elements of (...) human knowledge. The human mind most images the Trinity when it operates according to exemplar causality, expressing its habitual knowledge as a pattern according to which it fashions objects in the world. I suggest that no philosophical description of human cognition can be successful without accounting for the role that causality, similitude, and expression play in human knowledge. (shrink)

When William of Ockham’s use of the term ‘concept’ is examined, it becomes clear that intuitive cognitions, in and of themselves, cannot function as concepts and thus cannot supposit , in mental propositions. This is because intuitive cognitions pertain only to the singulars in the world that cause them, whereas concepts are universals, natural signs that are, at least in principle, common to many. Since scientific knowledge is of the universal, the subject and predicate terms of mental propositions must be (...) universal terms and thus, concepts. Nonetheless, intuitive cognitions provide the ground for scientific knowledge, as the basis for abstractive and mixed abstractive/intuitive concepts. (shrink)

Integrated assessment models of climate and the economy provide estimates of the social cost of carbon and inform climate policy. We create a variant of the Regional Integrated model of Climate and the Economy (RICE)—a regionally disaggregated version of the Dynamic Integrated model of Climate and the Economy (DICE)—in which we introduce a more fine-grained representation of economic inequalities within the model’s regions. This allows us to model the common observation that climate change impacts are not evenly distributed within regions (...) and that poorer people are more vulnerable than the rest of the population. Our results suggest that this is important to the social cost of carbon—as significant, potentially, for the optimal carbon price as the debate between Stern and Nordhaus on discounting. (shrink)

Future population growth is uncertain and matters for climate policy: higher growth entails more emissions and means more people will be vulnerable to climate-related impacts. We show that how future population is valued importantly determines mitigation decisions. Using the Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy model, we explore two approaches to valuing population: a discounted version of total utilitarianism (TU), which considers total wellbeing and is standard in social cost of carbon dioxide (SCC) models, and of average utilitarianism (AU), which ignores population size (...) and sums only each time period’s discounted average wellbeing. Under both approaches, as population increases the SCC increases, but optimal peak temperature decreases. The effect is larger under TU, because it responds to the fact that a larger population means climate change hurts more people: for example, in 2025, assuming the United Nations (UN)-high rather than UN-low population scenario entails an increase in the SCC of 85% under TU vs. 5% under AU. The difference in the SCC between the two population scenarios under TU is comparable to commonly debated decisions regarding time discounting. Additionally, we estimate the avoided mitigation costs implied by plausible reductions in population growth, finding that large near-term savings ($billions annually) occur under TU; savings under AU emerge in the more distant future. These savings are larger than spending shortfalls for human development policies that may lower fertility. Finally, we show that whether lowering population growth entails overall improvements in wellbeing—rather than merely cost savings—again depends on the ethical approach to valuing population. (shrink)

The health co-benefits of CO2 mitigation can provide a strong incentive for climate policy through reductions in air pollutant emissions that occur when targeting shared sources. However, reducing air pollutant emissions may also have an important co-harm, as the aerosols they form produce net cooling overall. Nevertheless, aerosol impacts have not been fully incorporated into cost-benefit modeling that estimates how much the world should optimally mitigate. Here we find that when both co-benefits and co-harms are taken fully into account, optimal (...) climate policy results in immediate net benefits globally, overturning previous findings from cost-benefit models that omit these effects. The global health benefits from climate policy could reach trillions of dollars annually, but will importantly depend on the air quality policies that nations adopt independently of climate change. Depending on how society values better health, economically optimal levels of mitigation may be consistent with a target of 2 °C or lower. (shrink)

Contemporary leadership theory -- Leading with heart -- Moses -- Gautama Buddha -- Confucius -- Jesus Christ -- Muhammad -- Mahatma Gandhi -- Martin Luther King, Jr. -- St. Pope John Paul II -- St. Mother Teresa -- Pope Francis I -- What have you learned -- Appendix: Diagnostics (Heart Smart surveys I & II).

Plato and the trial of Socrates -- What is philosophy? -- Euthyphro : defining philosophical terms -- The apology, Phaedo, and Crito : the trial, immortality, and death of Socrates -- Philosophy of religion -- Can we prove that God exists? -- St. Anselm : the ontological argument -- St. Thomas Aquinas : the cosmological argument -- William Paley : the teleological argument -- Blaisepascal : it is better to believe in God's existence than to deny it -- William James (...) : free choice is the basis of belief -- Does the idea of a good God exclude evil? -- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz : God can allow some evil -- David Hume : a good God would exclude evil -- Ethics -- Are ethics relative? -- Ruth Benedict : ethics are relative -- W.T. Stace : ethics are not relative -- Are humans always selfish? -- Humans are always selfish : Glaucon's challenge to Socrates -- James Rachels : humans are not always selfish -- Which is basic in ethics : happiness or obligation? -- Aristotle : happiness is living virtuously -- Jeremy Bentham : happiness is seeking the greatest pleasure for the greatest number of people -- Immanuel Kant : duty is prior to happiness -- Friedrich Nietzsche : happiness is having power -- Jean-Paul Sartre : existentialist ethics -- Rosemarie Tong : feminist ethics are different -- Contemporary moral problems : abortion, homosexuality, animal rights -- Jane English : are most abortions moral? -- Peter Singer : do animals have rights? -- Knowledge -- What is knowledge? -- Plato : knowledge is warranted, true belief -- What method is best for acquiring knowledge? -- Charles Sanders Peirce : four approaches to philosophy -- How do we acquire knowledge? -- René Descartes : knowledge is not ultimately sense knowledge -- John Locke : knowledge is ultimately sensed -- Immanuel Kant : knowledge is both rational and empirical -- How is truth established? -- Bertrand Russell : truth is established by correspondence -- Francis H. Bradley : truth is established by coherence -- William James : truth is established on pragmatic grounds -- Can we know the nature of causal relations? -- David Hume : cause means regular association -- David Hume : there are no possible grounds for induction -- Metaphysics -- Why is there something rather than nothing? -- Parmenides : being is uncaused -- Lao-Tzu : non-being is the source of being -- Is reality general or particular? -- Plato : universals are real -- David Hume : particulars are real -- Of what does reality consist? -- René Descartes : reality consists of mind and matter -- Paul Churchland : reality consists of matter -- George Berkeley : reality consists of ideas -- John Dewey : reality consists of mental and physical qualities -- Are humans free? -- Holbach : humans are determined -- Robert Kane : humans are free -- Social and political philosophy -- What is liberty? -- Fyodor Dostoevski : liberty and authority -- John Stuart Mill : liberty is independence from the majority's tyranny -- Martin Luther King, Jr. : liberty and racial prejudice -- Which government is best? -- Thomas Hobbes : monarchy is best -- John Locke : democracy is best -- Karl Marx : communism and nonalienated labor is best -- Alexis de Tocqueville : democracy can have serious problems -- Karl Popper : utopias lead to violence -- Aesthetics -- What constitutes the experience of beauty? -- Plotinus : beauty, sensuous, and ideal -- What is the function of art? -- Aristotle : the nature of tragedy -- Henri Bergson : the nature of comedy -- Philosophy and the good life -- Classic views of the good life -- Epicurus : Epicurus and the pleasant life -- Epictetus : Epictetus and the life of self-control -- What gives life meaning? -- Leo Tolstoy : faith provides life's meaning -- Albert Camus : each person determines his or her life's meaning -- What is the value of philosophy? -- Bertrand Russell : the value of philosophy. (shrink)

There is substantial controversy about the nature of both particulars and properties. Some philosophers think that the categories of particular and property are fundamental, that at least some of the things in both are in no way derived from or dependent on things in another category. These philosophers are Realists about both particulars and properties. Nominalists think of particulars as fundamental and of properties as non‐fundamental, with the latter being derived from the former. This chapter explores why someone might go (...) in for Realism about properties. If one insists that universals are just properties that could be exemplified by more than one thing, Class and Resemblance Nominalism turn out to be committed to universals. Ostrich Nominalism is much larger qualitatively, since UP‐Realism has only two fundamental kinds, whereas Ostrich Nominalism has n fundamental kinds. Ostrich Nominalists must posit a very large number of metaphysically fundamental sorts of things: spheres, cubes, blue things, red things, etc. (shrink)

Contents: PART I: AESTHETICS OF ARCHITECTURE: QUESTIONS. Francis SPARSHOTT: The Aesthetics of Architecture and the Politics of Space. Arnold BERLEANT: Architecture and the Aesthetics of Continuity. Stephen DAVIES: Is Architecture Art? PART II: NATURE OF ARCHITECTURE. B.R. TILGHMAN: Architecture, Expression, and the Understanding of a Culture. David NOVITZ: Architectural Brilliance and the Constraints of Time. Michael H. MITIAS: Expression in Architecture. Ralf WEBER: The Myth of Meaningful Forms. Michael H. MITIAS: Is Meaning in Architecture a Myth? A Response to Ralf (...) Weber. PART III: AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE IN ARCHITECTURE. Allen CARLSON: Existence, Location, and Function: The Appreciation of Architecture. Martin DONOUGHO: Spaced Out or Folded In? Trends in Architectural Choreography. Tom LEDDY: Dialogical Architecture. Roy T. DECKER: Tactility and Imagination: Considerations of Aesthetic Experience in Architecture. Robert GINSBERG: Aesthetics in Hiroshima. The Architecture of Remembrance. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on two clusters of questions concerning existence. The first cluster concerns the scope of existence, examining how wide the domain of existing things is and whether it encompass absolutely everything. The second cluster concerns vagueness and indeterminacy, explaining whether vague things and vague categories of things are there or all vagueness is a matter of referring indifferently to a large number of absolutely precise things and showing the ultimate source of vagueness. There are two theories of vagueness, (...) epistemic and metaphysical. The chapter focuses on Meinongian definitions of 'existence' and examines four arguments in favor of Anti‐Actualism. The first and second respectively appeals to common sense and the need for intentional objects, that is, objects of certain mental attitudes. The third appeals to the need for fictional and illusory entities. And the fourth appeals to the need for non‐existent things as constituents of certain merely possible situations. (shrink)

Fred Dretske, David M. Armstrong, and Michael Tooley have all proposed that the truths about the laws of nature are metaphysically fundamental, consisting in a primitive, unanalyzable relation of 'necessitation' holding between two or more properties or universals. According to Strong Nomism, the laws of nature determine which counterfactual conditionals are true, and they also determine which powers and tendencies particular things have. This chapter treats Nomism as committed to the Dretske‐Armstrong‐Tooley (DAT) theory. Nomism provides a metaphysical explanation of the (...) difference between lawful and accidental generalization. The chapter focuses on the Neo‐Humeist or Ramsey/Lewis Theory of the laws of nature. The Neo‐Humeist program proceeds in the following way. First, give a reductionist account of the laws of nature, and then use the laws to ground the truths of attributions of power and of counterfactual conditionals. (shrink)

One might think that the best metaphysical theory of the world includes the existence of other minds and of the physical world, while denying that we can know or be certain that this theory is true. This chapter considers Solipsism as a theory about reality. It examines the Veil of Perception, and then considers a series of direct arguments against the Solipsistic Veil, Phenomenalism, and Solipsism itself. The chapter looks at two obviously inadequate arguments for the Veil, namely, Berkeley's inconceivability (...) argument and the argument from causal mediation. Then, the chapter looks at two much more interesting and important arguments, namely, the argument from hallucination and illusion and the argument from color and other secondary qualities. Besides the Veil of Perception, arguments for Idealism and Solipsism depend on an appeal to Ockham's Razor. These arguments can be taken either as providing additional support for Perceptual Realism or as a defense of Inferred Anti‐Idealism. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on question of the relation of properties to particulars. It considers three theories of facts: as tropes, as states of affairs, and as nexuses between particulars and universals, noting that in each case, facts turn out to be particulars of a kind. The chapter investigates the question of substances, considering two accounts about the relationship between substances and properties, namely, Relational and Constituent Ontology. Substances would have a surprising degree of metaphysical complexity. According to Constituent Ontology, properties (...) are literally parts of substances they characterize. According to Relational Ontology, in contrast, properties are separate things, extrinsically related to their instances. The chapter examines two versions of Constituent Ontology, Bundle Theory and Substrate Theory. Classical Bundle Theory purports to reduce substances to bundles of universals. The chapter also examines Nuclear Bundle Theory that faces an especially virulent form of the problem of Individuation. (shrink)

This chapter covers number of Abstractionist views of modality. It considers three ways that Abstractionists might account for how possible worlds represent possibilities, rather than in terms of the categorial nature of worlds. First, there is Magical Abstractionism, according to which that question has no informative answer. Second, there is Linguistic Abstractionism, according to which possible worlds represent in the way that languages do. And finally, there is Pictorial Abstractionism, according to which possible worlds represent in the way that pictures (...) do. Pictorial Abstractionists might respond by trying to identify a feature that Concretist worlds have that their worlds don't, or vice versa. One way for something to be possible is for actual things to have the power to make it so. Since the notion of power is central to Aristotelian Modality, we get sub‐varieties of the view depending on one's metaphysical account of powers. (shrink)

One popular approach to the metaphysics of dispositional properties takes them to involve ascribing a conditional property, a property corresponding to a conditional statement. This chapter looks at some recent work on the semantics and logic of conditionals, followed by a consideration of Hypotheticalism, Nomism, Neo‐Humeism, and Powerism. It examines directly the question whether Hypotheticalism or Anti‐Hypotheticalism (categoricalism) is correct, and shows how to evaluate counterfactual conditionals. The evaluation of conditionals seems to turn on two sorts of facts about the (...) actual world: the laws of nature, and the true propositions that are co‐tenable with the conditional's antecedent. Strong Hypotheticalists hold that the truths of counterfactual conditionals are fundamental, and that truths about the laws of nature and of powers and dispositions are reducible to them. (shrink)

An appeal to ontological parsimony or economy plays an important, perhaps indispensable, role in evaluating metaphysical theories. This chapter focuses primarily on the first conception of grounding, grounding as metaphysical explanation. It briefly discusses the relation of ontological dependency and its connections with grounding as explanation. Debates about grounding are a recurring theme in the history of Western philosophy. Much of Aristotle's metaphysical method also presupposes the existence of a grounding relation. The chapter investigates both conceptual and ontological grounding and (...) explores the relationship between grounding and truthmaking. The chapter considers various alternatives or competitors to grounding theory. It examines the connection between grounding, fundamentally, and Ockham's Razor and also relation between grounding and ontological dependence. The chapter shows how grounding is different from causal explanation and discusses connections between grounding and entailment. (shrink)

This chapter examines the problem of unity and considers how it is possible for one thing to exist in and through a plurality of parts or phases. It begins with a general discussion of the existence of composite things. The chapter considers the view that composite entities are always an 'ontological free lunch', things that can be freely posited without incurring any cost in relation to ontological economy or Ockham's Razor. It looks at the issue of causal redundancy, a consideration (...) which suggests that positing composite entities as fundamental things is in fact quite costly, something to be undertaken only with strong reasons. The chapter examines three candidates for fundamental composite entities: heaps, artifacts, and organisms. It considers question of which sorts of composite things exist at all, whether fundamentally or derivatively. This involves a search for an intelligible principle of composition. (shrink)

This chapter considers various views about the precise nature of possible worlds, but each view is compatible with this initial characterization. It considers modality, particularly focusing on metaphysical possibility, necessity, and impossibility, that broadest kind of modality. The chapter offers an example of why one might care about this issue, an example of why the study of modality matters to philosophy more generally. It is plausible that modality is importantly connected to understanding. The chapter focuses on two contrasting views about (...) the nature of possible worlds, Concretism and Abstractionism. The fundamental difference between Concretism and Abstractionism is whether possible worlds are concrete or abstract. Concretism is the view that possible worlds are like parallel universes. Concretism requires Modal Indexicalism and denies Modal Anti‐Indexicalism. The chapter describes the ways that the Concretism carries out its reduction of possibility and actuality. (shrink)

This chapter examines questions having to do with whether and how things persist through change and how things do so If they do persist. Next, assuming that intrinsic change does take place, the chapter examines two principal views about how things persist through change of intrinsic properties, Substratism and Replacementism. It focuses on the specific but very important case of motion, or change of location. There are three major theories: Intrinsic Motion; Bertrand Russell's At/At Theory, and an Aristotelian theory (Motion (...) Intervalism). The chapter also considers the problem of the persistence of composite objects, including objects that can gain or lose parts. Replacementists might consider taking on board a metaphysically fundamental genidentity relation. Substratists have an explanation for the reflexivity, symmetry, and transitivity of genidentity, something that Classical Genidentity Theorists have to posit as a brute metaphysical necessity. This provides the Substatists with an advantage in terms of Ockham's Razor. (shrink)

This chapter focuses mainly on how possible worlds relate to the truth and falsity of modal claims (or propositions), and therefore to whether claims are necessarily true, necessarily false, possibly true, possibly false, and so on. This issue is that of modality de dicto, modality concerning propositions. But there is another type of modality, namely modality de re. This has to do with the modal status of relations between things and their properties, with whether things possess properties necessarily, contingently or (...) not even possibly. This chapter introduces the distinction between de dicto and de re necessity, and then explores different ways of making sense of de re necessity‐necessities involving particular individuals. It talks about Strong Transworld Identity, and explores how Abstractionists respond to the Leibniz's Law argument. Some metaphysicians go farther and identify what is possible with what is conceivable, or perhaps with what we are justified in believing to be possible. (shrink)

Laws of nature are merely expressions of the powers possessed by various kinds of things, and counterfactual conditionals are grounded in the powers and tendencies of the entities involved in the counterfactual supposition together with their counterfactual surroundings. There are two versions of Strong Powerism. One takes the truthmakers for causal laws to be universals (a 'Realist' version). The second takes the truthmakers for causal laws to be the particulars that fall under the laws (a 'Nominalist' version). This chapter focuses (...) on how Powerism compares to other views about the laws. Neo‐Humeism has the leanest metaphysical theory, since its class of fundamental truths includes no conditionals, laws of nature or attributions of power. Metaphysically, Nomism is burdened with a large number of brute necessities, linking laws with actual patterns of particular fact. The chapter talks about the causal theory of properties: causal structuralism. (shrink)

The first way that a discussion of truth gets one going in metaphysics is via its connection to propositions. Philosophers have taken a number of views about the true nature of propositions. The early part of the twentieth century saw a strong reaction against holism, led prominently by Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein. This chapter considers why we should believe in Classical Truthmaker Theory in the first place, as well as a fundamental challenge to the very foundation of truthmaker theory: (...) the deflationary theory of truth. The simplest, most natural understanding of Truthmaker Theory is the view that every truth has a truthmaker. This is 'Truthmaker Maximalism'. One of the fundamental motivations for truthmaker theory of any form is, as we have seen, the Correspondence Theory of Truth. Importantly, deflationists are anti‐realists only about one thing: the existence of a real property of truth. (shrink)

This chapter takes up issues to do with Peter van Inwagen's (1990a) general composition question: what is it for one thing to be a part of another? The chapter begins with some background to do with formal mereology, the study of parts and wholes. In discussing the metaphysics of parts and wholes, it is helpful to have some specialized vocabulary, as well as a well thought‐out mathematical model of a very broad, inclusive theory. The theory of mereology, proposed by the (...) logician Stanislaw Lesniewski and introduced to the widerworld by Goodman and Leonard in an article in the Journal of Symbolic Logic, provides that vocabulary and such a model. These mereologists proposed some basic axioms for the part‐whole relation. Alternatively, the Composition as Identity (CAI) theorist could try to build transitivity into their definition of the part‐whole relation. Finally, the chapter provides some answers to the General Composition Question and considers whether those answers can supply a ground for the correct principles of mereology. (shrink)

This chapter considers the possibility of Nihilism, that nothing exists, and its alternative, Aliquidism, that something exists. This will lead us into an investigation of the point of positing existing things. The chapter looks at the debate between Monists, who believe in only one thing, and Pluralists, who believe in many. It also considers both radical and more moderate forms of both Nihilism and Monism, including, for example, Priority Monism. The chapter examines four arguments for Monism: those of Parmenides, Spinoza, (...) Bradley, and Jonathan Schaffer. Parmenides of Elea authored a single work, a poem traditionally titled On Nature. In the first part of this poem, Parmenides seems to be arguing for Monism. Baruch Spinoza offered a set of metaphysical arguments that could be interpreted as attempting to show that only one thing exists. The chapter considers the import of Bradley's Regress for Constituent Realism, UPRealism combined with Constituent Ontology. (shrink)

Causal connectionists need to provide an account of causal linkage and of causal direction. This chapter distinguishes between two kinds of causal connection, namely, discrete and continuous. Causal connectionists have a number of options for explaining the linkage between causes and effects in the case of discrete causation. The chapter provides some popular options. If some causation is discrete, and the exercise of causal powers provides a direction to discrete causation, then the causal direction of processes can be derived from (...) the causal direction of discrete interaction. David Hume famously made the claim about the knowledge of causation in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Hume offers, in defense of his principle, a set of thought‐experiments that seem to show that we can always imagine any event's having a different result from the one we in fact observe. Causal processes like locomotion may provide counterexamples to Hume's Epistemic Principle. (shrink)

There are a number of different versions of Reductive Nominalism, versions distinguished by the way in which each accounts for facts about having and sharing properties. This chapter discusses three broad varieties of Reductive Nominalism: Predicate Nominalism, Class Nominalism, and Resemblance Nominalism. Class Nominalism identifies properties with classes or sets. Resemblance Nominalists come in two sub‐varieties, depending on whether they take the resemblance relation to hold between particular properties (called 'tropes') or particular things that have properties (ordinary particulars). Trope Theory (...) comes in two varieties depending on whether one plumps for universals. It should not be difficult to see that Extreme Resemblance Nominalism is faced with Class Nominalism's extensionality problems, both the problem of contingent predication and the co‐extensive property problem. Resemblance Nominalists can reply by insisting on a distinction between a priori or conceptual equivalence and metaphysical equivalence. The chapter focuses on the extensionality problems for Class Nominalism. (shrink)

The nature of causation has been one of the central questions of metaphysics since ancient times. This chapter looks at the arguments for Causal Anti‐Realism. Causation requires necessary connections between separate existences. David Hume argued that the ordinary conception of causation involves the separateness of the cause and effect. Hume had a further, closely related argument against the reality of causation. Authors' idea of causation is merely a confusion of several distinct concepts, namely, the concepts of regular succession and contiguity (...) among events, and the concept of a felt propensity on their own part to infer one thing from another. There are four objections to Universal Causation, one assuming Mereological Universalism, a second employing a pluralized version of Universal Causation, a third involving a chain principle, and a fourth including an argument against infinite causal regresses. (shrink)

This chapter looks at six arguments against Tensism. They are, equivalently, arguments for Anti‐Tensism. The arguments are of three basic kinds: those that argue that Tensism is incoherent or mysterious, those that argue that it is in irresolvable conflict with modern science, and those that fault Tensism for its unexplainable or brute necessities. The chapter considers the objection that Tensism cannot sensibly account for the rate of the flow of time. It shows in which a variety of objections based on (...) Truthmaker Theory are lodged against various versions of Tensism. The chapter looks at science, especially Einstein's theory of relativity, as the basis for an argument against Tensism. It concerns additional philosophical objections to Tensism and then considers epistemological problems for Tensism; and McTaggart's argument that Tensism is self‐contradictory. The chapter explores the number of brute necessities for which Tensism can provide no simple explanation. (shrink)

This chapter explores whether causation is a relation between things, like being next to or being taller than, or it is something else entirely. It considers two ways of thinking about causation. The chapter considers it as a real relation, the relation of causal connection, between things or events, or as a logical relation, the relation of causal explanation, among truths. For metaphysicians, the crucial question is whether causal connection or causal explanation is more fundamental. There are two major objections (...) to all three versions of Causal Explanationism: the problem of causal linkage and the problem of the direction or asymmetry of causation. Causal Connectionists posit a category of thing, events (or states or conditions), members of which stand in the fundamental relation of causation. The weightiest objection to Causal Connectionism concerns the phenomenon of negative causation. Causal Connectionism entails that causation is always a matter of some real relation between things. (shrink)

This chapter discusses four packages, including Ludovician, Aristotelian, Fortibracchian, and Quietist. There are two quite coherent packages of answers to the some issues: a neo‐Humeist or Ludovician package, and a neo‐Aristotelian package. Ludovicians put little weight on common sense beliefs, especially when they are embedded in ethical and legal practices, and they do not rely heavily on the "manifest image of the world". Aristotelians rely more heavily on the semantic intuition about what could possibly be the truthmakers for familiar kinds (...) of claims, including those involving tense and modality. This chapter lists the Aristotelian package as including Meinongianism, ontological vagueness, and Tensism on the passage of time. Fortibracchians are very similar in methodology to Ludovicains. In practice, Fortibracchians give more weight to a kind of naive realism with respect to scientific theory than do Ludovicians. (shrink)

This chapter considers three substantivalist theories, namely, the theory of spatial qualities, spatial monism, and body‐space dualism, and two relationist theories, namely, Aristotelian relationism and modern relationism. Spatial Substantivalism comes in two forms, depending on whether places are properties or not. Assuming that places are properties amounts to the theory of spatial qualities; the alternative version of substantivalism is spatial particularism. Spatial particularism in turn comes in two forms, body‐space dualism and spatial monism. Spatial relationists also come in two forms, (...) Aristotelian and modern. modern relationists believe that the fundamental spatial relation is the distance between dimensionless point‐masses. Aristotelian Relationists take the fundamental spatial properties to be volume and shape, and the only fundamental spatial relation to be contiguity. A critical difference between spatial substantivalists and spatial relationists concerns their treatments of empty space. (shrink)

This introduction provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in the following chapters of this book. The book begins with a short history of metaphysics, and discusses some reasons why metaphysics matters. The practice of metaphysics is controversial within philosophy itself. This controversy stems from two primary sources: skepticism and pragmatism. The book introduces the two notions of truthmaking and of grounding, ideas that lie at the heart of a significant number of metaphysical projects. It develops an account of (...) dispositions: conditionals, laws of nature, and intrinsic powers. Th book examines the alternative view of Nominalism, according to which everything real is particular and unshareable, including the form of Nominalism that posits individualized properties or tropes. It also considers whether space is a thing in its own right or whether it consists merely in the holding of spatial relations between bodies. (shrink)

This chapter examines four special problems involving properties whether universals or tropes. It looks at various accounts of relational facts, facts that involve properties relating two or more particulars. The chapter examines an important special case of relational facts: those that involve nonsymmetric or ordering relations. It focuses on structural properties, those relational properties that enable many things to form a single structure, like a group or a team. Finally, it considers the problem of measurable quantities. Monadism is the view (...) that all relational truths are grounded in the intrinsic character of substances taken individually. The most difficult problem for Leibniz's version of Monadism is giving a full and adequate theory of monadic representation. A monad's representing the world as being a certain way must consist of a set of intrinsic mental acts. The chapter surveys the various metaphysical options for Anti‐Monadism, and considers the most difficult test case: that of non‐symmetric relations. (shrink)

This chapter examines whether space and extended bodies are ultimately composed of points (and point‐masses) or spatial regions (and voluminous bodies). It focuses on three positions: Pointillism, according to which only points and point‐sized bodies are fundamental; Voluminism, according to which the only fundamental things are regions and voluminous bodies; and Volume‐Boundary Dualism, according to which both points and regions really exist and are equally fundamental. The first prima facie problem for Voluminism concerns continuous variation. The chapter looks at the (...) idea of constructing points from regions and concerns whether points or regions are fundamental. It lays out three arguments against Pointillism, the thesis that points are the only fundamental entities, namely, the arguments from Finitism, from mathematical paradoxes, and from the nature of contact. Aristotelian Finitists can explain why some sets of points have measurable volume and why some do not. (shrink)

Substratism and Replacementism are the two major contending accounts of intrinsic change. This chapter discusses the interaction between composition and persistence, as the persistence of composite objects provides a critical test case for evaluating these two accounts. The chapter covers important puzzles and paradoxes for those who believe that mereological inconstancy and mereological coincidence are possible. There are actually two somewhat different conceptions of coincidence. One involves the sharing of a time‐slice or instantaneous temporal part. This is Temporal Coincidence. A (...) second kind of coincidence involves having exactly the same parts (whether spatially or temporally extended or both) at the same time. On some views, Temporal Coincidence and Temporary Mereological Coincidence are exactly the same things. The most compelling case of temporary mereological coincidence is that of composite things and their matter. (shrink)

This chapter examines arguments in favor of Tensism. These arguments fall into two main categories. First, there are those arguments, like the Thank Goodness argument, our experience of the flow of time, and the reality of intrinsic change, that appeal to how time appears to us in our ordinary, everyday experience. Metaphysicians must take such data seriously if they are not to embrace a global skepticism about the world of appearances. Second, there are arguments that presuppose a particular conception of (...) time and of the nature of power. A tensed proposition is a proposition that can have different truth‐values at different times. Those who embrace Powerism and an Aristotelian views about time have several good arguments for embracing Tensism, namely, the threat of fatalism, the impossibility of time travel, and the present as an actual boundary between past and present. (shrink)

This chapter examines some issues concerning the structure of time. It considers arguments for and against Temporal Finitism. Temporal Discretism is a kind of Finitism: any finitely extended interval is made up of only finitely many indivisible units of time. In the chapter, the authors assume for the sake of argument that Intervalism is true, that is, that some temporally extended intervals and processes are among the world's fundamental entities. The main argument for Intervalism is that it follows from the (...) metaphysical impossibility of certain infinitary scenarios involving super‐tasks. Strong Intervalism denies that instants are fundamental, while Moderate Intervalism, or Interval‐Boundary Dualism, embraces the fundamentality of both instants and intervals. Infinitary Intervalism is relative to the three competing theories of Aristotelian Temporal Finitism, Temporal Discretism, and Instantism. In the chapter, the authors also assume that all Intervalists are either Discretists or Aristotelian Finitists, and that all Instantists are Temporal Infinitists. (shrink)

Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have emerged as an attractive means of implementing logic circuits, providing instant manufacturing turnaround and negligible prototype costs. They hold the promise of replacing much of the VLSI market now held by mask-programmed gate arrays. FPGAs offer an affordable solution for customized VLSI, over a wide variety of applications, and have also opened up new possibilities in designing reconfigurable digital systems. Field-Programmable Gate Arrays discusses the most important aspects of FPGAs in a textbook manner. It provides (...) the reader with a focused view of the key issues, using a consistent notation and style of presentation. It provides detailed descriptions of commercially available FPGAs and an in-depth treatment of the FPGA architecture and CAD issues that are the subjects of current research. The material presented is of interest to a variety of readers, including those who are not familiar with FPGA technology, but wish to be introduced to it, as well as those who already have an understanding of FPGAs, but who are interested in learning about the research directions that are of current interest. (shrink)