The Tools of Metaphysics and the Metaphysics of Science

The Tools of Metaphysics and the Metaphysics of Science
Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Total Pages : 246
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780192539458
ISBN-13 : 0192539450
Rating : 4/5 (450 Downloads)

Book Synopsis The Tools of Metaphysics and the Metaphysics of Science by : Theodore Sider

Download or read book The Tools of Metaphysics and the Metaphysics of Science written by Theodore Sider and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-19 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Metaphysics is sensitive to the conceptual tools we choose to articulate metaphysical problems. Those tools are a lens through which we view metaphysical problems, and the same problems will look different when we change the lens. In this book, Theodore Sider identifies how the shift from modal to "postmodal" conceptual tools in recent years has affected the metaphysics of science and mathematics. He highlights, for instance, how the increased consideration of concepts of ground, essence, and fundamentality has transformed the debate over structuralism in many ways. Sider then examines three structuralist positions through a postmodal lens. First, nomic essentialism, which says that scientific properties are secondary and lawlike relationships among them are primary. Second, structuralism about individuals, a general position of which mathematical structuralism and structural realism are instances, which says that scientific and mathematical objects are secondary and the pattern of relations among them is primary. And third, comparativism about quantities, which says that particular values of scientific quantities, such as having exactly 1000g mass, are secondary, and quantitative relations, such as being-twice-as-massive-as, are primary. Sider concludes these discussions by considering the meta-question of when theories are equivalent and how that impacts the debate over structuralism.


The Tools of Metaphysics and the Metaphysics of Science Related Books

The Tools of Metaphysics and the Metaphysics of Science
Language: en
Pages: 246
Authors: Theodore Sider
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2020-02-19 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

GET EBOOK

Metaphysics is sensitive to the conceptual tools we choose to articulate metaphysical problems. Those tools are a lens through which we view metaphysical proble
Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science
Language: en
Pages: 273
Authors: Matthew H. Slater
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

GET EBOOK

This volume of new essays, written by leading philosophers of science, explores a broadly methodological question: what role should metaphysics play in our phil
Metametaphysics and the Sciences
Language: en
Pages: 272
Authors: Frode Kjosavik
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-10-17 - Publisher: Routledge

GET EBOOK

This collection addresses metaphysical issues at the intersection between philosophy and science. A unique feature is the way in which it is guided both by hist
Writing the Book of the World
Language: en
Pages: 333
Authors: Theodore Sider
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2011-11-24 - Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

GET EBOOK

Theodore Sider presents a broad new vision of metaphysics centred on the idea of structure. To describe the world well we must use concepts that 'carve at the j
Philosophy of the Information Society
Language: de
Pages: 330
Authors: Herbert Hrachovec
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2013-05-02 - Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

GET EBOOK

This is the second of two volumes of the proceedings from the 30th International Wittgenstein Symposium in Kirchberg, August 2007. It contains selected contribu