Eliminativism in Ancient Philosophy
Eliminativism in Ancient Philosophy

Author: Ugo Zilioli

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-01-25

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 1350105171

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A comparative investigation in the metaphysics of material objects in ancient philosophy, this book provides radically new insights into key themes and areas of ancient thought by drawing on Greek and Buddhist philosophies. Ugo Zilioli explicates the neglected tradition of philosophers who in different ways made material objects either redundant or ontologically dispensable in the ancient world. Chapters cover concepts such as nihilism, indeterminacy, solipsism and tropes, demonstrating how the philosophy of major thinkers Protagoras, Vasubandhu, Gorgias, Nagarjuna, Pyrrho, and the Cyrenaics advance our understanding of eliminativism. Zilioli's historical and philosophical reconstruction challenges traditional readings of key moments and figures in the history of thought, both Eastern and Western, as well as providing conceptual tools that are of interest not only to historians of philosophy but also to contemporary metaphysicians.

Eliminativism in Ancient Philosophy
Eliminativism in Ancient Philosophy

Author: Ugo Zilioli

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-01-25

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 135010518X

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A comparative investigation in the metaphysics of material objects in ancient philosophy, this book provides radically new insights into key themes and areas of ancient thought by drawing on Greek and Buddhist philosophies. Ugo Zilioli explicates the neglected tradition of philosophers who in different ways made material objects either redundant or ontologically dispensable in the ancient world. Chapters cover concepts such as nihilism, indeterminacy, solipsism and tropes, demonstrating how the philosophy of major thinkers Protagoras, Vasubandhu, Gorgias, Nagarjuna, Pyrrho, and the Cyrenaics advance our understanding of eliminativism. Zilioli's historical and philosophical reconstruction challenges traditional readings of key moments and figures in the history of thought, both Eastern and Western, as well as providing conceptual tools that are of interest not only to historians of philosophy but also to contemporary metaphysicians.

The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Consciousness
The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Consciousness

Author: Uriah Kriegel

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 711

ISBN-13: 0198749678

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This handbook provides a panoramic view of current philosophical research on consciousness. Bringing together contributions from experts in the field, it covers the various types of consciousness, the many related psychological phenomena, and the relationship between consciousness and physical reality.

Crossing the Stream, Leaving the Cave
Crossing the Stream, Leaving the Cave

Author:

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024-05-07

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0198880901

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Crossing the Stream, Leaving the Cave brings philosophers from two of the world's great philosophical traditions--Platonic and Indian Buddhist--into joint inquiry on topics in metaphysics, epistemology, mind, language, and ethics. An international team of scholars address selected questions of mutual concern to Buddhist and Platonist: How can knowledge of reality transform us? Will such transformation leave us speechless, or disinterested in the world around us? What is cause? What is self-knowledge? And how can dreams shed light on waking cognition? What do the paradoxes thrown up by abstract thought about fundamental notions such as being and unity reveal? Is it possible to attain unity in ourselves, and should we even try? Would doing so make us happy--and is such happiness consistent with both contemplation of reality and action in the world? With close readings of texts by Buddhaghosa, Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Dignaga, Bhaviveka, Santideva; by Plato, Plotinus, Porphyry, Olympiodorus, and Damascius (among others), these studies consider not just the different answers Buddhists and Platonists might give to these questions, but also the criticisms they might bring to each other's positions, the sort of arguments they use, and the use they put these arguments to. Bringing Platonic and the Buddhist perspectives jointly to bear creates a cosmopolitan philosophical exchange which yields greater conceptual clarity on the questions and the terms in which they are cast, reveals unnoticed conceptual connections, and opens up new possibilities for addressing central philosophical concerns.

The Undivided Self
The Undivided Self

Author: David Charles

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-03-16

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 0192640887

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Aristotle initiated the systematic investigation of perception, the emotions, memory, desire and action, developing his own account of these phenomena and their interconnection. The Undivided Self aims to gain a philosophical understanding of his views and to examine how far they withstand critical scrutiny. Aristotle's account, it is argued, constitutes a philosophically live alternative to conventional post-Cartesian thinking about psychological phenomena and their place in a material world. Charles offers a way to dissolve, rather than solve, the mind-body problem we have inherited.

Matter and Consciousness
Matter and Consciousness

Author: Paul M. Churchland

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 9780262530743

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In "Matter and Consciousness," Paul Churchland clearly presents the advantages and disadvantages of such difficult issues in philosophy of mind as behaviorism, reductive materialism, functionalism, and eliminative materialism. This new edition incorporates the striking developments that have taken place in neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence and notes their expanding relevance to philosophical issues. Churchland organizes and clarifies the new theoretical and experimental results of the natural sciences for a wider philosophical audience, observing that this research bears directly on questions concerning the basic elements of cognitive activity and their implementation in real physical systems. (How is it, he asks, that living creatures perform some cognitive tasks so swiftly and easily, where computers do them only badly or not at all?) Most significant for philosophy, Churchland asserts, is the support these results tend to give to the reductive and the eliminative versions of materialism. "A Bradford Book"

Epicurus and the Singularity of Death
Epicurus and the Singularity of Death

Author: David B. Suits

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-02-06

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 1350134066

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In his Letter to Menoeceus, the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus states that 'death is nothing to us'. Few philosophers then or since have agreed with his controversial argument, upholding instead that death constitutes a deprivation and is therefore to be feared. Diverging from the current trend and sparking fresh debate, this book provides an imaginative defense of the Epicurean view of death. Drawing on Epicurus's Principal Doctrines, Lucretius's De Rerum Natura and Philodemus's De Morte, David Suits argues that the usual concepts of harm, loss and suffering no longer apply in death, thus showing how the deprivation view is flawed. He also applies Epicurean reasoning to key issues in applied ethics in order to dispute the claim that there can be a right to life, to defend egoistic friendship, and to consider how Epicureanism might handle wills and life insurance. By championing the Epicurean perspective, this book makes a valuable contribution to the contemporary philosophical debate about death.

Out of Time
Out of Time

Author: Samuel Baron

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2022-04-14

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0192688278

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The idea that time does not exist is, for many, unthinkable: time must exist. Almost every experience we have tells us so. There has been plenty of debate around what time is like, but not whether it exists. The goal of this book is to make the absence of time thinkable. Time might not exist. Beginning with an empirically flavoured examination of the 'folk' concept of time, the book explores the implications this has for our understanding of agency, and the extent to which our best physics and best metaphysics are compatible with a timeless conception of reality.

Mental Fictionalism
Mental Fictionalism

Author: Tamás Demeter

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-04-29

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 1000584003

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What are mental states? When we talk about people’s beliefs or desires, are we talking about what is happening inside their heads? If so, might cognitive science show that we are wrong? Might it turn out that mental states do not exist? Mental fictionalism offers a new approach to these longstanding questions about the mind. Its core idea is that mental states are useful fictions. When we talk about mental states, we are not formulating hypotheses about people’s inner machinery. Instead, we simply talk "as if" people had certain inner states, such as beliefs or desires, in order to make sense of their behaviour. This is the first book dedicated to exploring mental fictionalism. Featuring contributions from established authors as well as up-and-coming scholars in this burgeoning field, the book reveals the exciting potential of a fictionalist approach to the mind, as well as the challenges it faces. In doing so, it offers a fresh perspective on foundational debates in the philosophy of mind, such as the nature of mental states and folk psychology, as well as hot topics in the field, such as embodied cognition and mental representation. Mental Fictionalism: Philosophical Explorations is essential reading for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and professionals alike.

How Colours Matter to Philosophy
How Colours Matter to Philosophy

Author: Marcos Silva

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2017-11-23

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 331967398X

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This edited volume explores the different and seminal ways colours matter to philosophy. Each chapter provides an insightful analysis of one or more cases in which colours raise philosophical problems in different areas and periods of philosophy. This historically informed discussion examines both logical and linguistic aspects, covering such areas as the mind, aesthetics and the foundations of mathematics. The international contributors look at traditional epistemological and metaphysical issues on the subjectivity and objectivity of colours. In addition, they also assess phenomenological problems typical of the continental tradition and contemporary problems in the philosophy of mind. The chapters include coverage of such topics as Newton’s and Goethe’s theory of light and colours, how primary qualities are qualitative and colours are primary, explaining colour phenomenology, and colour in cognition, language and philosophy. "This book beautifully prepares the ground for the next steps in our research on and philosophising about colour" Daniel D. Hutto (University of Wollongong) "It is not an overstatement to say that How Colours to Philosophy is a ground breaking publication" Mazviita Chirimuuta (University of Pittsburgh) "Anyone interested in philosophical issues about color will find it highly stimulating." Martine Nida-Rümelin (Université de Fribourg) "The high quality papers included in this anthology succeed admirably in enriching current philosophical thinking about colour” Erik Myin (University of Antwerp) “This is certainly the most complete collection of philosophical essays on colours ever published” André Leclerc (University of Brasília) “All in all this collections represents a new milestone in the ongoing philosophical debate on colours and colour expressions” Ingolf Max (University of Leipzig)