Predication and Ontology
Predication and Ontology

Author: Alexander Kalbarczyk

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2018-08-06

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 3110591707

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In Predication and Ontology A. Kalbarczyk provides the first monograph-length study of the Arabic reception of Aristotle’s Categories. At the center of attention is the critical reappraisal of that treatise by Ibn Sīnā (d. 428 AH/1037 AD), better known in the Latin West as Avicenna. Ibn Sīnā’s reading of the Categories is examined in the context of his wider project of rearranging the transmitted body of philosophical knowledge. Against the background of the late ancient commentary tradition and subsequent exegetical efforts, Ibn Sīnā’s Kitāb al-Maqūlāt of the Šifāʾ is interpreted as a milestone in the gradual reshuffle of the relationship between logic proper and ontology. In order to assess the philosophical impact of this realignment, some of the subsequent developments in Ibn Sīnā’s writings and in the emerging post-Avicennian tradition are also taken into account. The thematic focus lies on the two fundamental classification schemes which Aristotle introduces in the treatise: the fourfold division of Cat. 2 ("of a subject"/"in a subject") and the tenfold scheme of Cat. 4 (i.e., substance and the nine genera of accidents). They both pose the question of whether and how the manner in which an expression is predicated relates to extra-linguistic reality. As the study intends to show, this question is one of the driving forces of Ibn Sīnā’s momentous reform of the Aristotelian curriculum. This monograph has been awarded the Iran World Award for Book of the Year (2020).

Metaphysics or Ontology?
Metaphysics or Ontology?

Author: Piotr Jaroszyński

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-02-12

Total Pages: 482

ISBN-13: 9004359877

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Metaphysics or Ontology? treats the evolution of the object of metaphysics from being, to the concept of being, to, finally, the object (thought). Possible being must be non-contradictory, but an object of thought includes anything a human being can think, including contradictions and nothingness. When the concept of being, or object of thought, replaces existence as the object of metaphysics, it becomes something other than metaphysics—ontology, or something beyond ontology. However, ontology cannot examine existence because it only investigates concepts and possibility. Only classical metaphysics investigates reality qua reality. This book masterfully treats the history of this controversy and many other important metaphysical questions raised over the centuries

Philosophy and Logic of Predication
Philosophy and Logic of Predication

Author: Piotr Stalmaszczyk

Publisher: Studies in Philosophy of Language and Linguistics

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783631669204

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This book investigates philosophical and formal approaches to predication. The topics discussed include Aristotelian predication, a conceptualist approach to predication, possible formalizations of the notion, Fregean predicates and concepts, and Meinongian predication. The contributions discuss the approaches proposed by Aristotle and Frege, as well as the division of classes into a hierarchy of orders. They reanalyze the traditional notions, and offer new insights into predication theory. This book contributes to contemporary debates on predication and predicates in the philosophy of language.

Aristotle on Ontological Priority in the Categories
Aristotle on Ontological Priority in the Categories

Author: Ana Laura Edelhoff

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-11-19

Total Pages: 141

ISBN-13: 1108875092

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The main objective of this Element is to reconstruct Aristotle's view on the nature of ontological priority in the Categories. Over the last three decades, investigations into ontological dependence and priority have become a major concern in contemporary metaphysics. Many see Aristotle as the originator of these discussions and, as a consequence, there is considerable interest in his own account of ontological dependence. In light of the renewed interest in Aristotelian metaphysics, it will be worthwhile - both historically and systematically - to return to Aristotle himself and to see how he himself conceived of ontological priority (what he calls 'priority in substance' [proteron kata ousian] or 'priority in nature' [proteron tēi phusei]), which is to be understood as a form of asymmetric ontological dependence.

Substance and Attribute
Substance and Attribute

Author: Michael J. Loux

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 9400998740

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In this book I address a dichotomy that is as central as any in ontology - that between ordinary objects or substances and the various attributes (Le. , properties, kinds, and relations) we associate with them. My aim is to arrive at the correct philosophical account of each member of the dichotomy. What I shall argue is that the various attempts to understand substances or attri butes in reductive terms fail. Talk about attributes, I shall try to show, is just that - talk about attributes; and, likewise, talk about substances is just tha- talk about substances. The result is what many will find a strange combina tion of views - a Platonistic theory of attributes, where attributes are univer sals or multiply exemplifiable entities whose existence is independent of "the world of flux", and an Aristotelian theory of substance, where substances are basic unities not reducible to metaphysically more fundamental kinds of things. Part One is concerned with the ontology of attributes. After distinguishing three different patterns of metaphysical thinking about attributes, I examine, in turn, the phenomena of predication, resemblance, and higher order quanti fication. I argue that none of these phenomena by itself is sufficient to establish the inescapability of a Platonistic interpretation of attributes. Then, I discuss the phenomenon of abstract reference as it is exhibited in the use of abstract singular terms.

Robust Reality
Robust Reality

Author: George Englebretsen

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2013-05-02

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 3110325829

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Contemporary analytic philosophy can generally be characterized by the following tendencies: commitment to first-order predicate logic as the only viable formal logic; rejection of correspondence theories of truth; a view of existence as something expressed by the existential quantifier; a metaphysics that doesn’t give the world as a whole its due. This book seeks to offer an alternative analytic theory, one that provides a unified account of what there is, how we speak about it, the underlying logic of our language, how the truth of what we say is determined, and the central role of the real world in all of this. The result is a robust account of reality. The inspiration for many of the ideas that constitute this overall theory comes from such sources as Aristotle, Leibniz, Ryle, and Sommers.

C. D. Broad's Ontology of Mind
C. D. Broad's Ontology of Mind

Author: L. Nathan Oaklander

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2013-05-02

Total Pages: 117

ISBN-13: 3110326876

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C. D. Broad's writing on various philosophical issues spans more than half a century. Rather than attempt to trace the development of his thought throughout these fifty years this book considers his most representative work, namely, The Mind and Its Place in Nature. Nor does the scope of this study encompass the whole of that book, but only some of the issues he discusses in it. Specifically, Oaklander considers what Broad has to say about such fundamental issues as substance, universals, relations, space, time, and intentionality in the contexts of perception, memory and introspection. L. Nathan Oaklander studied philosophy at the university of Iowa. He is a student of Gustav Bergmann, one of the most distinguished ontologist in 20th century philosophy.

Ontology
Ontology

Author: Dale Jacquette

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-12-18

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 1317489586

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The philosophical study of what exists and what it means for something to exist is one of the core concerns of metaphysics. This introduction to ontology provides readers with a comprehensive account of the central ideas of the subject of being. This book is divided into two parts. The first part explores questions of pure philosophical ontology: what is meant by the concept of being, why there exists something rather than nothing, and why there is only one logically contingent actual world. Dale Jacquette shows how logic provides the only possible answers to these fundamental problems. The second part of the book examines issues of applied scientific ontology. Jacquette offers a critical survey of some of the most influential traditional ontologies, such as the distinction between appearance and reality, and the categories of substance and transcendence. The ontology of physical entities - space, time, matter and causation - is examined as well as the ontology of abstract entities such as sets, numbers, properties, relations and propositions. The special problems posed by the subjectivity of mind and of postulating a god are also explored in detail. The final chapter examines the ontology of culture, language and art.

Ontology in Early Neoplatonism
Ontology in Early Neoplatonism

Author: Riccardo Chiaradonna

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2023-08-07

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 3110986396

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Neoplatonists from Plotinus onward incorporate Aristotle’s logic and ontology into their philosophies: this process is of both intrinsic and historical interest and paves the way for subsequent philosophical debates in the Middle Ages and beyond. The ten essays collected in this book focus on the readings of Aristotle by Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus in the 3rd and 4th centuries. Their discussions cover key issues in the history of logic and metaphysics such as substance, hylomorphism, causation, existence, and predication. Among the topics tackled in this volume are Plotinus’ criticism of Aristotle’s physical essentialism, which is a major chapter in the history of metaphysics, and the interpretation of Porphyry’s Isagoge, one of the most influential and enigmatic works in the history of philosophy. Further essays focus on the readings of Aristotle’s categories developed by Porphyry and Iamblichus, which raise interesting questions at the intersection of logic and ontology, and on the integration of Aristotle’s ontology into Neoplatonist accounts of being and existence.