Electric Agora (archive)

Tag: Ontology

  • What’s Money?

    by Robert Gressis ____ David Dick (of the University of Calgary) and Robert Gressis talk about the differences between American and Canadian universities (as usual, the Canadians use funny words); what it’s like to teach in a business school (David often has to sprinkle ethics on papers); David’s research in the philosophy of money (does…

  • Four Lectures on danto

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ The complete lecture notes and video for my unit on Danto, in my upper-division Aesthetics course, PHI 320. Danto 1 ____ In my view Danto’s Transfiguration of the Commonplace represents the most sophisticated, best effort to define ‘art’ in what I have called “the New Wave” in the Philosophy of…

  • Prolegomena for a Pluralist Metaphysics: Concluding Thoughts

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ The aim of these prolegomena has been to advocate on behalf of a pluralist metaphysics, but what is a metaphysics? Prior to the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries, a metaphysics was a First Philosophy: a set of propositions the purpose of which is to describe…

  • Discussions with Crispin on the Prolegomena: Vol. 1

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ____ The first of what will be several dialogues with Crispin Sartwell (Dickinson College) on my Prolegomena for a Pluralist Metaphysics. https://youtu.be/AVU-vDtJoIo

  • Prolegomena for a Pluralist Metaphysics: Ontological Commitment

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ My working idea in these prolegomena is that (a) philosophers feel forced to embrace various “desperate” positions (Panpsychism, Dualism, Illusionism, etc.), because of a number of (often venerated) assumptions that they’ve taken on board, all of which happen to be wrong, and (b) the re-examination of those assumptions, within the…

  • Bits and Pieces – ‘Physical’; ‘Material’; ‘Exists’; ‘Real’

    by Daniel A. Kaufman ___ Lately, I’ve been doing some work on Physicalism and social reality (1), suggesting that taking the latter seriously means that the former has to be false, and it seems to me that much of the reluctance people have expressed – and which pushes so many philosophers to insist on Physicalism…

  • Bits and Pieces — ‘Exists’ / ‘Real’

    by Daniel A. Kaufman 1. You are talking with a friend who is, perhaps, a bit too taken with superhero comics. Halfway into an enthusiastic speech regarding the virtues of Captain America, you say to him gently, “You do realize that Captain America doesn’t exist, right?” What effect is this supposed to have on him?…

  • Doctor Who and the Ontology of the Fictional Character

    by E. John Winner Philosophical background This is not a text of philosophy, but it would be remiss not to note some of the philosophical background to the issues raised.  One of the problems with that background is that in the kind of discussion we’ll be having here, we will naturally be making claims regarding…

  • Concepts, Existence and Social Reality

    by Mark English Different kinds of implicit or explicit claims about what exists are best understood, as I see it, in a piecemeal way, by looking at how words are used both in the context of specific disciplines and in ordinary communication. In various pieces published on this site, Daniel Kaufman has elaborated a somewhat…

  • Selves and Social Ontology

    by Daniel A. Kaufman The ongoing philosophical (and to a good extent, the scientific) discussion of selves is in very poor shape, much like the discussion concerning minds and for much the same reason. We talk as if selves are things, and of course, they are, but the sense of ‘thing’ that most seem to…