This book offers an in-depth and updated examination of the nature of haecceity—that primitive entity which explains why something is distinct from other things.The book begins by exploring different conceptions of haecceity throughout history. The discussion of various figures across history is important for getting clear on the nature of haecceity and its role in individuation. The next part of the book examines different views about the nature of haecceity. The author defends a ...

The book defends an account of propositions on which propositions are structured entities, built up out of properties, relations, and concrete objects. On this account, propositions exist and have truth conditions independent of human minds and linguistic activity.While this view of propositions has existed for more than 100 years, it has been under attack over the last two decades. It has come under attack from those who agree that propositions are structured but think that propos...

Are there nonexistent objects? Can we make sense of objects having properties without thinking that there are nonexistent objects? Is existence a predicate? Can we make sense of necessarily existing objects depending on God? Tackling these central questions, Matthew Davidson explores the metaphysics of existence and nonexistence.He presents an extended argument for independence actualism, a previously undefended view that objects can have properties in worlds and at times at which ...

The UK Catalysis Hub is a consortium of universities working together on fundamental and applied research to find out how catalysts work and to improve their effectiveness. The contribution of catalysis to manufacturing contributes to almost 40% of global GDP, making development and innovation within the field integral to industry.Modern Developments in Catalysis, Volume 2 provides a review and update of current research and practice on catalysis. Topics range from the treatment of...

Have you ever wondered what makes the questions a philosopher asks different from those asked by a non-philosopher? Is it a desire to seek the truth? Is it their reliance on scientific methods? Or is a philosophical question one that deals with the world we live in?For the Ancient Greek thinkers Plato and Aristotle, questions about philosophy concerned the fundamental nature of reality and how we know about it. This introduction is based on their views, boiling phi...

Perhaps no one has done more in the last 30 years to advance thinking in the metaphysics of modality than has Alvin Plantinga. Collected here are some of his most important essays on this influential subject. Dating back from the late 1960's to the present, they chronicle the development of Plantinga's thoughts about some of the most fundamental issues in metaphysics: what is the nature of abstract objects like possible worlds, properties, propositions, and such phenomena? Are there possib...

A brief account of philosophical logic from one of the world's leading authoritiesPhilosophical Logic is a clear and concise critical survey of nonclassical logics of philosophical interest written by one of the world's leading authorities on the subject. After giving an overview of classical logic, John Burgess introduces five central branches of nonclassical logic (temporal, modal, conditional, relevantistic, and intuitionistic), focusing on the sometime...

The aim of this short work is to introduce the serious student of philosophy to the work of the late Wittgenstein and to encourage some critical ways of tackling the central philosophical themes dealt with in On Certainty.Some of Wittgenstein’s central problems in On Certainty are couched in the context of his arguments against G.E. Moore’s ‘common-sense' conception of the world. We shall look at this theme with special regard to the theory of sense data and truth.In his pa...

Truth is one of the central concepts in philosophy, and has been a perennial subject of study. Michael Glanzberg has brought together 36 leading experts from around the world to produce the definitive guide to philosophical issues to do with truth. They consider how the concept of truth has been understood from antiquity to the present day, surveying major debates about truth during the emergence of analytic philosophy. They offer critical assessments of the standard theories of truth, inc...

This second edition of David-Hillel Ruben's influential and highly acclaimed book on the philosophy of explanation has been revised and expanded, and the author has made substantial changes in light of the extensive reviews the first edition received. Ruben's views on the place of laws in explanation has been refined and clarified. What is perhaps the central thesis of the book, his realist view of explanation, describing the way in which explanation depends on metaphysics, has been update...

This book offers a concise exposition of the content theory of intentionality, which lies at the root of Husserl’s phenomenology, for student and scholar. Originally published in 1982.The first part traces the history of phenomenology from its beginnings in Aristotle and Aquinas through Hume, Reid and the Brentano school to its first clear formulation in Frege and Husserl.Part two analyses some special problems involved in two important types of mental phenomena – perceptio...

Kant's monumental book the Critique of Pure Reason was arguably the most conceptually revolutionary work in the history of philosophy and its impact continues to be felt throughout philosophical debates today. However, it is a notoriously difficult work whose basic meaning and lasting philosophical significance are both subject to ongoing controversy. In this Critical Guide, an international team of leading Kant scholars addresses the challenges, clarifying Kant's basic terms and arguments...