Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology 1st Edition by David Chalmers (PDF)

Description

Metaphysics asks questions about existence: for example, do numbers really exist? Metametaphysics asks questions about metaphysics: for example, do its questions have determinate answers? If so, are these answers deep and important, or are they merely a matter of how we use words? What is the proper methodology for their resolution? These questions have received a heightened degree of attention lately with new varieties of ontological deflationism and pluralism challenging the kind of realism that has become orthodoxy in contemporary analytic metaphysics. This volume concerns the status and ambitions of metaphysics as a discipline. It brings together many of the central figures in the debate with their most recent work on the semantics, epistemology, and methodology of metaphysics.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Metametaphysics is an excellent collection of papers about the nature and methodology of metaphysics written by the subject’s movers and shakers. It will be of great interest to anyone enamored, repulsed, or mystified by metaphysics.” –Philosophical Review”[E]ven if you’re not a metaphysician — indeed, even if you’re deeply suspicious of metaphysics — Metametaphysics is interesting…. Metametaphysics hosts a debate that is much more nuanced than a simple ‘skeptics vs. enthusiasts’ dichotomy. Skepticism about metaphysics can take different forms and come in different degrees. It is also, unsurprisingly, resistible in a variety of ways. Metametaphysics develops many of the central issues in this dialectic, making it essential reading, not just for the metaphysician, but for the skeptic about metaphysics as well.”–Elizabeth Barnes, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews About the Author David Chalmers is Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University. He works in the philosophy of mind and in related areas of philosophy and cognitive science. He is especially interested in consciousness, but is also interested in artificial intelligence and computation, in philosophical issues about meaning and possibility, and in the foundations of cognitive science and of physics. David Manley is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California. His papers in metaphysics and epistemology have appeared in such journals as Mind, The Journal of Philosophy, Nous>, and Philosophical Quarterly. Ryan Wasserman is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Western Washington University.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Real philosophy for the philosophical consumer.This collection of essays puts together some of the greatest minds in contemporary philosophy.The topics are well-chosen, and the guidance it provides is golden.On first assessment, the article I most noticed was a piece on foundationalism which was invigorating and very helpful.All of this coming from someone who writes books on philosophy himself.

⭐The misprinting on the cover has dampened what would otherwise be an incredible experience. The book itself is fine and the prints have no defects, but this is not the quality expected of a $150 hardcover book.

⭐chalmers is a philosophy heavyweight now

⭐This book brings together those at the forefront of metaphysics, and all of the papers are top-notch. I can’t possibly do as good a job as Elizabeth Barnes did in her NDPR review, so go read that.

⭐excellent text and service

⭐It is a well-known fact that metaphysics has no official meaning in modern philosophy. You would think that a book like this would seek to rectify that, but it fails entirely. Mind you, I don’t mean to say that the arguments are fallacious. I mean the overall writing style is objectively terrible. It’s as if the greatest thinkers in modern philosophy never even bothered to take a basic course in technical writing. Each chapter reads more like a incoherent stream of consciousness rather than any serious attempt to do philosophy. They never contextualize the subject, they make no problem statements, they don’t give any overview of previous attempts to solve such problems, they make no recognizable attempt to solve anything new, and they don’t follow any specific methodology along the way. If these authors were students in any of my classes, I would immediately fail them for writing such pretentious word salad.Books like this are a symptom of a much greater problem in modern philosophy: It has no standards. People can just vomit words onto paper, and the rest of the community stands back in awe at the brilliance. It’s like a modern academic equivalent to the emperor with no clothes. The language is designed almost intentionally to sound obscure and pretentious, and so most people who read it only blame themselves for their failure to glean any message from it. They never stop to ask themselves if maybe the author is the one who is failing to communicate a meaningful idea. I genuinely feel sorry for anyone who actually read this thing cover-to-cover. It is not a respectable work, and the authors should be ashamed of their failure to do serious philosophy.

⭐When you read philosophy beyond the classics you notice right away that much of what is written is not for the purpose of developing novel theories but rather in the way of addressing (critically or otherwise) what others in the field have already asserted. This book is an excellent example of that process. Many of its 17 papers comment directly on one another.The collection broadly addresses two questions: What is metaphysics really about, and can metaphysics accomplish anything apart from intellectual gymnastics? The first theme is further decomposed into questions of what exists, how things exist, what grounds the reality (what makes it real) of what exists, and what is the structure of the world? There are papers addressing each of these over-lapping issues while other papers tackle the matter of whether any genuine insight can be had in metaphysics (particularly ontology) which, after all, is ultimately an attempt to uncover what is real in the world external to consciousness while bearing in mind that we (that is those making the attempt) are at all times trapped within the conscious perspective.Drs. Chalmers and Manley have assembled a diverse and illustrative collection of viewpoints on this specialized and understandably misunderstood sub-discipline of philosophy. All of the papers rely on some familiarity with the fundamentals of metaphysics and the way philosophical debate is conducted. Most are easily accessible with a little careful reading while a few are a little more technical. But on the whole this is a very accessible collection well worth the read if you have an interest in the subject.

⭐存在論というものをどう考えるかということを、十七人もの寄稿者が、いろいろな立場から語ってくれている本です。私自身は非常にこの本から得るものが多かったと思うのですが、私と同様の読み方をする人間がどの程度いるものかあまり自信が持てないので、以下は個人的なつぶやきです。（もっと参考になるレビューを書いてくださる方が現れることを祈ります） 私はどんな分野の本も文学的に読んでしまう人間なので、非常に偏見にとらわれやすい。たとえばペンローズの人柄には好感が持てたので、彼の言うことに強く惹かれたのですが、一方ホフスタッターの本には、彼のワンマンショーを読者に見せたがっている意図しか感じられなかったので、とにかくその言うことを頭から拒絶したくなりました。哲学の本も同様で、クワインやカルナップには、頭の悪い読者に教えを垂れてやるのだというような傲岸な態度が行間に感じ取れ、読むのが苦痛で仕方なかった（大学で頭の悪い生徒を相手にしていたのでしょうかね）。読者を瞞着しようとするあるイズムに属する人々や、自己を神秘化するあれやこれやは論外です。冷静に読めば、きっと参考になることがいっぱい書いてあるはずなのでしょうが。 この本には、ある立場から書かれたものがあれば、必ずそれに反対する立場のものもあります。もちろんカルナップやクワインをうけつぐ意見もあるわけです。説得されてしまうわけではないが、どれもがそれなりの正しさがあると感じました。すべての寄稿者が熱心かつ謙虚に語ってくれているからでしょうか、こちらも素直に膝を正して聞きました。すでに三度読みましたが、まだ十分に理解できたとは言えません。しかし蒙が啓かれるというのは、このことだと思いました。自分の知見の狭さと人格の低劣さを、同時に知らされたような具合です（いや、それは両方ともわかってはいたのですが）。 一つ一つは短いので、表面的な考察に終わってしまうのではないかと思う人もあるでしょうが、その心配は無用です。正反対の立場に、それぞれ頭を一度空にして説得されてみる経験というのは、念入りで一面的な理論に接する以上に有用でありうると感じました。

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