Time, Identity and the Self: Essays on Metaphysics

ISBN-13: 9783030855192 / Angielski / Miękka / 2023 / 226 str.

Brian Garrett; Jeremiah Joven Joaquin

Opis

This volume contains twenty-four essays by the British/Australian analytic metaphysician, Brian Garrett. These essays are followed by four short dialogues that emphasize and summarize some of the main points of the essays and discuss new perspectives that have emerged since their original publication.

The volume covers topics on the metaphysics of time, the nature of identity, and the nature and importance of persons and human beings. The chapters constitute the fruits of almost four decades of philosophical research, from Brian’s two award-winning essays, published in Analysis in 1983 and The Philosophical Quarterly in 1992, to his latest ideas about Fatalism and the Grandfather Paradox.

This book will be of interest to students and professional philosophers in the field of analytic philosophy.

Spis treści

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgement

Part I. Time

1. "Thank Goodness that’s Over” Revisited

1.1 Prior’s Puzzle and the Two Views about the Nature of Time

1.2 Responses to Prior’s Puzzle

1.3 A Riposte

1.4 Concluding Remarks

References

2. Experience and Time

2.1 Justifying our Bias towards the Present

2.2 Value and the Metaphysics of Time

2.3 Concluding Remarks

References

3. Max Black and Backward Causation

3.1 Black’s Main Claim

3.2 Black’s Two Arguments

3.3 Analysing Black’s Arguments

References

4. Dummett on Reasons to Act and Bringing about the Past

4.1 Introduction

4.2 Dissecting Dummett’s Argument

4.3 The Second Sceptical Argument

4.4 The Third Sceptical Argument

4.5 Conclusion

References

5. Dummett on McTaggart’s Proof of the Unreality of Time

5.1 Introduction

5.2 McTaggart’s Argument

5.3 Temporal versus Spatial Immersion

5.4 Observer-independence

References

6. A Note on the Grandfather Paradox

6.1 Lewis’s Theory

6.2 Against Lewis’s Theory

6.3 Conclusion

References

7. Bulletproof Grandfathers, David Lewis, and ‘Can’t’-Judgements

7.1 A General Argument

7.2 Misapplied Contextualism

7.3 A Time Symmetry Argument

7.4 Alternative Arguments

7.5 Concluding Remarks

References

8. A Dilemma for Eternalists

8.1 Introduction

8.2 The Dilemma

8.3 Some Options

8.4 An Upshot

References

Part II. Identity

9. Identity and Extrinsicness

9.1 Introduction

9.2 Setting Up the Problem

9.3 Mackie on Best-Candidate Theories of Identity

9.4 Assessing Mackie

9.5 Conclusion

References

10. Best Candidate Theories and Identity

10.1 Introduction

10.2 Best-Candidate Theories of Identity

10.3 Brennan’s Interpretation

10.4 Assessing Brennan’s Response

10.5 Final Words

References

11 PossibleWorlds and Identity

11.1 Introduction

11.2 Forbes’s Cases

11.3 On Forbes’s Grounded Transworld Identities

11.4 Conclusion

References

12. Vague Identity and Vague Objects

12.1 Getting Clear about the Vague Identity Thesis

12.2 Considering The Ship of Theseus

12.3 Evans’s Proof

12.4 Responses to Evans’s Proof

12.5 The Correct Response to Evans’s Proof

12.6 A General Result

12.7 Conclusion

References

13. More on Rigidity and Scope

13.1 More’s Thesis

13.2 More’s Arguments

13.3 Why More’s Arguments Fail

13.4 Conclusion

References

14. Enduring Endurantism

14.1 Barker and Dowe’s First Argument

14.2 Barker and Dowe’s Second Argument

14.3 Barker and Dowe’s Third Argument

14.4 Conclusion

References

15. Identity of Truth-Conditions

15.1 Analysis Problem no. 19

15.2 The Solution

References

Part III. The Self

16. Some Notes on Animalism

16.1 Animalism

16.2 Why Animalism is True

16.3 Why Animalism can’t be True

16.4 A Familiar Analogy

16.5 Conclusion

References

17. Persons and Human Beings

17.1 The Lockean Conception of Person

17.2 The Animal Attribute Conception of Persons

17.3 Evaluating the Two Conceptions of Persons

17.4 Conclusion

References

18. The Story of ‘I’: Comments on Rudder-Baker’s Constitution View of Persons

18.1 Introduction

18.2 Rudder-Baker on Self-Consciousness and the First-Person

18.3 Rudder-Baker on the First-Person Perspective

18.4 A General Worry about Rudder-Baker’s View

18.5 Rudder-Baker on Personal Identity

18.6 Rudder-Baker on the Determinancy of Personal Identity

18.7 Rudder-Baker on Human Persons

References

19. Personal Identity and Extrinsicness

19.1 Introduction

19.2 Wiggins on the Case of Division

19.3 The Challenge of Division

19.4 Best-Candidate Theories and the “Only a and b” Condition

19.5 Extrinsicness of Personal Identity

19.6 Concluding Remarks

References

20. Personal Identity and Reductionism

20.1 Introduction

20.2 What Ontological Reduction Is

20.3 Ontological Reduction of Persons

20.4 Reductionism and What Matters

References

21. Bermúdez on Self-Consciousness

21.1 Introduction

21.2 Self-consciousness, ‘I’-thoughts, and the Deflationary Theory

21.3 Critique

21.4 Conclusion and Further Work

References

22. Anscombe on ‘I’

22.1 Introduction

22.2 Anscombe’s Challenge

22.3 The Tank Argument

22.4 Supporting the Referential View

References

23. Wittgenstein on the First-Person

23.1 The Problem with ‘I’-Judgements

23.2 Wittgenstein on the Two Uses of ‘I’

23.3 Analysing Wittgenstein’s View

23.4 The ‘I’-as-subject and Self-Consciousness

References

24. Persons and Values

24.1 Theories of Values and the Definition of ‘Person’

24.2 The Case of Derek Parfit

24.3 Two Theses about Personal Identity and What Matters

24.4 The Argument from Analysis

24.5 The Argument from Division

24.6 The Argument from Reductionism

24.7 Conclusion

References

Part IV. Afterthoughts

25. About Time

References

26. Affecting the Past

References

27. Of Identity

References

28. On Personal Identity

References

Index

O autorze

​Brian Garrett is a Professor at the School of Philosophy, The Australian National University. He specializes in analytic philosophy and metaphysics. He is the author of What is this thing called metaphysics? (Routledge, 2006; 2011; 2016), Elementary Logic (Acumen, 2012), and Personal Identity and Self-Consciousness (Routledge, 1998). He has published articles in top philosophy journals, like Mind, Analysis, The Philosophical Quarterly, and the Australasian Journal of Philosophy. 

Jeremiah Joven Joaquin is an Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines, where he is also a Research Fellow at the Southeast Asian Research Center and Hub and a Research Affiliate at the Center for Language Technologies. He specializes in metaphysics and logic. Presently, he is the President of the Philosophical Association of the Philippines and the founding Secretary-General of the Union of Societies and Associations of Philosophy in the Philippines.