"Eternal Possibilities: A Neutral Ground for Meaning and Existence" builds on David Weissman's earlier" Dispositional Properties" and makes a signal contribution to the study of metaphysics. Here, broadening and enriching the point of view adopted in his earlier work, Weissman cites and criticizes a large number of theories proposed by authors from Plato to Wittgenstein and others exploring language theory and metaphysics. ""
Students of Wittgenstein will be especially interested in Mr. Weissman's critical examination of Wittgenstein's claim in the" Tractatus" that possibilities are the...
"Eternal Possibilities: A Neutral Ground for Meaning and Existence" builds on David Weissman's earlier" Dispositional Properties" and makes a signa...
In" Dispositional Properties," David Weissman attacks a problem central to the philosophy of mind and, by implication, to the theory of being: Are there potentialities, capabilities, which dispose the mind to think in one way rather than another?The volume is arranged in the form of four arguments that converge upon a single point. First, there is an intricate discussion of the shortcomings of Hume's account of mind as ideas and impressions. Next comes a brief treatment of the arguments of some of Weissman's contemporaries, including Carnap and Braithwaite. Third, Weissman discusses...
In" Dispositional Properties," David Weissman attacks a problem central to the philosophy of mind and, by implication, to the theory of being: Are the...
Moral and social philosophers often assume that humans beings are and ought to be autonomous. This tradition of individualism, or atomism, underlies many of our assumptions about ethics and law; it provides a legitimating framework for liberal democracy and free market capitalism. In this powerful book, David Weissman argues against atomistic ontologies, affirming instead that all of reality is social. Every particular is a system created by the reciprocal causal relations of its parts, he explains. Weissman formulates an original metaphysics of nature that remains true to what is known...
Moral and social philosophers often assume that humans beings are and ought to be autonomous. This tradition of individualism, or atomism, underlies m...
Traditional moral theory usually has either of two emphases: virtuous moral character or principles for distributing duties and goods. Zone Morality introduces a third focus: families and businesses are systems created by the causal reciprocities of their members. These relations embody the duties and permissions of a system's moral code. Core systems satisfy basic interests and needs; we move easily among them hardly noticing that moral demands vary from system to system. Moral conflicts arise because of discord within or among systems but also because morality has three...
Traditional moral theory usually has either of two emphases: virtuous moral character or principles for distributing duties and goods. Zone Mor...
Meaning (significance) and nature are this book's principal topics. They seem an odd couple, like raisins and numbers, though they elide when meanings of a global sort--ideologies and religions, for example--promote ontologies that subordinate nature. Setting one against the other makes reality contentious. It signifies workmates and a coal face to miners, gluons to physicists, prayer and redemption to priests. Are there many realities, or many perspectives on one? The answer I prefer is the comprehensive naturalism anticipated by Aristotle and Spinoza: "natura...
Meaning (significance) and nature are this book's principal topics. They seem an odd couple, like raisins and numbers, though they elide w...