A Metaphysics of Ordinary Things and Why We Need It

Philosophy ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynne Rudder Baker
Keyword(s):  
The World ◽  
Temporal Parts

AbstractMainstream metaphysicians today take little ontological interest in the world as we interact with it. They interpret the variety of things in the world as variety only of concepts applied to things that are basically of the same sort—e.g., sums of particles or temporal parts of particles. I challenge this approach by formulating and defending for a contrasting line of thought. Using what I call ‘the Constitution View,’ I argue that ordinary things (like screwdrivers and walnuts) are as ontologically significant as particles. I further argue for why we need recourse to such ordinary things in our basic ontology.

scholarly journals Is Sider still a perdurantist?

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 111-125
Author(s):  
Nikola Stamenkovic
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Fundamental Level ◽  
Mereological Nihilism ◽  
The World ◽  
Mereological Fusion ◽  
Temporal Parts ◽  
Theodore Sider ◽  
Four Dimensionalism ◽  
Additional Object

In Writing the Book of the World (2011) Theodore Sider claims that on the fundamental level of reality there are no objects composed of parts, which makes his view a version of mereological nihilism. However, in his previous book entitled Four-Dimensionalism (2001), Sider endorses mereological universalism, the thesis that every class of objects has a mereological fusion, i.e. that there exists an additional object containing those objects as parts, which plays a crucial role in his argument from vagueness in favour of perdurantism, that is the thesis of the existence of temporal parts of material objects. In this paper I will investigate whether Sider can still be a perdurantist in spite of his latest commitment to mereological nihilism.

scholarly journals Egy fenomenológiai ellenérv a perdurantizmussal szemben

KÜLÖNBSÉG ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
László Bernáth
Keyword(s):  
Unified Model ◽  
Theory Of Change ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Temporal Parts ◽  
The Mind

The paper explicates an argument against a perdurantist theory of change. Perdurantism explains change by positing temporal parts in the past, the present, and the future. The aim of the counterargument is to show that this theory is not plausible as a unified model of change: as soon as it is extended to the mind, its direct implication will be the idea that one suffers from radical misunderstanding of how the world appears to him/her. This notion of radical misunderstanding is hard to believe, as a phenomenon is directly accessible to one as a phenomenon.

scholarly journals Mutability and Relationality: Towards an African Four-Dimensionalist Pan-Psychism

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 1094
Author(s):  
Luis Cordeiro-Rodrigues
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Theory ◽  
Relational Properties ◽  
The World ◽  
Temporal Parts ◽  
Indiscernibility Of Identicals

This article challenges a certain Theist conception of God as immutable. I argue that the idea that God is immutable can be challenged on the grounds of its metaphysical groundwork. More precisely, I contend that the idea that God is immutable entails endurantism, which I demonstrate to be mistaken. This view cannot be right because it potentially involves three absurd implications: (a) a violation of the principle of the Indiscernibility of Identicals (b) the idea that God becomes a different God with any change that occurs (c) the view that only the present is real and there is no future and past. As these solutions are absurd, the endurantist view ought to be abandoned. I then suggest an alternative theory that does not meet the same problems, which I call African four-dimensionalist Pan-Psychism. This theory I advance maintains that God is the sum of His spatial and temporal parts, is mutable and has relational properties (e.g., He changes with the occurrence of evil or good in the world). I uphold that this view does not have the absurd implications of its competitors.

A pragmatist philosophy of psychological science and its implications for replication

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Gantman ◽  
Robin Gomila ◽  
Joel E. Martinez ◽  
J. Nathan Matias ◽  
Elizabeth Levy Paluck ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
William James ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Psychological Science ◽  
Behavioral Measurement ◽  
The World ◽  
Pragmatist Philosophy

AbstractA pragmatist philosophy of psychological science offers to the direct replication debate concrete recommendations and novel benefits that are not discussed in Zwaan et al. This philosophy guides our work as field experimentalists interested in behavioral measurement. Furthermore, all psychologists can relate to its ultimate aim set out by William James: to study mental processes that provide explanations for why people behave as they do in the world.

Culture and the plasticity of perception

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Lifshitz ◽  
T. M. Luhrmann
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
The World

Abstract Culture shapes our basic sensory experience of the world. This is particularly striking in the study of religion and psychosis, where we and others have shown that cultural context determines both the structure and content of hallucination-like events. The cultural shaping of hallucinations may provide a rich case-study for linking cultural learning with emerging prediction-based models of perception.

Let's call a memory a memory, but what kind?

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nazim Keven
Keyword(s):  
Episodic Memory ◽  
Animal Cognition ◽  
The World

Abstract Hoerl & McCormack argue that animals cannot represent past situations and subsume animals’ memory-like representations within a model of the world. I suggest calling these memory-like representations as what they are without beating around the bush. I refer to them as event memories and explain how they are different from episodic memory and how they can guide action in animal cognition.

Rotational Characteristics of the Green Solar Corona: 1947-1991

1994 ◽  
Vol 144 ◽  
pp. 139-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Rybák ◽  
V. Rušin ◽  
M. Rybanský
Keyword(s):  
Solar Corona ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Rotation Period ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Coronal Emission ◽  
Time Intervals ◽  
Data Set ◽  
The World ◽  
Coronal Emission Line ◽  
Homogeneous Data

AbstractFe XIV 530.3 nm coronal emission line observations have been used for the estimation of the green solar corona rotation. A homogeneous data set, created from measurements of the world-wide coronagraphic network, has been examined with a help of correlation analysis to reveal the averaged synodic rotation period as a function of latitude and time over the epoch from 1947 to 1991.The values of the synodic rotation period obtained for this epoch for the whole range of latitudes and a latitude band ±30° are 27.52±0.12 days and 26.95±0.21 days, resp. A differential rotation of green solar corona, with local period maxima around ±60° and minimum of the rotation period at the equator, was confirmed. No clear cyclic variation of the rotation has been found for examinated epoch but some monotonic trends for some time intervals are presented.A detailed investigation of the original data and their correlation functions has shown that an existence of sufficiently reliable tracers is not evident for the whole set of examinated data. This should be taken into account in future more precise estimations of the green corona rotation period.

Where in the world is the hip hop nation?

Popular Music ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-245
Author(s):  
Inez H. Templeton
Keyword(s):  
Hip Hop ◽  
The World

Scanning electron microscopy of freeze-fractured prescapular lymph node of caprine

1984 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 244-245
Author(s):  
O. Faroon ◽  
F. Al-Bagdadi ◽  
T. G. Snider ◽  
C. Titkemeyer
Keyword(s):  
Lymph Node ◽  
Lymph Nodes ◽  
Lymphatic System ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Meat Products ◽  
The Body ◽  
Morphological Data ◽  
The World ◽  
Cellular Constituent ◽  
Scanning Electron

The lymphatic system is very important in the immunological activities of the body. Clinicians confirm the diagnosis of infectious diseases by palpating the involved cutaneous lymph node for changes in size, heat, and consistency. Clinical pathologists diagnose systemic diseases through biopsies of superficial lymph nodes. In many parts of the world the goat is considered as an important source of milk and meat products.The lymphatic system has been studied extensively. These studies lack precise information on the natural morphology of the lymph nodes and their vascular and cellular constituent. This is due to using improper technique for such studies. A few studies used the SEM, conducted by cutting the lymph node with a blade. The morphological data collected by this method are artificial and do not reflect the normal three dimensional surface of the examined area of the lymph node. SEM has been used to study the lymph vessels and lymph nodes of different animals. No information on the cutaneous lymph nodes of the goat has ever been collected using the scanning electron microscope.

Ultrastructure of neuromuscular relationships in the canine heartworm (dirofilaria immitis)

1986 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 278-279
Author(s):  
W. L. Steffens ◽  
Nancy B. Roberts ◽  
J. M. Bowen
Keyword(s):  
Dirofilaria Immitis ◽  
Domestic Dogs ◽  
Structural Description ◽  
Pharmacological Effects ◽  
Free Living ◽  
Canine Heartworm ◽  
The World ◽  
Synaptic Region ◽  
Muscle Innervation ◽  
Insight Into

The canine heartworm is a common and serious nematode parasite of domestic dogs in many parts of the world. Although nematode neuroanatomy is fairly well documented, the emphasis has been on sensory anatomy and primarily in free-living soil species and ascarids. Lee and Miller reported on the muscular anatomy in the heartworm, but provided little insight into the peripheral nervous system or myoneural relationships. The classical fine-structural description of nematode muscle innervation is Rosenbluth's earlier work in Ascaris. Since the pharmacological effects of some nematacides currently being developed are neuromuscular in nature, a better understanding of heartworm myoneural anatomy, particularly in reference to the synaptic region is warranted.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document