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This book critically assesses arguments for the existence of the God of classical theism, develops an innovative account of objects' persistence, and defends new arguments against classical theism. The authors engage the following classical theistic proofs: Aquinas's First Way, Aquinas's De Ente argument, and Feser's Aristotelian, Neo-Platonic, Augustinian, Thomistic, and Rationalist proofs. The authors also provide the first systematic treatment of the 'existential inertia thesis'. By connecting the thesis to relativity theory and recent developments in the philosophy of physics, and by developing a variety of novel existential-inertia-friendly explanations of persistence, they mount a formidable new case against classical theistic proofs. Finally, they defend new arguments against classical theism based on abstract objects and changing divine knowledge. The text appeals to students, researchers, and others interested in classical theistic proofs, the existence and nature of God, and the ultimate explanations of persistence, change, and contingency.

Metaphysics --- Religious studies --- godsdienstfilosofie --- metafysica

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Metaphysics --- General ethics --- ethiek --- metafysica

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Amie Thomasson is one of the most important systematic philosophers of her generation. This welcome volume offers an excellent overview of her philosophical program by Thomasson herself, as well as detailed discussion of many aspects of her views on ontology by ten leading critics. The collection will be essential reading for students and researchers of Thomasson's work, and of contemporary ontology more broadly. -Professor Huw Price, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Bonn and an Emeritus Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge: Amie Thomasson is one of our most versatile, original, and interesting philosophers. This wonderfully rich volume illuminates, expands on, responds to, and engages with her work in metaphysics, conceptual engineering, ontology, semantics, metaphilosophy and philosophical methodology. -Professor Herman Cappelen, Chair Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong Amie L. Thomasson, the Daniel P. Stone Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy at Dartmouth College, has gained international recognition as a leading figure within various areas of philosophy. She has recently been celebrated as one of the most influential living philosophers for her significant contributions to metaphysics, ontology, phenomenology, and aesthetics. By engaging critically with her approach to metaphysics, modality, conceptual analysis, and the methodological issues concerning ontological questions about ordinary objects, social entities, and fictional characters, as well as including a chapter from Thomasson herself where she makes explicit the internal connections which run through her body of work, this volume delivers the first thorough discussion of Thomasson's philosophy. Miguel Garcia-Godinez is an IRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UCC, Philosophy. His main research areas are legal philosophy, social ontology, and metaethics.

Metaphysics --- Philosophy of language --- taalfilosofie --- metafysica

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Who carries the burden of proof in analytic philosophical debates, and how can this burden be satisfied? As it turns out, the answer to this joint question yields a fundamental challenge to the very conduct of metaphysics in analytic philosophy. Empirical research presented in this book indicates that the vastly predominant goal pursued in analytic philosophical dialogues lies not in discovering truths or generating knowledge, but merely in prevailing over one’s opponents. Given this goal, the book examines how most effectively to allocate and discharge the burden of proof. It focuses on premises that must prudently be avoided because a burden of proof on them could never be satisfied, and in particular discusses unsupportable bridge premises across inference barriers, like Hume’s barrier between ‘is’ and ‘ought’, or the barrier between the content of our talk or thought, and the world beyond such content. Employing this content/world barrier for a critical assessment of mainstream analytic philosophical methods, this book argues that we must prudently avoid invoking intuitions or other content of thought or talk in support of claims about the world beyond content, that is, metaphysically significant claims. Yet as content-located evidence is practically indispensable to metaphysical debates throughout analytic philosophy, from ethics to the philosophy of mathematics, this book reaches the startling conclusion that all such metaphysical debates must, prudently, be terminated. Conny Rhode’s research at the University of York focused on philosophical methodology and argumentation theory, beside forays into the philosophy of science, post-Kantian philosophy, and political and moral philosophy, often employing a feminist perspective. In light of the conclusion derived in this book, Rhode has left academic philosophy and now insists on appropriate evidence in accountancy instead.

Philosophy --- Metaphysics --- filosofie --- metafysica --- methodologieën --- Metaphysics. --- Philosophy. --- Methodology. --- Philosophical Methods.

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This book provides an original perspective on the debate about anti-representationalism and the nature of philosophy. This debate has come to prominence in recent years through the work of people like Richard Rorty, Paul Horwich, Huw Price and Amie Thomasson. It is the first book to explicitly consider this well-known pragmatist kind of anti-representationalism in relation to anti-representationalist views in other areas of philosophy, in particular the philosophy of perception and cognitive science. Taking as its point of departure the neo-pragmatism of Rorty and Price, it critiques the way these (and other) thinkers develop, on this basis, a positive view of philosophy and its remit. By examining the debate about representationalism versus anti-representationalism in perception and cognitive science it provides a different way of understanding the significance of neo-pragmatism, as well as providing an independently interesting perspective on these other debates. A central idea in this perspective involves distinguishing between a world-for-us and a world-in-itself, though in a different way from Kant and many other philosophers. The book extends these reflections to examine questions about realism and the limits of metaphysics for anti-representationalist pragmatism, arguing the view can uphold a common sense kind of realism, as well as the value of distinctively philosophical enquiry in metaphysics.

Metaphysics --- Psychology --- Philosophy of language --- taalfilosofie --- persoonlijkheidsleer --- metafysica