From --Stephen Mumford -- “Metaphysics: A very short introduction”
Considerations:
-substances/substratum/ wholes vs aggregates sums/ reductionist (parts explain wholes)/ emergentism (more than sum of parts) holism/
-properties/qualities/re circle-wholly present, runs through the many/Plato’s forms (problem of Form and its relationship to the derivative form-resemblance[also a Form-infinite regress])/instantiating of/Aristotle’s immanent realism/
-particulars/ one and the same e.g./substratum view/bundle view (re properties)/united by degree of continuity/relational/ argument between everything is either properties (bundle e.g) or a particular-particulars/ complex particular (contra atomism)/ is wholly present (Aristotle) endurantism/ perdurantism-in itself no need of relation, succession of static properties/
-changes/ events-processes/ change or loss of property or within a property/ Aristotle- parts in space; parts in time/ (see endurantism-perdurantism in properties)
-causes/ most not all changes need causes (big-bang no)/ causal connection/ Hume-unobservable, part of a pattern/ other world/ Mill’s method of difference (actual/placebo control compare)/ singularism-regularity Hume/ general-particular mixup/
-relationships/relations (vav properties)/via Plato’s forms/
-possibilities/ all actual is possible (mere possibilities)/ shape interaction with world/ concrete possible worlds (like ours in some way) but abstract/ what one could have been/ recombinations/ fiction/ logically possible/ naturally possible/
-time/ (events/processes) background of/ flows/ in-itself also could mean stops-starts/ need metaphors for/ two methodologies/ spatial analogy: past, present, future properties/ presentism (how long does it last?) (absolute simultaneity vs relativity of position or viewpoint)/ subjective present/ past via present as part of its reality (properties of events?)/ sequence view - past-present in relation temporally/ big-bang chain of events - Aristotelian resemblance/ Platonist- what time did big-bang begin?/ eternalist: past,present, future all real/ now: what past and future don’t have, a POV/
-personal identity/ person: human and nonhuman (Locke)/ quality of/ has a memory/ beliefs that change (or not)/ Wittgenstein’s rope-stand analogy/ Descarte: body and mind parts; relation between spiritual (mind) and physical (body) substance; body as extension/ space occupied by what? impenatrability (solidity) body, spiritual no extension-penatrable/ dualism/ materialism-idealism/ causal interaction between spiritual-physical/ causality question/ a one-one/ memory faulty or delusional/ bodily continuity/
-nothingness/ is nothing something or not?/ absences part of reality/ univocal-it exists or doesn’t/ negative property calculations/ incompatabilities/ causation by absence (of water, say)/ reified absences re properties-particulars-existences/ nothing just a word - nothing in world makes it true/ Russell, negative facts (metaphysical concept of facts)/ everthing existing is positive fact/ assertion-denial/ “if”/ nothing-absence-lacks no part of existence/
-emergence/ particulars emerge at a higher level of reality/ qualities emerge/ how does mind emerge from bodily parts?/ life an emergent quality/ what possible is emergent?/
-Metaphysics/ concerned about nature of things in general terms/ understand fundamental nature of reality/ science truths general and concrete; metaphysical truths general and abstract/ science (physics) based on observable; metaphysics not necessarily so/ Hume dismissed metaphysics/ Kant metaphysics-description of our structure of thinking about the world/ what the world is like/ how concepts that describe world relate to each other/ scientific powers of observation exaggerated/ metaphysics at theoretical end/ what of counterintuitive or contradictory/ (me) observation limited by senses and cognitive powers/ theories based on reasoning alone insufficient/ how know anything is true/ theoretical virtues- gel with other theories, consistent.
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