About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherMIT Press

ISBN-100262513331

ISBN-139780262513333

eBay Product ID (ePID)73168445

Product Key Features

Number of Pages232 Pages

Publication NameAustere Realism : Contextual Semantics Meets Minimal Ontology

LanguageEnglish

SubjectLinguistics / Semantics, General, Metaphysics, Movements / Realism

Publication Year2009

TypeTextbook

AuthorTerence E. Horgan, Matjaz Potrc

Subject AreaPhilosophy, Language Arts & Disciplines

SeriesRepresentation and Mind Ser.

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.4 in

Item Weight11.1 Oz

Item Length8.7 in

Item Width5.7 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional

Dewey Edition22

Reviews"Though Horgan and PotrÄ�'s ontological conclusions are radical, their reasoning is impeccable and comes with a good dose of reflection on the best way of choosing an ontology. This book is an important contribution to the growing literature in metametaphysics." -Josh Parsons, Philosophy Department, Otago University

Grade FromCollege Graduate Student

IllustratedYes

Dewey Decimal149/.2

SynopsisA provocative ontological-cum-semantic position asserting that the right ontology is austere in its exclusion of numerous common-sense and scientific posits and that many statements employing such posits are nonetheless true., A provocative ontological-cum-semantic position asserting that the right ontology is austere in its exclusion of numerous common-sense and scientific posits and that many statements employing such posits are nonetheless true. The authors of Austere Realism describe and defend a provocative ontological-cum-semantic position, asserting that the right ontology is minimal or austere, in that it excludes numerous common-sense posits, and that statements employing such posits are nonetheless true, when truth is understood to be semantic correctness under contextually operative semantic standards. Terence Horgan and Matjaz Potrc argue that austere realism emerges naturally from consideration of the deep problems within the naive common-sense approach to truth and ontology. They offer an account of truth that confronts these deep internal problems and is independently plausible: contextual semantics, which asserts that truth is semantically correct affirmability. Under contextual semantics, much ordinary and scientific thought and discourse is true because its truth is indirect correspondence to the world. After offering further arguments for austere realism and addressing objections to it, Horgan and Potrc consider various alternative austere ontologies. They advance a specific version they call "blobjectivism"--the view that the right ontology includes only one concrete particular, the entire cosmos ("the blobject"), which, although it has enormous local spatiotemporal variability, does not have any proper parts. The arguments in Austere Realism are powerfully made and concisely and lucidly set out. The authors' contentions and their methodological approach--products of a decade-long collaboration--will generate lively debate among scholars in metaphysics, ontology, and philosophy.

LC Classification NumberBD311.H67 2009