Peter Simons

Philosophy in the West divides into three parts: Analytic Philosophy (AP), Continental Philosophy (CP), and History of Philosophy (HP). But all three parts are in a bad way. AP is sceptical about the claim that philosophy can be a science, and hence is uninterested in the real world. CP is never pursued in a properly theoretical way, and its practice is tailor-made for particular political and ethical conclusions. HP is mostly developed on a regionalist basis: what is studied is determined by the nation or culture to which a philosopher belongs, rather than by the objective value of that philosopher’s work. Progress in philosophy can only be attained by avoiding these pitfalls.

A realist theory of truth for a class of sentences holds that there are entities in virtue of which these sentences are true or false. We call such entities ‘truthmakers’ and contend that those for a wide range of sentences about the real world are moments (dependent particulars). Since moments are unfamiliar, we provide a definition and a brief philosophical history, anchoring them in our ontology by showing that they are objects of perception. The core of our theory is the account of truthmaking for atomic sentences, in which we expose a pervasive ‘dogma of logical form’, which says that atomic sentences cannot have more than one truthmaker. In contrast to this, we uphold the mutual independence of logical and ontological complexity, and the authors outline formal principles of truthmaking taking account of both kinds of complexity.

Following its welcome revival in the late twentieth century, metaphysics in the analytic tradition has succumbed to decadence, with an astonishing variety of outlandish and extreme positions or “metaphysical follies” being taken seriously. This has caused an inevitable backlash among more scientifically-minded philosophers and incurred the scorn of scientists. Much of the reason for this is the blithe ignoring of empirical science by armchair metaphysicians. The roles of empirical knowledge in good, scientific metaphysics are however unclear. In virtue of its maximal generality, metaphysics is remote from straightforward empirical checks. This article explores, with historical and contemporary examples, the ways in which empirical information may inform and be fed back into metaphysics, the disputed role of common sense, and the delicate balance to be maintained, within a fallibilist, scientific metaphysics, between speculative, categorial and empirical elements.

In "meaning and modality" lewy claims the only ground for rejecting disjunctive syllogism as acceptable for entailment is rejection of bivalence. Examining lewis's 'proofs' of the paradoxes of strict implication he suggests the proof of 'if a then (b or not-B)' suppresses a premiss, Restoration of which blocks the paradox, Whereas the proof of 'if (a and not-A) then b' cannot be so blocked. But the paradoxes are dual, So he should have treated them dually by restoring a suppressed disjunct in the consequent of the second. When this is done, The second paradox is blocked and disjunctive syllogism fares no better than the principle lewy discarded

Stanisław Leśniewski was one of the two originators and drivers of the Warsaw School of logic. This article describes his work chronologically, from his early philosophical work in Lvov to his highly original logical systems of protothetic, ontology and mereology. His struggles to overcome logical antinomies, his absolute commitment to logical clarity and precision, and his antipathy towards set theory made his nominalistic approach to logic among the most original of the twentieth century, while his early death and the loss of his papers meant his work was only gradually discovered and appreciated outside Poland.

The three young philosophers Kevin Mulligan, Peter Simons and Barry Smith have become well-known in the last few years especially in German-speaking analytical philosophy and phenomenology circles. This is on the one hand as a result of their historical and systematic philosophical work; but it is also because of the provocative way in which they represent their philosophy. Because they often appear in threes, they have become known as the "gang of three" or "three musketeers" or even – and this in an admiring sense – "mafiosi" (Rescher). They are known primarily for the small workshops they have been organizing in uncomplicated Anglo-Saxon manner all over Europe. Their goal has been to show that analytic philosophy as it has been pursued up to now is in need of reform and also that the history of scientific philosophizing is not identical to the history of Anglo-Saxon analytic philosophy. Above all, they have tried to make more well known the Austrian tradition of scientific philosophy, and they can be given credit for having done much to promote the current interest in this tradition, which means: the history of Austrian philosophy of the 19th and early 20th centuries and its historical context in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

ABSTRACT There is more than one way to kill a cat. What are ways? Very little has been written about them in general, but they appear at crucial places in many philosophical discussions. Clarity over the ontology of ways could help in several areas of philosophy. After indicating where ways have been mentioned, I discuss briefly the corresponding linguistic feature, adverbs of manner, before outlining three theories: a Platonistic one making ways a complex kind of function, a Davidsonian one in which ways are properties of events, and finally the theory I prefer, a particularist one based on the concept of a higher-order trope. The latter is connected with the theory of truth-makers and avoids ontological commitment to corresponding general objects

This chapter is concerned with the second of the four books of Samuel Alexander’s Space, Time, and Deity, which bears the title “The Categories.” It occupies 164 pages, a fifth of the total. While most systematic metaphysicians treat of categories in some form, it is rare for one to discuss the topic at such length: what we have is practically a treatise within a treatise. Alexander understands categories to be those qualities of space-time that are pervasive and fundamental. A comparative exposition is given of Alexander’s theory of categories, with allusions to Kant and Hegel. It is argued that one distinctive aspect of Alexander’s theory of categories is that it is realist through and through, unlike Kant’s. A critical evaluation is then given of how Alexander describes and infers his list of categories, showing what lessons there are to be learnt for contemporary metaphysics.