Scott Shalkowski

Intimations of Postmodernity By Zygmunt Bauman Routledge, 1992. Pp. xxviii + 232. ISBN 0–415–06749–9. £10.99 pbk. The Political Ontology of Martin Heidegger By Pierre Bourdieu, translated by Peter Collier Polity Press, 1991. Pp. viii + 138. ISBN: 0–7456–0702–0. £25. An Essay on Belief and Acceptance By L. Jonathan Cohen Clarendon Press, 1992. Pp. x + 163. ISBN 0–19–824294–8. £20. Proof, Logic and Formalization Routledge, 1992. Pp. 256. ISBN 0–415–06805–3. £35. Proof and Knowledge in Mathematics Routledge, 1992. Pp. 272. ISBN 0–415–02335–1. £35. Edited by Michael Detlefsen Violence, Terrorism, and Justice Edited by R. G. Frey and Christopher W. Morriss Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. 319. ISBN 0–521–40125–9 (hbk), 0–521–40950–0 (pbk). £35 and £12.95 The Cambridge Companion to Sartre Edited by Christina Howells Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xvi + 387. ISBN 0–521–38812–0. £35 hbk £12.95 pbk. Aristotle on the Perfect Life By Anthony Kenny Clarendon Press, 1992. Pp. x + 173. ISBN 0–19–824017–1. £22.50 The Cambridge Companion to Plato Edited by Richard Kraut Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xiv + 560. ISBN 0–521–43610–9. £12.95 pbk. Substance and Predication in Aristotle By Frank A. Lewis Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. xvii + 370. ISBN 0–521–39159–8. £30. Albert Camus: Philosopher and Litterateur (includes the first complete English translation of Camus's Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism) By Joseph McBride St Martins's Press, 1992. Pp. xiii + 224. ISBN 0–312–07597–9. n.p. The Two Gods of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Religion and Politics By A.P. Martinich Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. xiv + 430. ISBN 0–521–41849–6. £35. The Practical Philosophy of Oswald Schwemmer By Patrick Riordan University Press of America, 1991. Pp. ix + 117. ISBN 0–8191–8180–3. $36.50. Human Morality By Samuel Scheffler Oxford University Press, 1992. Pp. 150. ISBN 0–19–507448–3. £13.95. From Morality to Virtue By Michael Slote Oxford University Press, 1992. Pp. 320. ISBN 0–19–507562–5. £32.50. Revelation: From Metaphor to Analogy By Richard Swinburne Clarendon Press, 1992. Pp. 236. ISBN 0–19–823968–8. £12.95 pbk.

ABSTRACT Philosophical analysis has long involved finding the “proper” form of a sentence, aiming to find a form that is “transparent” regarding its implications. Easy ontologists claim that finding the tacit ontological commitments of ordinary claims about the world is easy. Simple paraphrases and elementary deductions from those paraphrases will do, they claim. We find the easy ontologists’ arguments wanting. After examining the natures of idioms and paraphrase, we conclude that the so-called easy arguments provide no warrant for ontological conclusions as they have traditionally been understood. In several illustrative examples, we show that the easy ontologists preferred paraphrases are apt only if they carry no ontological implications, on pain of warranting ontological conclusions that are not credible.

In this paper we argue that there are no categories of being⎯at least not in the robust metaphysical sense of something fundamental. Central arguments that metaphysicians provide in support of fundamental categories, such as indispensability and theoretical utility arguments, are not adequate to guarantee their existence. We illustrate this point by examining Jonathan Lowe’s [2006] four-category ontology, and indicating its shortcomings. In contrast, we offer an alternative, no-category ontology, which dispenses with any fundamental categories of being, and provides a deflationary understanding of any categorization in terms of concepts. Concepts, we insist, as opposed to fundamental ontological categories, can always be revised, refined, and recast. A distinctive deflationary, no-category ontology then emerges.

Modality - the question of what is possible and what is necessary - is a fundamental area of philosophy and philosophical research. The Routledge Handbook of Modality is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising thirty-five chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook is divided into seven clear parts: worlds and modality; essentialism, ontological dependence, and modality; modal anti-realism; epistemology of modality; modality in science; modality in logic and mathematics; modality in the history of philosophy. Within these sections the central issues, debates and problems are examined, including possible worlds, essentialism, counterfactuals, ontological dependence, modal fictionalism, deflationism, the integration challenge, conceivability, a priori knowledge, laws of nature, natural kinds, and logical necessity. The Routledge Handbook of Modality is essential reading for students and researchers in epistemology, metaphysics and philosophy of language. It will also be very useful for those in related fields in philosophy such as philosophy of mathematics, logic and philosophy of science.

Theological problems-such as that alleged about the co-existence of God and abstract objects-sometimes result from failures to update our beliefs and attitudes and sometimes from philosophical myopia. In this paper, I argue that each features in both the generation of and the attempted solutions to this socalled problem. I will argue, first, that at some stage of inquiry the theologically minded should have taken an “all bets are off” attitude toward the principle that helps to generate the problem. Second, I will argue that even if the theological principle is retained, the required philosophical assumptions should have been recognized as dubious enough to remove any theological urgency to the problem.

Modality - the question of what is possible and what is necessary - is a fundamental area of philosophy and philosophical research. The Routledge Handbook of Modality is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting subject and is the first collection of its kind. Comprising thirty-five chapters by a team of international contributors the Handbook is divided into seven clear parts: worlds and modality essentialism, ontological dependence, and modality modal anti-realism epistemology of modality modality in science modality in logic and mathematics modality in the history of philosophy. Within these sections the central issues, debates and problems are examined, including possible worlds, essentialism, counterfactuals, ontological dependence, modal fictionalism, deflationism, the integration challenge, conceivability, a priori knowledge, laws of nature, natural kinds, and logical necessity. The Routledge Handbook of Modality is essential reading for students and researchers in epistemology, metaphysics and philosophy of language. It will also be very useful for those in related fields in philosophy such as philosophy of mathematics, logic and philosophy of science.

In this paper we examine theoretical utility arguments in metaphysics. While philosophers claim a procedural continuity with science when using such arguments, we argue that examining famous instances from the history of science expose their fundamental flaws. We find that arguments from theoretical utility invoke considerations that are not truth conducive and that justifications for claims that a theory possesses theoretical virtues often assume the truth of the theory such virtues are supposed to support. We conclude that theoretical utility arguments provide no epistemic grounds for metaphysical inquiry.

In this contribution, I defend two claims. First, theological problems do not arise, because there are insufficient grounds for thinking that there are abstract objects. Second, theological problems do not arise because even if abstract objects do exist as platonists think they do, they pose no problem for God’s sovereignty or aseity. The argument for the second has two components. First, there are limits and then there are limits. The so-called limits platonism would place upon God are merely notional and none any should care about. Second, it is not mandatory for at least Christian theists to think that the doctrine of creation requires that abstract object are created and it is not mandatory to think that the kind of sovereignty or aseity that a theologian should care about is impugned by the existence of abstracta

Logical pluralism is the view according to which there is more than one relation of logical consequence, even within a given language. A recent articulation of this view has been developed in terms of quantification over different cases: classical logic emerges from consistent and complete cases; constructive logic from consistent and incomplete cases, and paraconsistent logic from inconsistent and complete cases. We argue that this formulation causes pluralism to collapse into either logical nihilism or logical universalism. In its place, we propose a modalist account of logical pluralism that is independently well motivated and that avoids these collapses.

Causal necessity typically receives only oblique attention. Causal relations, laws of nature, counterfactual conditionals, or dispositions are usually the immediate subject(s) of interest. All of these, however, have a common feature. In some way, they involve the causal modality, some form of natural or physical necessity. In this paper, causal necessity is discussed with the purpose of determining whether a completely general empiricist theory can account for the causal in terms of the noncausal. Based on an examination of causal relations, laws of nature, counterfactual conditionals, and dispositions, it is argued that no reductive program devoid of essentialist commitments can account for all the phenomena that involve causal necessity. Hence, neo-Humean empiricism fails to provide a framework adequate for understanding causal necessity.

In the past three decades there has been a rapid development of the formal machinery for modal logic. Quantified modal logic has developed along with a semantics and model theory that is appropriate to it. With this technical development there has been relatively little discussion of what modality is all about. There are two fundamental questions that have gone unanswered. First, to what does necessity amount? Is this a new logical notion, or is it something that can be further analyzed in terms of other notions that we already have at our disposal? The second question is what makes truths involving necessity true? What is their ontological grounding in the world? This essay is directed at the first of these questions. ;There are three possible reductions of metaphysical modality. First, there is the reduction suggested by the semantics for modal logic: a reduction in terms of possible worlds. Second, there is the reduction in terms of cognition. What is possible is what is conceivable. Third, there is the reduction in terms of language. Necessities arise from the structures of language and/or language use. ;I argue that none of these is successful. All of them suffer either from presupposing some form of metaphysical necessity in the reductive base, rendering them circular and not truly reductive, or they do not do justice to the modality being reduced. ;Since necessity is not reducible to any non-modal features of the world, we need to determine whether we ought to reject it as unacceptable on this basis, or whether we ought to retain it, but treat is as a new primitive that is introduced into a philosophical or logical theory. I urge the latter course is the one that we ought to take because without it too many things will likewise be deemed unacceptable. Causal necessity and explanation, normally accepted theories or knowledge and perception, logic and logical validity, and one common manner of distinguishing sets from properties will be deemed unacceptable if de re necessity is unacceptable. All of these presuppose de re metaphysical necessity in some way. I conclude that de re metaphysical necessity ought to be retained in our theory as primitive, unanalyzable notion

This paper is concerned with the wholly metaphysical question of whether necessity and possibility rest on nonmodal foundations—whether the truth conditions for modal statements are, in the final analysis, nonmodal. It is argued that Lewis’s modal realism is either arbitrary and stipulative or else it is circular. Even if there were Lewisean possible worlds, they could not provide the grounds for modality. D. M. Armstrong’s combinatorial approach to possibility suffers from similar defects. Since more traditional reductions to cognitive or linguistic facts suffer similar fates, the conclusion that the alethic modality is primitive and incapable of reduction is offered