Or Abstractum

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-185
Author(s):  
Steven B. Cowan ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Abstract Objects ◽  
George Berkeley ◽  
Divine Mind ◽  
Metaphysical Principle

George Berkeley is famous for the metaphysical principle esse is percipi or percipere (“to be is to be perceived or to be a perceiver”). Many Berkeleyan idealists take this principle to be incompatible with Platonic realism about abstract objects, and thus opt either for nominalism or divine conceptualism on which they are construed as divine ideas. In this paper, I argue that Berkeleyan idealism is consistent with a Platonic realism in which abstracta exist outside the divine mind. This allows the Berkeleyan to expand Berkeley’s principle to read: esse is percipi or percipere or abstractum.

God and Abstract Objects

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Einar Duenger Bøhn
Keyword(s):  
Abstract Objects

Attentional Engines

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
William P. Seeley
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Abstract Objects ◽  
Cognitive Systems ◽  
Musical Expression ◽  
Broad Base ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Perceptual Psychology ◽  
Unique Source ◽  
Philosophical Understanding

What is it about art that can be so captivating? How is it that we find value in these often odd and abstract objects and events that we call artworks? My proposal is that artworks are attentional engines. They are artifacts that have been intentionally designed to direct attention to critical stylistic features that reveal their point, purpose, or meaning. My suggestion is that there is a lot that we can learn about art from interdisciplinary research focused on our perceptual engagement with artworks. These kinds of studies can reveal how we recognize artworks, how we differentiate them from other, more quotidian artifacts. In doing so they reveal how artworks function as a unique source of value. Our interactions with artworks draw on a broad base of shared artistic and cultural constitutive of different categories of art. Cognitive systems integrate this information into our experience of art, guiding attention, and shaping what we perceive. Our understanding and appreciation of artworks is therefore carried in our perceptual experience of them. Teasing out how this works can contribute valuable information to our philosophical understanding of art. Attentional Engines explores this interdisciplinary strategy for understanding art. It articulates a cognitivist theory of art grounded in perceptual psychology and the neuroscience attention and demonstrates its application to a range of puzzles in the philosophy of the arts, including questions about the nature of depiction, the role played by metakinesis in dance appreciation, the nature of musical expression, and the power of movies.

Necessary Existence

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander R. Pruss ◽  
Joshua L. Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
Modal Logic ◽  
Abstract Objects ◽  
Classical Theism ◽  
Necessary Being ◽  
Necessary Existence ◽  
Concrete Entity ◽  
The Universe

A necessary being is a concrete entity that cannot fail to exist. An example of such a being might be the God of classical theism or the universe of necessitarians. Necessary Existence offers and carefully defends a number of novel arguments for the thesis that there exists at least one necessary being, while inviting the reader to a future investigation of what the neccessary being(s) is (are) like. The arguments include a defense of a classic contingency argument, a series of new modal arguments from possible causes, an argument from abstract objects, and a Gödelian argument from perfections. Furthermore, arguments against the possibility of a necessary being are critically examined. Among these arguments are old and new arguments from conceivability, a subtraction argument, problems with causation, and an argument from parsimony. Necessary Existence also includes a defense of the axioms of S5 modal logic, which is a framework for understanding several arguments for necessary existents.

Last Battles over Absolutism: 1704 Onwards

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Special Interest ◽  
George Berkeley ◽  
Time Duration ◽  
The Past ◽  
John Clarke ◽  
British Philosopher

This chapter considers the explosion of debate in British philosophy in the decades following Clarke’s 1704 Boyle lectures, and the publication of Newton’s 1706 Optice and 1713 Principia. The early parts of the chapter explain that absolutism about time, duration, or space was defended by thinkers such as George Cheyne, Samuel Colliber, John Clarke and Catharine Cockburn; and attacked by relationists or idealists such as George Berkeley, Daniel Waterland, Edmund Law, and Joseph Clarke. The later parts of this chapter explore the absolutism of British philosopher John Jackson, whose unique views are of special interest: Jackson holds that God is extendedly present in space and time; and connects absolutism with the doctrine now known as ‘eternalism’, on which the past, present, and future are equally real.

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Volume 55

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Loss Of Control ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Original Essays ◽  
Constant Change ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Metaphysical Principle

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy provides, twice each year, a collection of the best current work in the field of ancient philosophy. Each volume features original essays that contribute to an understanding of a wide range of themes and problems in all periods of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, from the beginnings to the threshold of the Middle Ages. From its first volume in 1983, OSAP has been a highly influential venue for work in the field, and has often featured essays of substantial length as well as critical essays on books of distinctive importance. Volume LV contains: a methodological examination on how the evidence for Presocratic thought is shaped through its reception by later thinkers, using discussions of a world soul as a case study; an article on Plato’s conception of flux and the way in which sensible particulars maintain a kind of continuity while undergoing constant change; a discussion of J. L. Austin’s unpublished lecture notes on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and his treatment of loss of control (akrasia); an article on the Stoics’ theory of time and in particular Chrysippus’ conception of the present and of events; and two articles on Plotinus, one that identifies a distinct argument to show that there is a single, ultimate metaphysical principle; and a review essay discussing E. K. Emilsson’s recent book, Plotinus.

scholarly journals Spinoza on Melancholy and Cheerfulness

Dialogue ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Christopher Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Metaphysical Principle

Abstract Spinoza's philosophy is often celebrated for its strong anti-normative current. Spinoza argues, for instance, that good and bad do not indicate anything positive in things, and that affects are always particular to the situation in which they arise. And yet Spinoza argues that melancholy is “always evil,” and cheerfulness “always good,” thus problematizing a key metaphysical principle of his system. Turning to select sections in the Ethics and Theological-Political Treatise, this article offers a reading of these two problematic affects before connecting Spinoza to recent work on early modern melancholy that conceptualizes it as an ‘assemblage.’

The Life of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne.

1950 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Mario M. Rossi ◽  
A. A. Luce
Keyword(s):  
George Berkeley

THE BISHOP OF MANCHESTER ON “SYMBOLISM AS A METAPHYSICAL PRINCIPLE”

Mind ◽  
1923 ◽  
Vol XXXII (125) ◽  
pp. 139-a-139
Author(s):  
E. W. EDWARDS
Keyword(s):  
Metaphysical Principle
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