Writing the Book of the World - Hardcover

Sider, Theodore

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199697906 ISBN 13: 9780199697908

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2012

Synopsis

In order to describe the world perfectly, one must describe it in its own terms. In this ambitious and comprehensive book, Theodore Sider argues that for a representation to be fully successful, truth is not enough; the representation must also use the right concepts - concepts that "carve at the joints" - so that its conceptual structure matches reality's structure. There is an objectively correct way to "write the book of the world".Sider's argument begins from the assertion that metaphysics is about the fundamental structure of reality. Not about what's necessarily true; not about what properties are essential; not about conceptual analysis; and not about what there is. While inquiry into necessity, essence, concepts, or ontology might help to illuminate reality's structure, the ultimate goal is insight into this structure. Part of Sider's theory of structure is an account of how structure connects to other concepts. For example, structure can be used to illuminate laws of nature, explanation, reference, induction, physical geometry, substantivity, conventionality, objectivity, and metametaphysics. Another part is an account of how structure behaves. Since structure is a way of thinking about fundamentality, Sider's account implies distinctive answers to questions about the nature of fundamentality. These answers distinguish his theory of structure - which is a generalization and extension of David Lewis's theory of natural properties - from other recent theories of fundamentality, including Kit Fine's theory of ground and reality, the theory of truthmaking, and Jonathan Schaffer's theory of ontological dependence. The book concludes by applying the theory of structure to four topics: ontology, logic, time, and modality.

About this title

About the Author

Theodore Sider is Frederick J. Whiton Chair of Philosophy at Cornell University. He completed his PhD at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and has held positions at New York University, Rutgers University, Syracuse University, and the University of Rochester. He is the co-author of Riddles of Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics (OUP, 2005) with Earl Conee, and the author of Four-Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time (OUP, 2001), and a textbook: Logic for Philosophy (OUP, 2010). 

Review

"Two issues have been heavily debated in recent metaphysics: a revival of the old meta-question concerning the substantivity of (at least some) metaphysical debates, and the first-order question of what we might or should mean by metaphysical 'fundamentality.' Theodore Sider addresses these and related matters with great care, sophistication, clarity, and originality. . . . a terrific achievement: profound, rigorously systematic, and full of clarifying insights and arguments."--Timothy O'Connor and Nickolas Montgomery, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0199697906
• ISBN 13: 9780199697908
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 334