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Annotated Bibliography Annotated Bibliography Chapter 1. Research Problems and Methods Ayer, A. J. (1946/1952), Language, Truth and Logic, New York: Dover. After visiting the Vienna Circle, Ayer wrote this book to promote the logical positivist ideas of the circle to a broader philosophical audience. It provides an accessible classic statement of the logical positivist view. In it, one can find criticisms of metaphysics (considered as any- thing other than analysis), a vision of the proper function of philosophy as engaged only in analysis, and an articulation of the conventionalist approach to modality, as well as much else. Chalmers, D. J., Manley, D., and Wasserman, R., eds (2009), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. This collection has set the stage for the reemergence of metametaphysics as a core topic of debate. It includes an excellent introduction by David Manley surveying the origins of the debate and the different positions available, along with 16 original essays. The essays are by many of the leading contributors to contemporary debates in metaphysics, and include defend- ers of serious metaphysics (such as Peter van Inwagen and Theodore Sider) as well as those of a more skeptical or deflationary bent (such as David Chalmers, Eli Hirsch, Huw Price, and Stephen Yablo). Evnine, S. (2008), “Modal epistemology: our knowledge of necessity and possibility.” Philosophy Compass, 3(4), 664–84. An excellent survey of views about how we can acquire modal knowledge, including the conventionalist approach, and the idea (developed in very different ways by Yablo and Chalmers) that conceivability pro- vides some kind of guide to possibility. Gendler, T. and Hawthorne, J., eds (2002), Conceivability and Possibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press. This anthology begins with a helpful and substantive introduction to issues surrounding the relation between conceivability and possibility. It includes 13 original essays on conceivability, possibility, and the relation between them, by George Bealer, Kit Fine, Alan Sidelle, Ernest Sosa, Crispin Wright, and others, including the seminal essays by David Chalmers and Stephen Yablo. Kripke, S. (1972/1980), Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kripke’s landmark lectures arguing that there are necessary a posteriori and (perhaps) contingent a priori truths. These lectures were thought to put the final nail in the cof- fin of the idea that necessary truths were analytic statements knowable a priori and to reinvigorate the idea that discoverable modal facts form part of reality. Quine, W. V. O. (1953/2001), From a Logical Point of View (second edition). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Includes reprints of nine of Quine’s papers. “On What There Is” lays out Quine’s criterion of ontological commitment, setting the stage for the Quinean approach to ontology. “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” includes influential arguments against the tenability of a distinction between analytic and synthetic state- ments, and in favor of the view that ontological questions are “on a par with questions of natural science” (p. 45). Schiffer, S. (2003), The Things We Mean. Oxford: Oxford University Press. One of the most important developments and defenses of a kind of deflationary metaphysical view. Schiffer argues that many disputed entities in metaphysics, including fictional philosophy.mansonbarnard.continuumbooks.com © Neil A. Manson and Robert W. Barnard (2012) The Continuum Companion to Metaphysics. London: Continuum Books Annotated Bibliography characters, properties, events, and (the main case under discussion here) propositions are “pleonastic” entities. A pleonastic entity, on Schiffer’s view, is one whose existence supervenes on the premises of “something from nothing” transformations from true sentences we accept that contain no mention of such things. Thus on this view exis- tence questions about such pleonastic entities may be trivially answered by any com- petent users of the relevant concepts; they are not “deep” questions for metaphysical debate. Sidelle, A. (1989), Necessity, Essence and Individuation: A Defense of Conventionalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. This book provides the best-developed contemporary defense of a conventionalist view of modality. Sidelle shows how we can retain the idea that the most basic modal truths are analytic, while still accounting for the fact that some necessary truths (Kripkean a posteriori necessities) require empirical dis- covery. Thus, he argues, Kripke’s influential arguments in fact give us no reason to hold a deeply realist view of modality. Sider, T. (2012), Writing the Book of the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. This book develops the most important recent defense of metaphysics as engaged in deep and serious disputes (not mere verbal disputes or disputes that can be resolved trivially or via conceptual analysis). Sider argues that the world has structure and that the job of metaphysics is to discern the fundamental structure of reality. Ontological debates, he argues, are substantive provided their crucial expressions “carve nature at the joints.” This provides the basis for him to argue that many metaphysical debates are substantive, as against various forms of onto- logical deflationism. Soames, S. (2003), Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, Volume 2: The Age of Meaning. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. An excellent and comprehensive history of analytic philosophy. It includes (inter alia) detailed discussions of the rise and fall of logical positivism, of Wittgensteinian and ordinary language approaches to philosophy, and of Quine’s and Kripke’s key contributions. Chapter 2. Modality Armstrong, D. (1989), A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Possibilities as combinations of actual elements. A proposal to regard worlds as fictions is profitably compared with Gideon Rosen (1990), “Modal fictional- ism.” Mind, 99, 327–54. Divers, J. (2002), Possible Worlds. London: Routledge. Comprehensive and scholarly dis- cussion of worlds, including Lewis’s modal realism, and alternatives on which worlds are actual entities of a type different from the world in which we live. Jubien, M. (2009), Possibility. Oxford: Oxford University Press. The attack on possible worlds, and positive theory as described in “Modality” above. Corresponding posi- tive theories of physical things and designation contrast with prevailing theories as represented in, say, Kripke (1980). Kripke, S. (1980), Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Readable and influential 1972 lectures. Against theories of Bertrand Russell and others on which proper names work like descriptions, names are rigid designators. Results for modality, against Quine and more generally. Lewis, D. (1986), On the Plurality of Worlds. New York: Basil Blackwell. Forceful presen- tation of modal realism. Develops the theory, shows what it can do, and objects to alternatives. philosophy.mansonbarnard.continuumbooks.com © Neil A. Manson and Robert W. Barnard (2012) The Continuum Companion to Metaphysics. London: Continuum Books Annotated Bibliography Linsky, L., ed. (1971), Reference and Modality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Anthology focusing on Quine’s worries and responses. Includes Quine (an early edition of 1980), Arthur Smullyan (1948), and Kripke (1963b) mentioned in “Modality” above. Some articles are technical. Loux, M., ed. (1979), The Possible and the Actual: Readings in the Metaphysics of Modality. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Another excellent anthology. Nice introduction by Loux, and papers developing both theories of possible worlds, and objections. Includes Robert Adams (1974), Plantinga (1976), Fabrizio Mondadori and Adam Morton (1976), and William Lycan (1979) all mentioned in “Modality” above. Melia, J. (2003), Modality. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. A short and read- able introduction to issues in the metaphysics of modality. Plantinga, A. (1974), The Nature of Necessity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. A pioneer- ing theory of modality and possible worlds. Some of his related papers, including (1976), are collected in Plantinga (2003), Essays in the Metaphysics of Modality, ed. M. Davidson, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Roy, T. (1993), “Worlds and modality.” Philosophical Review, 102, 335–62. Somewhat dif- ferent, but more detailed exposition of themes from “Modality” above, along with Roy (1995), “In defense of linguistic ersatzism.” Philosophical Studies, 80, 217–42; and Roy (2000), “Things and de re modality.” Noûs, 34, 56–84. Chapter 3. Universals and Abstract Objects Armstrong, D. (1989), Universals: An Opinionated Introduction. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Armstrong carefully explicates, compares, and assesses a number of different views regarding the nature of universals. As the title indicates, this overview serves a dual role—to evaluate and assess the major historical and contemporary views on this topic, and to set the stage for Armstrong’s defense of a particular version of realism regarding universals. Burgess, J. and Rosen, G. (1997), A Subject with No Object. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Burgess and Rosen, who both have admittedly anti-nominalist views on the metaphysics of abstract objects, provide a sustained examination and critique of vari- ous ways to develop nominalist accounts of mathematics and related areas, providing a valuable (and novel) framework within which to carry
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