Overview
- Explains how contemporary Mind-Body debates can be understood as a result of metaphysical placement problem
- Describes conceptual relativity in contemporary scientific practice
- Calls for an open empirical approach in ontological unification
Part of the book series: European Studies in Philosophy of Science (ESPS, volume 2)
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Table of contents (11 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Pluralism and Scientific Practice
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Front Matter
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In Defense of Conceptual Relativity
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Front Matter
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From Conceptual Relativity to Vertical Pluralism
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Front Matter
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Beyond the Mind-Body Problem
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Front Matter
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Keywords
About this book
This book challenges common debates in philosophy of mind by questioning the framework of placement problems in contemporary metaphysics. The author argues that placement problems arise when exactly one fundamental ontology serves as the base for all entities, and will propose a pluralist alternative that takes the diversity of our conceptual resources and ontologies seriously. This general pluralist account is applied to issues in philosophy of mind to argue that contemporary debates about the mind-body problem are built on this problematic framework of placement problems.
The starting point is the plurality of ontologies in scientific practice. Not only can we describe the world in terms of physical, biological, or psychological ontologies, but any serious engagement with scientific ontologies will identify more specific ontologies in each domain. For example, there is not one unified ontology for biology, but rather a diversity of scientific specializations with different ontological needs. Based on this account of scientific practice the author argues that there is no reason to assume that ontological unification must be possible everywhere. Without this ideal, the scope of ontological unification turns out to be an open empirical question and there is no need to present unification failures as philosophically puzzling “placement problems”.Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: A Pluralist Theory of the Mind
Authors: David Ludwig
Series Title: European Studies in Philosophy of Science
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22738-2
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2015
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-22737-5Published: 04 November 2015
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-37077-4Published: 23 August 2016
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-22738-2Published: 22 October 2015
Series ISSN: 2365-4228
Series E-ISSN: 2365-4236
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIV, 201
Number of Illustrations: 2 b/w illustrations
Topics: Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Mind, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Biology