The Existence of the World: Introduction to Ontology (Problems of Philosophy) - Hardcover

Grossmann, Reinhardt

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415073030 ISBN 13: 9780415073035

Publisher: Routledge, 1992

Synopsis

In Plato's "Sophist", Socrates describes a battle between the Giants and the Gods. On the one side, there are philosophers who "affirm that real existence belongs only to that which can be handled and offers resistance the touch". On the other side, the God's of Plato's dialogue affirm that "true reality consists in certain intelligible and bodily forms". The history of Western philosophy can be seen as a battle between those that insist that the "physical universe" exists and those would claim that there is a much larger "world" which contains atemporal and nonspatial things as well. What distinguishes the former, the "naturalists", from the latter, the "ontologists", is ultimately the rejection or acceptance of atemporal or nonspatial existents. The central part of this book, and the battle, concerns the existence of universals. Starting with the mediaeval definition of the issue found in Porphry and Boethius, the author then considers modern and contemporary versions of the battle. He concludes that what is at stake between naturalists and the ontologists is the existence and nature of a number of important categories. These categories consist of, for example, structures, relations, sets, numbers and so on. This book should be of interest to undergraduates, postgraduates and academics in the field of philosophy.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415073030
• ISBN 13: 9780415073035
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 152