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A World of States of Affairs
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Description
In this important study D. M. Armstrong offers a comprehensive system of analytical metaphysics that synthesises but also develops his thinking over the last twenty years. Armstrong's analysis, which acknowledges the 'logical atomism' of Russell and Wittgenstein, makes facts (or states of affairs, as the author calls them) the fundamental constituents of the world, examining properties, relations, numbers, classes, possibility and necessity, dispositions, causes and laws. All these, it is argued, find their place and can be understood inside a scheme of states of affairs. This is a comprehensive and rigorously this-worldly account of the most general features of reality, argued from a distinctive philosophical perspective, and it will appeal to a wide readership in analytical philosophy.
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Product details
- Hardback | 300 pages
- 147 x 224 x 21mm | 465g
- 21 Jan 2004
- Cambridge University Press
- Cambridge, United Kingdom
- English
- New.
- 0521580641
- 9780521580649
Back cover copy
In this important study David Armstrong offers a comprehensive system of analytical metaphysics that synthesizes but also develops his thinking over the last twenty years. Armstrong's analysis, which acknowledges the 'logical atomism' of Russell and Wittgenstein, makes facts (or states of affairs, as the author calls them) the fundamental constituents of the world, examining properties, relations, numbers, classes, possibility and necessity, dispositions, causes and laws. All these, it is argued, find their place and can be understood inside a scheme of states of affairs. This is a comprehensive and rigorously this-worldly account of the most general features of reality, argued from a distinctive philosophical perspective, and it will appeal to a wide readership in analytical philosophy.
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Table of contents
1. Introduction; 2. Some preliminary doctrines; 3. Properties I; 4. Properties II; 5. Powers and dispositions; 6. Relations; 7. Particulars; 8. States of affairs; 9. Independence; 10. Modality; 11. Numbers; 12. Classes; 13. Totality states of affairs; 14. Singular causation; 15. Laws I; 16. Laws II; 17. The unity of the world.
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Review quote
'Thanks to Armstrong's excellent book, we know much better than before what lies ahead if we choose truthmaking and forsake combinatorialism.' David Lewis, The Times Literary Supplement 'A World of States of Affairs is not only a fitting summation of Armstrong's contribution to metaphysics over the last twenty years, it is also an important contribution to the contemporary debate.' Mind 'The Armstrong approach to metaphysics is presented clearly and comprehensively.' Philosophy
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