Précis of Writing the Book of the World

Datos Bibliográficos

ID10351981
AutoresTheodore Sider (0000-0002-9142-0590, Cornell University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2013
Volumen87
Número3
Páginas706-708
Fecha de publicación2013-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0031-8205 • E-ISSN: 1933-1592
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/phpr.12069
OpenAlexW2054024620
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas11

physicists use words like ‘charge’, ‘mass’, and ‘distance’, but nothing would be wrong with instead describing the world using cooked-up words derived from those of physics in the way that Goodman’s ‘grue ’ and ‘bleen ’ are derived from ‘green ’ and ‘blue’. My central thesis is that there is a ready-made world. There is a set of objec-tively privileged concepts: the “fundamental”, or “joint-carving”, or “structural” ones. A complete description of the world using these concepts—the “book of the world”—gives reality’s fundamental structure. A description of the world using cooked-up concepts can be true, and even in a sense equivalent to the book of the world, but is nevertheless representationally decient since its structure does not match the world’s structure. Many of the traditional questions of metaphysics are about the nature of reality’s fundamental structure. Is reality “ultimately ” just physical, or is there also a mental aspect? This is a question of whether the book of the world mentions mentality—of whether mental concepts are structural

Citation · Library science · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Computer Science · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Philosophy and Theoretical Science