Précis of Writing the Book of the World

Dados Bibliográficos

ID10351981
AutoresTheodore Sider (0000-0002-9142-0590, Cornell University, autor correspondente)
Ano2013
Volume87
Fascículo3
Páginas706-708
Data de publicação2013-11-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0031-8205 • E-ISSN: 1933-1592
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/phpr.12069
OpenAlexW2054024620
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências 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