Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-254) and index.
Contents:
9. Concrete reality and modest philosophy. Most recent mainstream proposals are concretely empty ideas -- A working idea of concrete reality -- Observing the concretely empty in some recent mainstream philosophy -- Our central distinction and three that have been philosophically salient -- The concretely empty, the analytically empty and mainstream philosophy -- 2. Promising examples of concretely substantial philosophy. -- Some pretty promising examples of concretely substantial philosophy -- The substantial scientiphicalism of mainstream philosophy -- Memory, history and emptiness -- Various specifications of scientiphicalism and various departures from scientiphicalism -- Interactionist entity dualism and the problem of causal pairings -- Exploring philosophical thoughts that may be analytically empty ideas -- 3. Thinkers and what they can think about : empty issues and individualistic powers. -- Language, thought and history -- Thinking about "the external world" -- Earth, twin Earth and history -- The banality of successfully investigating unfamiliar individuals -- A concretely substantial possibility : individualistically directed powers -- The propensity to acquire individualistic powers and its historical manifestation -- A concretely substantial possibility : individualistically directed mental powers -- Generalistic propensities to acquire real-kind directed mental powers -- Wishful blindness to emptiness : Putnam's "transcendental" pronouncement -- Reading modal claims substantially and widening our philosophical horizons -- 4. The origins of material individuals : empty issues and sequentialistic powers -- The origin of a particular wooden table -- Some thoughts about tables and some thoughts about shmables -- Origination conditions, persistence conditions, and boxing a logical compass -- A tenet of scientiphicalism : basic individuals have no "memory-like" propensity -- How a wooden table could have first been made from a hunk of ice -- Tood and tice, a table first made of wood and a table first made of ice -- Using modal terms substantially : the case of determinism -- Distinctive material objects and these objects' distinctive matter -- Sequentialistically propensitied concrete particulars -- Wooden tables, ice, and sequentialistically propensitied concrete particulars -- 5. The persistence of material individuals : empty issues and self-directed propensity. -- Material sculptures and pieces of matter -- Are there inconveniently persisting material individuals? -- Pieces, lumps and hunks : a problematic plethora of persisting individuals? -- Is there a plethora of extraordinary persisting individuals? -- Ordinary and not so ordinary persisting material individuals -- Using these sentences differently and expressing substantial ideas -- Fundamentals of fundamental material persistents -- 6. Empty debates about material matters. -- Matter distributed particulately but not even a single material individual? -- Matter distributed particulately, but only a single material individual? -- Matter and material objects : salient positions on empty questions -- The debate about complex material individuals -- An exploration of the salient debate : popular paraphrases, problematic parallels -- Complex material individuals and arrangements of simple material individuals -- Mereological sums of simple material individuals : fusions, fusions everywhere -- Sums of simple physical entities and complex ordinary material individuals -- Four distinct sorts of spatial inhabitants : material mereological sums, material arrangements, complex material objects, and (complex) ordinary individuals -- Worldy appendix -- Are there any concrete worlds, including even the actual world? -- 7. Individuals, properties and time : a few substantial thoughts and many empty ideas. -- Are there really any properties or are there only all the propertied individuals? -- The temporal, the empty and the substantial : First part -- The temporal, the empty and the substantial : Second part -- Is there a real need that properties (alone) suitably serve? First part -- Is there a real need that properties (alone) suitably serve? Second part -- 8. What will become of us : empty issues and substantial speculations. -- Locke's proposed persons -- Locke's lame legacy -- Beyond Locke, but not beyond philosophical thoughts both incorrect and empty -- So-called commonsensical materialism -- So-called commonsensical materialism and the mental problems of the many -- Might you be a quite simple physical thing? If so, what will become of you? -- Articulating our argument for a substantial dualist view of ourselves -- How an immaterial soul may, or may not, survive the death of its body -- If we should become disembodied souls, will we be experiencing souls? -- If we become experiencing disembodied souls, will we be fortunate souls? -- 9. When will there be some serious new substantial philosophy? -- Concretely substantial ideas about mutually isolated concrete worlds : First part -- Concretely substantial ideas about mutually isolated concrete worlds : Second part -- Some substantial philosophical thoughts about actual concrete reality -- Scientific philosophers and serious new substantial philosophy -- Philosophy may mine and refine what even the most ambitious sciences produce -- Concrete reality and modest philosophy.
Summary:
Peter Unger's provocative new book poses a serious challenge to contemporary analytic philosophy, arguing that to its detriment it focuses the predominance of its energy on "empty ideas." In the mid-twentieth century, philosophers generally agreed that, by contrast with science, philosophy should offer no substantial thoughts about the general nature of concrete reality. Leading philosophers were concerned with little more than the semantics of ordinary words. For example: Our word "perceives" differs from our word "believes" ni that the first word is used more strictly than the second. While someone may be correct in saying "I believe there's a table before me" whether or not there is a table before her, she will be correct in saying "I perceive there's a table before me" only if there is a table there. Though just a parochial idea, whether or not it is correct does make a difference to how things are with concrete reality. In Unger's terms, it is a concretely substantial idea. Alongside each such parochial substantial idea, there is an analytic or conceptual thought, as with the thought that someone may believe there is a table before her whether or not there is one, but she will perceive there is a table before he only if there is a table there. Empty of import as to how things are with concrete reality, those thoughts are what Unger calls concretely empty ideas. It is widely assumed that, since about 1970, things had changed thanks to the advent of such thoughts as the content externalism championed by Hilary Putnam and Donald Davidson, various essentialist thoughts offered by Saul Kripke, and so on. Against that assumption, Unger argues that, with hardly any exceptions aside from David Lewis's theory of a plurality of concrete worlds, all of these recent offerings are concretely empty ideas. Except when offering parochial ideas, Peter Unger maintains that mainstream philosophy still offers hardly anything beyond concretely empty ideas. -- from dust jacket.
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