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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Rethinking Metaphysics

Rethinking Metaphysics

Thomasson, Amie

Hardcover

Philosophy

ISBN10: 0197787800
ISBN13: 9780197787809
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Apr 18 2025
Pages: 280
Weight: 0.85
Height: 1.10 Width: 5.40 Depth: 7.90
Language: English
In Rethinking Metaphysics, Amie Thomasson aims to change how we think about metaphysics: what it can do, and why it matters. Traditional metaphysics has aimed to discover deep truths about the world. But this has led to rivalries with science, epistemological mysteries, and a despairing scepticism about how we could gain knowledge in metaphysics.

Thomasson argues that the problems with prior approaches to metaphysics arise from a problematic assumption that all discourse functions in the same way. Drawing on work in linguistics, she shows how to develop a richer view of linguistic functions that enables us to see why this assumption leads us astray. By better understanding the plurality of linguistic functions, she argues, we can also disentangle ourselves from many old metaphysical problems--including problems about properties, numbers, morality and modality.

In place of the traditional model, we should think of metaphysics as work in conceptual engineering--including both a reverse engineering project aimed at understanding how various parts of our language and conceptual scheme work and what functions they serve, and a constructive engineering project that investigates what concepts and language we should use and how we should use them. Rethinking metaphysics as conceptual engineering in this way enables us to avoid the problems of traditional metaphysics, while also demonstrating the perennial importance of metaphysics to human life.

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