<p> In the thesis, I provide a defense of the moral error theory. In the first section, I solve the formulation problem, which is the puzzle related to properly formulating the moral error theory without self-defeat. In the second section, I defend the claim that moral concepts commit their users to irreducibly normative reasons. Finally, in the third and last section, I defend the reduction argument against new criticisms and conclude that there are no irreducibly normative reasons.</p><p>

<p> Leibniz makes substantive use of harmony and metaphysical perfection, but he very rarely offers more than a brief gloss in direct explanation of these terms. I argue that they name the same fundamental property. The definition of metaphysical perfection (hereafter, "perfection") as unity-in-variety misleads if taken as a reduction of perfection to separately necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for anything to enjoy perfection. The definition of harmony in terms of intelligibility leads to the same underlying notion, for intelligibility is defined in terms of unity and variety.</p><p> Chapter 1 introduces the tension between Leibniz's substantive use of perfection and his demand that it meet a high standard of intelligibility. Chapter 2 argues that there is no satisfactory account of compossibility in the literature because each of the viable proposals misunderstands the role of perfection. The current dispute rests in a disagreement about the best reductive account of perfection: either to sheer variety, or to variety and unity as independently intelligible but inversely proportional criteria for perfection. Either way, incompossibility relations become externally applied limits on God's will to maximize the variety of existing substances. Leibniz rejects all such external limits. I propose a new solution, in which two possibles are compossible if and only if they are jointly thinkable, that is, if they are members of an ideal unity. This involves a distinction between the variety that does contribute to unity and the variety that does not&mdash;and this distinction requires that we already have some notion of perfection prior to the appeal to variety.</p><p> Chapter 3 develops this account of perfection and incompossibility further, by introducing another puzzle God aims to create the most perfect world, but worlds are aggregates and aggregates seem to rank too low in Leibniz's ontology to explain God's aim. What is the world that God would care for it? God, being wise, does not and would not will multiple times in creating. Rather, God creates multiple substances through a single act of will. Acts of creative will, though, are individuated by the agent's concept of the object. This suggests that groups of substances are unified into worlds by God's intellect thinking of their many essences under a single idea. This is Leibniz's limited Spinozism: he is a metaphysical atomist about existing things, but a holist about the ideal and its value.</p><p> Chapters 4 and 5 tell the story of how Leibniz came to these views. The narrative is helpful in part because it sheds some light on Leibniz's motivations. Also, I argue that the mistakes common to recent approaches to compossibility have textual support only from premature versions of Leibniz's account of perfection, versions Leibniz rejected in part because they generate the problems discussed in Chapters 2 and 3.</p><p> Chapter 4 explores Leibniz's transition to philosophical maturity in the later 167os. He gave priority to the divine intellect throughout his career, but in the Paris Period, he left no work for the will at all: to exist is to be harmonious, and the existence of finite things depends directly on the divine intellect. This theory had theodicean advantages, but it also led to a necessitarianism just as absolute as Spinoza's. After studying Spinoza and leaving Paris, Leibniz placed the divine will between existence and harmony, or perfection. Perfection and harmony were now associated with God's ideas; coming to exist required, in addition, an act of God's will.</p><p> Having associated harmony with the possibles in God's mind, Leibniz now needed to explain why God does not maximize perfection by creating every substance. Chapter 5 deals with the gradual development after 1678, as Leibniz worked out how to determine the joint value of many independent substances. Just as previously he had separated existence from harmony while retaining a close connection between the two, the mature Leibniz distinguished harmony from the possible substances in God's mind. Harmony and perfection, on this final account, belong even to aggregates, which count as unities thanks only to their relation to a mind. With this in hand, Leibniz was finally in a position to argue that God leaves some possibles uncreated in order the maximize the perfection of what God does create.</p><p> Leibniz defended his commitment to a harmoniously limited, intelligible world by gradually distinguishing perfection from existence and from substantiality. Likewise, we profit by distinguishing Leibnizian perfection from (apparently) more accessible notions.</p>

Technological mediation| The implications of technology on the human experience

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Universität zu Köln, 1971. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [i]-iv).

<p> Philosopher of science Wilfrid Sellars argues that there are two mutually exclusive images of human-in-the-world that philosophy ought to unify: the "manifest image" of common, shared experience and the "scientific image" of imperceptible objects. Process philosophy, as a metaphysical framework, is in a unique position to allow both images to sit together in dynamic tension, rather than allowing one image to collapse into the other. Not only do I maintain that process philosophy is logically robust, but I also argue that there are several instances of empirical verification of process as an ontology.</p><p> Taking a process ontology seriously, however, requires that we re-articulate an understanding of the two grand narratives that are utilized to explain our origins: the socio-cultural evolution of consciousness and the objective evolution of the universe. I call these the <i>history of science</i> and the <i>science of history,</i> respectively. In Western academia, the <i>science of history</i> is usually given ontological priority; but within a process metaphysic, neither can be said to be explanatorily primary. That which holds these two narratives together, and that which produces spacetime itself, I refer to as "pretemporal origination." The mode through which this process elicits evolution is through creative-discovery, wherein creation and discovery are not two separate modes of mind-universe interaction, but unified on a continuum of constraints.</p>

Inaug.--diss.--Berlin. / "Disseratio inauguralis philosophica quam consensu et auctoritate amplissimi philosophorum ordinis ind Alma Litterarum Universitate Friderica Guilelma pro summiis in philosophia honoribus rite sibi concedendis die XXXI m. Martii a. MDCCCXLVI." Vita.

My thesis is a development and defence of the "Williamsonian" view of time, a temporalmetaphysical theory based on Timothy Williamson’s (1998, 1999, 2000, 2002) views concerning modality. As far as I am aware, the theory has never been developed or defended in print. The Williamsonian view is a version of the "a-theory" of time based on acceptance of the thesis of eternal existence, according to which always, everything always exists (i.e. everything exists eternally). I defend the Williamsonian view by showing that every other plausible temporal-metaphysical theory is subject to serious objections that cannot be raised against the Williamsonian view. I conclude that the Williamsonian view is the only plausible theory of time.

In my thesis I will be proposing situationalism: a new theory of how it is that things change over time. It is B-theoretic, eternalist and endurantist. The central contention of the theory is that what is true can differ in a metaphysically significant way from time to time. The theory emerges as a solution to the problem of change. In my first chapter, I argue that change is genuinely problematic (contra some of the recent literature). There are at least three ways to generate problems from change, and I elucidate problems from the law of non-contradiction and the indiscernibility of identicals. In the second chapter, I examine the nature of change and contend that the current major solutions to the problem fail to uphold our intuitive notion of change. Chapter 3 introduces the idea of a situation; a part of reality. The fourth chapter applies situations to the problem of change and comes up with a new solution. The solution relies on a denial of universal persistence; the denial of the idea that what is true in a situation s is thereby true in every situation of which s is a part. Chapter 5 considers the infamous Ship of Theseus case, and concludes that situationalism can also solve this problem. The situationalist account of the Ship of Theseus puzzle enables us, in Chapter 6, to briefly demonstrate the analogous application of the solution to a series of other persistence puzzles. The seventh chapter discusses the metaphysical consequences of such a view. The core claim is of the primacy of parts of reality over reality as a whole. It is a position according to which truth in situations is fundamental and situations needn’t cohere. I hold that the theory has significant costs but also substantial benefits. For this reason it is worth serious consideration.

Biodiversity is a concept that plays a key role in both scientific theories such as the species-area law and conservation politics. Currently, however, little agreement exists on how biodiversity should be defined, let alone measured. This has led to suggestions that biodiversity is not a metaphysically robust concept, with major implications for its usefulness in formulating scientific theories and making conservation decisions. A general discussion of biodiversity is presented, highlighting its application both in scientific and conservation contexts, its relationship with environmental ethics, and existing approaches to its measurement. To overcome the limitations of existing biodiversity concepts, a new concept of biocomplexity is proposed. This concept equates the biodiversity of any biological system with its effective complexity. Biocomplexity is shown to be the only feasible measure of biodiversity that captures the essential features desired of a general biodiversity concept. In particular, it is a well-defined, measurable and strongly intrinsic property of any biological system. Finally, the practical application of biocomplexity is discussed.

Thèse--Universit́e de Paris. / "Éditions auxquelles renvoient les références données au cours du présent travail": p. xiii-xvi. At head of title: A.-M. Goichon. Error in paging: p. 533 numbered 353. "Bibliographie": p. [504]-520.