Do Chairs Exist?
A surprisingly good Vsauce video:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=fXW-QjBsruE
I'd suggest some related questions:
- What is "chair"?
- What is "existence"?
- What is "is"?
How much of existence simply rests on a sufficiency of interest on our part?
There've been a few stabs at disucssing this, I'd like to see if we can't perhaps pull off a bit more here. Do please watch the video first so as to be on the same ground.
Miscellaneous observations not critical to discussion though of possible utility thereof in your correspondent's humble opinion at the present moment
Numerous interesting and useful concepts:
- Ontology
- Composition and Constitution. Simples
- Properties
- Relations
- Sortals
- Entailment
- Ontological Reductionism
- Ontological Realism
- Ontological Antrialism
- Ontological Innocence
- Gunky vs. Junky universes
- Application Condition
- Pseudo-Questions
Also a quite impressive reading list. I've linked in Worldcat entries for books.
BOOKS:
- Metametaphysics (Eds. David Chalmers, David Manley, Ryan Wasserman)
- An Introduction to Metametaphysics (Tahko)
- Material Beings (Peter Van Inwagen)
- Objects and Persons (Trenton Merricks)
- Ordinary Objects (Amie Thomasson)
- Ontology Made Easy (Amie Thomasson)
- Ontology, Modality and the Fallacy of Reference (Michael Jubien)
- Objects: Nothing out of the Ordinary (Daniel Z. Korman)
- Composition as Identity (eds. Cotnoir, Baxter)
- Truth and Ontology (Trenton Merricks)
- Austere Realism (Horgan and Potrc)
- The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are (Alan Watts)
PAPERS:
- Thinking about Things (Jubien): https://www.jstor.org/stable/2676165
- There are no Ordinary Things (Unger): https://www.jstor.org/stable/20115446
- Against Parthood (Sider): http://www.tedsider.org/papers/nihilism.pdf
- A Sweater Unraveled (Sidelle): https://www.jstor.org/stable/2671870
- On What There Is (Quine): https://www.jstor.org/stable/20123117
- Two Dogmas of Empiricism (Quine): https://www.theologie.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:ffffffff-fbd6-1538-0000-000070cf64bc/Quine51.pdf
- Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology (Carnap): https://www.jstor.org/stable/23932367
- Many-One Identity (Baxter): https://philpapers.org/rec/DONMI-2
- Oneness, Aspects, and the Neo-Confucians (Baxter): https://www.academia.edu/39736289/Oneness_Aspects_and_the_Neo_Confucians
- Why the debate about composition is factually empty (Balaguer): https://philpapers.org/rec/BALWTD
Stanford Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Ordinary Objects: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ordinary-objects/
- Sortals https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sortals/
- Metaphysics of Mass Expressions https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/metaphysics-massexpress/
- Material Constitution https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/material-constitution/
And:
- Material Composition https://iep.utm.edu/mat-comp/
#philosophy #ontology #existence #empiricism #pragmatism #metaphysics #metametaphysics #meaning #truth #epistemology