Forms and structure in Plato's metaphysics /
"This book investigates the thought of two of the most influential philosophers of antiquity, Plato and his predecessor Anaxagoras, with respect to their metaphysical accounts of objects and their properties. It introduces a fresh perspective on these two thinkers' ideas, displaying the de...
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York, NY :
Oxford University Press,
[2021]
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | "This book investigates the thought of two of the most influential philosophers of antiquity, Plato and his predecessor Anaxagoras, with respect to their metaphysical accounts of objects and their properties. It introduces a fresh perspective on these two thinkers' ideas, displaying the debt of Plato's theory on Anaxagoras's, and principally arguing that their core metaphysical concept is overlap; overlap between properties and things in the world. Initially Plato endorses Anaxagoras's model of constitutional overlap, and subsequently develops qualitative overlap. Overlap is the crux to our understanding of Plato's theory of participation of objects in Forms; of his account of relatives without relations; of the role of Forms as causes; of the transcendent normativity of Forms; of the metaphysics of necessity; and of the role of the Great Kinds and of the paradeigma in the development of Plato's thought. This book shows Plato as ground-breaking in the history of metaphysics, in different ways from those acknowledged so far, and with respect to more metaphysical questions than had been hitherto appreciated; e.g. Plato's treatment of structure as property, of complexity, and his introduction of the first ever account of metaphysical emergence. In addition to these results, the book makes Anaxagoras's and Plato's systems philosophically accessible to us, today's philosophers, by applying conceptual tools from analytic metaphysics to the study of ancient metaphysics. In this way, the book brings Anaxagoras's and Plato's ideas to bear on todays' philosophical discussions and opens up new venues of research for current philosophical discussions"-- |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (223 pages). |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780197577165 0197577164 0197577172 9780197577189 0197577180 9780197577172 |