Norms and Necessity

Norms and Necessity - Paperback

$56.41
$56.41
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Norms and Necessity
  • Norms and Necessity
Norms and Necessity - Paperback

Norms and Necessity - Paperback

by Amie Thomasson
$56.41
$56.41

Book Overview

Claims about what is metaphysically necessary or possible have long played a central role in metaphysics and other areas of philosophy. Such claims are traditionally thought of as aiming to describe a special kind of modal fact or property, or perhaps facts about other possible worlds. But that assumption leads to difficult ontological, epistemological, and methodological puzzles. Should we accept that there are modal facts or properties, or other possible worlds? If so, what could these things be? How could we come to know what the modal facts or properties are? How can we resolve philosophical debates about what is metaphysically necessary or possible?

Norms and Necessity develops a new approach to understanding our claims about metaphysical possibility and necessity: Modal Normativism. The Normativist rejects the assumption that modal claims aim to describe modal features or possible worlds, arguing instead that they serve as useful ways of conveying, reasoning with, and renegotiating semantic rules and their consequences. By dropping the descriptivist assumption, the Normativist is able to unravel the notorious ontological problems of modality, and provide a clear and plausible story about how we can come to know what is metaphysically necessary or possible. Most importantly, this approach helps demystify philosophical methodology. It reveals that resolving metaphysical modal questions does not require a special form of philosophical insight or intuition. Instead, it requires nothing more mysterious than empirical knowledge, conceptual mastery, and an ability to explicitly convey and renegotiate semantic rules.
ISBN9780197747162
Author Amie Thomasson
PublisherOxford University Press
GenreEducation and Philosophy
FormatPaperback
PublishedNovember 2023
LanguageENG- English
Pages248
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

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About Amie Thomasson

Amie L. Thomasson is the Daniel P. Stone Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy at Dartmouth College. She is the author of four prior books: Ontology Made Easy (2014, winner of the Sanders Book Prize), Norms and Necessity (2020), Ordinary Objects (2007), and Fiction and Metaphysics (1998); and co-editor of Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind (2005). She has also published more than 80 papers on topics in metaphysics, philosophical methodology and metametaphysics, philosophy of art, social ontology, philosophy of mind and phenomenology. She has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and has twice held Fellowships with the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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