A Short Glossary of Metaphysics.docVIP

A Short Glossary of Metaphysics Peter Simons with additional entries by Ross Cameron Note: Many of the words in this glossary have everyday meanings which are different from these. We give only the more specialized philosophical meanings. johnsonian health warning: like all glossaries and dictionaries, not infallible and not complete, but an honest attempt to capture the senses of principal usages and occasionally to recommend some over others. A-theory A view about time according to which there is real passage of time, so that the difference between past, present and future is ontologically significant. Often the present or present objects are taken as privileged. Often connected with the semantic theory that what is true now is what is true simpliciter, while what was or will be true is no longer or is not yet true simpliciter. Presentism, growing block and the moving spotlight are common versions of the A-theory. abstract Can mean one of several things when said of an object. [1] Existing outside space and time and lacking causal powers: said e.g. of numbers, universals, sets, types etc. [2] Unable to exist alone (synonym: moment). (Used in this sense by Husserl, Williams, Campbell.) [3] Discernible or recognizable only through a process of abstraction. (The object abstracted is called the abstractum, any object abstracted from is called a concretum.) abstraction A real or logical process revealing or on some accounts creating an abstract object (in one or another sense of ‘abstract’). [1] In empiricism, a process of discerning something by directing attention on certain features and ignoring others. [2] Introduction of a singular term for an object via an equivalence relation, e.g. the weight of an object is given by considering collections which are or are not as heavy as it: its weight is the abstractum given by the principle of weight abstraction: the weight of A = the weight of B if and only if A is as heavy as B Here A and B are the concreta,