Reality is a rather large place. It contains protons, economies, headaches, sentences, smiles, asteroids, crimes, and numbers, and very many other things. Much of the content of our reality appears to depend on other of its content. Economies, for example, appear to depend upon people and the way they behave, amongst other things. Some of the content of our reality also appears to be, in some significant sense, more important than other of its content. Whilst none of us would wish to deny the very important role that economies play in our lives, most of us would agree that without matter arranged certain ways in space, for example, there could be no economies in the first place. Very many contemporary philosophers are concerned with how exactly we are to fill in the details of this view. What they are inclined to agree on is that reality has an over-arching hierarchical structure ordered by relations of metaphysical dependence, where chains of entities ordered by those dependence relations terminate in something fundamental. It is also commonly taken for granted that what those dependence chains terminate in is merely contingently existent - those things could have failed to exist - and consistent - they have no contradictory properties. This volume brings together fifteen essays from leading and emerging scholars that address these core, yet often under-explored, commitments.

This book describes how understanding the structure of reality leads to the Theory of Everything Equation. The equation unifies the forces of nature and enables the merging of relativity with quantum theory. The book explains the big bang theory and everything else.

Does the brain create the mind, or is some external entity involved? This book synthesizes ideas borrowed from philosophy, religion, and science. Topics range widely from brain imagining of thought processes to quantum mechanics and the essential role of information in brains and physical systems.

In this eBook, Conceptual Categories and the Structure of Reality, the title very well describes the book's content. Within the book's pages a selection of academics from a variety of human behaviour, human/social science and humanities disciplines write about their research all of which can be typified by their consideration of how categories are used to structure understanding of phenomena. These authors have considered how reality may be understood through notions such as categorial and structural ontologies, part-whole relatoinships (mereology), the qualitative, quantitative and philosophical use of the facet theory approach to research, mapping sentences and declarative mapping sentence, hermeneutics, concepts and constructs, similarities and differences. The resulting collection presents the foregoing conceptual and empirical approaches to knowledge development in general (chapter 1&3 Hackett); Phillips and Wislons' review of compositional syntax in bird calls (chapter 2); neurobehavioral decision systems (chapter 4 Foxall); representations of human psychological processes (chapter 5 Juan-Miguel López-Gil; Rosa Gil; Roberto García); free associations mirroring and its relation to self- and world-related concepts (chapter 6 Martin Kuška; Radek Trnka; Aleš Antonín Kuběna; Jiří Růžička); local knowledge and going beyond the data (chapter 7 Steven Phillips); categorical etiologies of speech sound disorders (chapter 8 Kelly Farquharson); similarity of visual appearance (chapter 9 Nao Nakatsuji; Hisayasu Ihara; Takeharu Seno; Hiroshi Ito); and a consideration of the seminal writing of David Oderberg's on the categorial classification of reality (chapter 10 Hackett).

Dynamic Structure of Reality makes available in English some of the most mature thought of the modern Spanish philosopher Xavier Zubiri. He first presented this material as a set of 1968 public lectures in Madrid. They were collected, edited, and published in 1989 as Estructura dinámica de la realidad. In 1962 Zubiri had published Sobre la esencia (On essence), a work of metaphysics that was praised by critics with one qualification: its treatment of reality was too static. The 1968 course was devised as a response to those critics. Dynamic Structure of Reality retraces the road Hegel traveled concerning the creation of a self and how that self is realized by an interplay between spirit and nature. Like his great predecessor José Ortega y Gasset, and like his great Jewish contemporary Emmanuel Levinas, Zubiri takes religion in all seriousness and locates its questions within the questions of modern philosophy. In harmony with science, he advances a new idea of becoming. Reality, not being, becomes. As reality’s traits are revealed, in different degrees, reality resembles God, the universal self-giver. Zubiri systematically touches on many disciplines to show the varieties of self-giving--throughout the universe--of structural dynamism.

In Physics, Structure, and Reality, Jill North addresses a set of questions that get to the heart of the project of interpreting physics—of figuring out what physics is telling us about the world. How do we figure out the nature of the world from a mathematically formulated physical theory? What do we infer about the world when a physical theory can be mathematically formulated in different ways? North argues that there is a certain notion of structure, implicit in physics and mathematics, to which we should pay careful attention in order to discern what physics is telling us about the nature of reality. North draws lessons for related topics, including the use of coordinate systems in physics, the differences among various formulations of classical mechanics, the nature of spacetime structure, the equivalence of physical theories, and the importance of scientific explanation. Although the book does not explicitly defend scientific realism, instead taking this to be a background assumption, the account provides an indirect case for realism toward our best theories of physics.

Is knowledge discovered, or just invented? Can we ever get outside ourselves to know how reality is in itself, independent of us? Philosophical realism raises the question whether in our knowing we connect with an independent reality--or only connect with our own mental constructs. Far from being a silly parlor game, the question impacts our lives concretely and deeply. Modern Western culture has been infected with antirealism and the doubt, skepticism, subjectivism, relativism, and atheism that attends it--not to mention distrust and arbitrary (mis)use of reality. Premier scientist-turned-philosopher Michael Polanyi stepped aside from research to offer an innovative account of knowing that takes its cue from how discovery actually happens. Polanyi defied the antirealism of the twentieth century, sounding a ringing note of hope in his repeated claim that in discovery, we know we have made contact with reality because "we have a sense of the possibility of indeterminate future manifestations." And that sense marks contact with reality, because it is the way reality is: abundant, generous, and fraught with as-yet-unnameable possibilities. This book examines that distinctive claim, contrasting it to the wider philosophical discussions regarding realism and antirealism in the recent decades. It shows why Polanyi's outlook is superior, and why that matters, not just to scientific discoverers, but to us all.

The Atlas of Reality: A Comprehensive Guide to Metaphysics presents an extensive examination of the key topics, concepts, and guiding principles of metaphysics. Represents the most comprehensive guide to metaphysics available today Offers authoritative coverage of the full range of topics that comprise the field of metaphysics in an accessible manner while considering competing views Explores key concepts such as space, time, powers, universals, and composition with clarity and depth Articulates coherent packages of metaphysical theses that include neo-Aristotelian, Quinean, Armstrongian, and neo-Humean Carefully tracks the use of common assumptions and methodological principles in metaphysics

The turn of the millennium has been marked by new developments in the study of early modern philosophy. In particular, the philosophy of René Descartes has been reinterpreted in a number of important and exciting ways, specifically concerning his work on the mind-body union, the connection between objective and formal reality, and his status as a moral philosopher. These fresh interpretations have coincided with a renewed interest in overlooked parts of the Cartesian corpus and a sustained focus on the similarities between Descartes’ thought and the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza. Mind, Body, and Morality consists of fifteen chapters written by scholars who have contributed significantly to the new turn in Descartes and Spinoza scholarship. The volume is divided into three parts. The first group of chapters examines different metaphysical and epistemological problems raised by the Cartesian mind-body union. Part II investigates Descartes’ and Spinoza’s understanding of the relations between ideas, knowledge, and reality. Special emphasis is put on Spinoza’s conception of the relation between activity and passivity. Finally, the last part explores different aspects of Descartes’ moral philosophy, connecting his views to important predecessors, Augustine and Abelard, and comparing them to Spinoza.

Provides the first comparison of the thought of these two political philosophers and its influence on contemporary American conservatism.