Realisms interlinked: objects, subjects, and other subjects

✍ Scribed by Chakrabarti, Arindam

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2019;2020
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 353
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book brings together over 25 years of Arindam Chakrabarti's original research in philosophy on issues of epistemology, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind.

Organized under the three basic concepts of a thing out there in the world, the self who perceives it, and other subjects or selves, his work revolves around a set of realism links. Examining connections between metaphysical stances toward the world, selves, and universals, Chakrabarti engages with classical Indian and modern Western philosophical approaches to a number of live topics including the refutation of idealism; the question of the definability of truth, and the possibility of truths existing unknown to anyone; the existence of non-conceptual perception; and our knowledge of other minds. He additionally makes forays into fundamental questions regarding death, darkness, absence, and nothingness.

Along with conceptual clarification and progress towards alternative solutions to these substantial philosophical problems, Chakrabarti demonstrates the advantage of doing philosophy in a cosmopolitan fashion. Beginning with an analysis of the concept of a thing, and ending with an analysis of the concept of nothing,Realisms Interlinkedoffers a preview of a future metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind without borders.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Contents......Page 8
List of Figures......Page 10
Acknowledgments......Page 11
Part 1 Objects......Page 12
Introduction: Do You See What I See?......Page 14
1 I Touch What I Saw......Page 20
2 Non-particular Individuals......Page 32
3 On Perceiving Properties......Page 46
4 Seeing Daffodils, Seeing as Daffodils, and Seeing Things Called “Daffodils”......Page 56
5 Truth, Recognition of Truth, and Thoughtless Realism......Page 62
6 Idealist Refutations of Idealism......Page 76
7 Externality, Difference, and Inherence (Samavāya): Udayana’s Refutation of Yogācāra Buddhist Pan-Mentalism......Page 88
8 Is This a Dream?......Page 102
9 The Object to a Verb: The Case of the Accusative......Page 112
Part 2 Subjects......Page 122
10 On Referring to the First Person......Page 124
11 The Self at Other Times and in Other Bodies......Page 138
12 Does Self-Awareness Turn the Self into an Object?......Page 148
13 In Defense of an Inner Sense......Page 156
14 Our Knowledge and Error about Our Own Cognitions......Page 168
15 Fictionalism about the Mental......Page 186
16 Nyāya Proofs for the Existence of the Self......Page 196
Part 3 Other Subjects......Page 206
17 Knowing You from the Bridge......Page 208
18 The Grammar of Calling the Other......Page 216
19 Knowing from the Words of Others......Page 222
20 Can Another Person Teach Me What It Means?......Page 236
21 Shadows of Ignorance......Page 244
22 Concept Possession, Sense Experience, and Knowledge of a Language......Page 258
23 On What There Will Be......Page 266
24 Is There a World Out There? God Knows......Page 284
25 Absence, Non-Existence, and Other Negative Things......Page 296
Notes......Page 304
Bibliography......Page 327
Index......Page 338