Published by De Gruyter

Philosophical Analysis

Edited by: Katherine Dormandy, Rafael Hüntelmann, Christian Kanzian, Uwe Meixner, Richard Schantz and Erwin Tegtmeier
Scientific consultation: Natalja Deng, Michał Głowala, Thomas Grundmann, Jani Hakkarainen, Wolfgang Huemer, Markku Keinänen, Max Kistler, Robert Koons, Ingolf Max, Bruno Niederbacher, Francesco Orilia, Elisa Paganini, Marek Piwowarczyk, Maria Reicher-Marek, Benjamin Schnieder, Oliver Scholz, Henning Tegtmeyer, Peter van Inwagen and Barbara Vetter

ISSN: 2627-227X

Previous titles under "Philosophische Analyse / Philosophical Analysis"

e-ISSN 2627-2288

Overview
Volumes

The series offers a publication forum for innovative works on all topics of analytic philosophy. The focus is on the disciplines of theoretical philosophy: metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, philosophy of language, logic. Furthermore, works that additionally include contributions to the history of philosophy are also welcome.

Topics

Book Ahead of Publication 2024

The Credibility of Science and Religion

Comparing the Rational Structure of Scientific and Religious Belief Systems

Paul Weingartner

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Weingartner compares criteria and basic assumptions for the credibility of scientific and religious belief systems. It is shown that mankind has access to basic knowledge about a higher spiritual power and knowledge by conscience about what is obligatory or forbidden. This is defended by further axiomatizations on basic terms as natural goods, natural and moral law, and conscience. Scientific and religious belief systems are then compared thoroughly and by logical deduction and verisimilitude. One main argument is that every kind of belief system has an upper and a lower bound of credibility, yet a degree of credibility that leads to the impossibility of rational justification for scientific belief systems must not be required from religious belief systems. Further topics are internal and external consistency, local refutation, mutual complementation between religion and theory of evolution as well as a comparison of the five world religions leading to general features of religion. It is shown that one main yet basic axiom of morality is the principle of charity. Finally, the book concludes with the credibility-requirements of science towards religion and those of religion towards science.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.0000/9783111348858
ISBN:: 9783111348858
ISBN:: 9783111348995
ISBN:: 9783111348438
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy of Science
Subject:: Philosophy of Religion
Subject:: Selected Philosophical Movements
Subject:: Analytical Philosophy
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Systematic Theology and Philosophy of Religion
Subject:: Philosophy of Religion
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Ahead of Publication 2024

Ontology of Divinity

Mirosław Szatkowski

Volume 89 in this series

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This volume announces a new era in the philosophy of God. Many of its contributions work to create stronger links between the philosophy of God, on the one hand, and mathematics or metamathematics, on the other hand. It is about not only the possibilities of applying mathematics or metamathematics to questions about God, but also the reverse question: Does the philosophy of God have anything to offer mathematics or metamathematics? The remaining contributions tackle stereotypes in the philosophy of religion.

The volume includes 35 contributions. It is divided into nine parts: 1. Who Created the Concept of God; 2. Omniscience, Omnipotence, Timelessness and Spacelessness of God; 3. God and Perfect Goodness, Perfect Beauty, Perfect Freedom; 4. God, Fundamentality and Creation of All Else; 5. Simplicity and Ineffability of God; 6. God, Necessity and Abstract Objects; 7. God, Infinity, and Pascal’s Wager; 8. God and (Meta-)Mathematics; and 9. God and Mind.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.0000/9783111332536
ISBN:: 9783111332536
ISBN:: 9783111332444
ISBN:: 9783111332567
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Metaphysics, Ontology
Subject:: Selected Philosophical Movements
Subject:: Analytical Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2023

How Do Proper Names Really Work?

A Metadescriptive Version of the Cluster Theory

Claudio Ferreira-Costa

Volume 88 in this series

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For fifty years the philosophy of language has been experiencing a stalemating conflict between the old descriptive and internalist orthodoxy (advocated by philosophers such as Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Strawson, and Searle) and the new causal-referential and externalist orthodoxy (mainly endorsed by Kripke, Putnam, and Kaplan). Although the latter is dominant among specialists, the former retains a discomforting intuitive plausibility. The ultimate goal of this book is to overcome the stalemate by means of a non-naïve return to the old descriptivist-internalist orthodoxy. Concerning proper names, this means introducing second-order description-rules capable of systemizing descriptions of the proper name’s cluster to provide us with the right changeable conditions of satisfaction for its application. Such rules can explain how a proper name can become a rigid designator while remaining descriptive, disarming Kripke's and Donnellan’s main objections. In the last chapter, this new perspective is extended to indexicals in a discussion of David Kaplan’s and John Perry’s views, and of general terms, in a discussion of Hilary Putnam’s externalism.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110985740
ISBN:: 9783110985740
ISBN:: 9783110997163
ISBN:: 9783110986174
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy of Language
Subject:: Selected Philosophical Movements
Subject:: Analytical Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2023

Begriff, Bewusstsein und Bedeutung

Zum Verhältnis von Sprache, Mentalem und Bezugsobjekt

Volker A. Munz

Volume 87 in this series

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Meanings are located neither "inside" or "outside" the mind. Consciousness, the outside world, and language form a unity. In his investigation into externalist and internalist positions (e.g., Locke, Putnam, Kripke), Munz uses selected thought experiments to show that phenomenal and physicalist approaches by no means exclude each other; rather, when determining the meaning of linguistic signs, they can by all means complement each other.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111241555
ISBN:: 9783111241555
ISBN:: 9783111241975
ISBN:: 9783111240923
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Metaphysics, Ontology
Subject:: Philosophy of Language
Subject:: Selected Philosophical Movements
Subject:: Analytical Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2023

Empty-Base Explanation

Yannic Kappes

Volume 86 in this series

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This book develops and applies a novel kind of explanation: Empty-Base Explanation. While ordinary explanations have a tripartite structure involving an explanandum, a base of reasons why the explanandum obtains, and a link that connects the reasons to the explanandum, this book argues that there are explanations whose corresponding set of reasons is empty. This novel idea is located in the theoretical background of several fundamental philosophical issues. For example, it provides a convincing kind of ultimate or final explanation that completely and conclusively explains a phenomenon without involving other phenomena for which further explanations could be demanded.

The possibility and fruitfulness of empty-base explanation is defended by general considerations from the theory of explanation, as well as concrete applications to

the practice of explanation by status,

the explanation of logical theorems, causal connections, and laws of nature,

self-explanation,

the use of IBE in metaphysics,

the notion of zero-ground (which it provides with a solid theoretical footing), and

ultimate explanation and its application to philosophical cosmology, the debate about the PSR, and the question of why there is anything at all.

For this book, Yannic Kappes has received the 2022 De Gruyter Prize for Ontology and Metaphysics from the German Society for Analytic Philosophy (GAP).

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111069500
ISBN:: 9783111069500
ISBN:: 9783111069722
ISBN:: 9783111069241
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Metaphysics, Ontology
Subject:: Epistemology
Subject:: Selected Philosophical Movements
Subject:: Analytical Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2022

Metapher, Kontext und Kognition

Metaphern zwischen Indexikalität und Ähnlichkeit

Jacob Hesse, FWF

Volume 85 in this series

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In this book, the author develops a new approach of metaphors by systematically distinguishing the level of linguistic properties from the level of psychological processes associated with metaphorical interpretations. Besides avoiding problems of other available theories of metaphor his account also enables to gain valuable insights about other tropes such as irony or metonymy as well as about the relation between semantics and pragmatics.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110732122
ISBN:: 9783110732122
ISBN:: 9783110737066
ISBN:: 9783110732177
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Metaphysics, Ontology
Subject:: Selected Philosophical Movements
Subject:: Analytical Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2021

An Axiomatic Study of God

A Defence of the Rationality of Religion

Paul Weingartner

Volume 84 in this series

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Weingartner shows that an essential part of natural or philosophical theology and even a part of theology can be treated axiomatically. God’s essence, omniscience, omnipotence, creating activity, and all-goodness are described by axioms and by theorems proved from them.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110717983
ISBN:: 9783110717983
ISBN:: 9783110717839
ISBN:: 9783110718058
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy of Religion
Subject:: Selected Philosophical Movements
Subject:: Analytical Philosophy
Subject:: Theology and Religion
Subject:: Systematic Theology and Philosophy of Religion
Subject:: Philosophy of Religion
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book Open Access 2020

Agents’ Abilities

Romy Jaster

Volume 83 in this series

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Almost everyone can run. Only very few can run a marathon. But what is it for agents to be able to do things? This question, while central to many debates in philosophy, is still awaiting a comprehensive answer. The book provides just that. Drawing on some valuable insights from previous works of abilities and making use of possible world semantics, Jaster develops the "success view", a view on which abilities are a matter of successful behavior. Along the way, she explores the gradable nature of abilities, the contextsensitivity of ability statements, the difference between general and specific abilities, the relationship between abilities and dispositions, and the ability to act otherwise. The book is mandatory reading for anyone working on abilities, and provides valuable insights for anyone dealing with agents' abilities in other fields of philosophy.

For this book, Romy Jaster has received both the Wolfgang Stegmüller Prize and the De Gruyter Prize for Analytical Philosophy of Mind or Metaphysics/Ontology.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110650464
ISBN:: 9783110650464
ISBN:: 9783110777505
ISBN:: 9783110648270
ISBN:: 9783110648652
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Metaphysics, Ontology
Subject:: Selected Philosophical Movements
Subject:: Analytical Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2019

Contemporary Polish Ontology

Bartłomiej Skowron

Volume 82 in this series

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This book is a collection of articles authored by renowed Polish ontologists living and working in the early part of the 21st century. Harking back to the well-known Polish Lvov-Warsaw School, founded by Kazimierz Twardowski, we try to make our ontological considerations as systematically rigorous and clear as possible – i.e. to the greatest extent feasible, but also no more than the subject under consideration itself allows for. Hence, the papers presented here do not seek to steer clear of methods of inquiry typical of either the formal or the natural sciences: on the contrary, they use such methods wherever possible. At the same time, despite their adherence to rigorous methods, the Polish ontologists included here do not avoid traditional ontological issues, being inspired as they most certainly are by the great masters of Western philosophy – from Plato and Aristotle, through St. Thomas and Leibniz, to Husserl, to name arguably just the most important.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110669411
ISBN:: 9783110669411
ISBN:: 9783110669510
ISBN:: 9783110669329
ISBN:: 9783110763713
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Metaphysics, Ontology
Subject:: Selected Philosophical Movements
Subject:: Analytical Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2019

Quo Vadis, Metaphysics?

Essays in Honor of Peter van Inwagen

Mirosław Szatkowski

Volume 81 in this series

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The old philosophical discipline of metaphysics – after having been pronounced dead by many – has enjoyed a significant revival within the last thirty years, due to the application of the methods of analytic philosophy. One of the major contributors to this revival is the outstanding American metaphysician Peter van Inwagen. This volume brings together twenty-two scholars, who, in commemoration of Prof. van Inwagen's 75th birthday, ponder the future prospects of metaphysics in all the richness to which it has now returned. It is only natural that logical and epistemological reflections on the significance of metaphysics – sometimes called “meta-metaphysics” – play a considerable role in most of these papers. The volume is further enriched by an interview with Peter van Inwagen himself.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110664812
ISBN:: 9783110664812
ISBN:: 9783110662641
ISBN:: 9783110662498
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Metaphysics, Ontology
Subject:: Selected Philosophical Movements
Subject:: Analytical Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2019

Kripkes Metaphysik möglicher Welten

Sebastian Krebs

Volume 80 in this series

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In this study, Sebastian Krebs elaborates a metaphysical deflationism in response to the question of the ontological status of possibility and necessity. In doing so, he not only offers the first German-language introduction to Kripke’s metaphysics; he also clarifies the much misunderstood yet crucial concept of possible worlds in formal modal logic.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110652642
ISBN:: 9783110652642
ISBN:: 9783110651188
ISBN:: 9783110651256
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Metaphysics, Ontology
Subject:: Logic
Subject:: Selected Philosophical Movements
Subject:: Analytical Philosophy
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2019

Philosophical Insights into Pragmatics

Piotr Stalmaszczyk

Volume 79 in this series

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The book provides philosophical interpretations of pragmatic issues. It concentrates on well-established concepts such as presupposition, entailment, implicature, speech acts, subsentential speech acts, different cases of meaning as use, expressive meanings and expressive commitments, as well as the relation between knowledge and belief. The discussion goes beyond linguistic investigations and offers a wide philosophical perspective.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110628937
ISBN:: 9783110628937
ISBN:: 9783110623765
ISBN:: 9783110626339
Subject:: Linguistics and Semiotics
Subject:: Levels of Linguistic Analysis
Subject:: Pragmatics
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Philosophy of Language
Publisher:: De Gruyter

Book 2019

Figuring It Out

Logic Diagrams

George Englebretsen, José Martin Castro-Manzano, José Roberto Pacheco-Montes

Volume 78 in this series

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Many systems of logic diagrams have been offered both historically and more recently. Each of them has clear limitations. An original alternative system is offered here. It is simpler, more natural, and more expressively and inferentially powerful. It can be used to analyze not only syllogisms but arguments involving relational terms and unanalyzed statement terms.

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110624458
ISBN:: 9783110624458
ISBN:: 9783110621846
ISBN:: 9783110763355
ISBN:: 9783110621631
Subject:: Philosophy
Subject:: Logic
Publisher:: De Gruyter