Human Nature - Hacker, P M S

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Résumé :
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Biographie:

Preface xi

Chapter 1 The Project 1

1. Human nature 1

2. Philosophical anthropology 4

3. Grammatical investigation 7

4. Philosophical investigation 11

5. Philosophy and 'mere words' 14

6. A challenge to the autonomy of the philosophical enterprise: Quine 17

7. The Platonic and Aristotelian traditions in philosophical anthropology 21

Chapter 2 Substance 29

1. Substances: things 29

2. Substances: stuffs 34

3. Substance-referring expressions 37

4. Conceptual connections between things and stuffs 42

5. Substances and their substantial parts 44

6. Substances conceived as natural kinds 45

7. Substances conceived as a common logico-linguistic category 49

8. A historical digression: misconceptions of the category of substance 51

Chapter 3 Causation 57

1. Causation: Humean, neo-Humean and anti-Humean 57

2. On causal necessity 62

3. Event causation is not a prototype 65

4. The inadequacy of Hume's analysis: observability, spatio-temporal relations and regularity 69

5. The flaw in the early modern debate 73

6. Agent causation as prototype 75

7. Agent causation is only a prototype 80

8. Event causation and other centres of variation 82

9. Overview 88

Chapter 4 Powers 90

1. Possibility 90

2. Powers of the inanimate 93

3. Active and passive powers of the inanimate 96

4. Power and its actualization 98

5. Power and its vehicle 103

6. First- and second-order powers...

Sommaire:
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Full of helpful distinctions and arguments which show in different ways how carefully we must proceed ... and how sensitive we must be to contexts. ( Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews ) an outstanding contribution to contemporary metaphysics and philosophical anthropology' (Stephen Mulhall, Philosophical Quarterly ) an amazing achievement when writing about such potentially confusing and hotly contested issues (Duncan Richter, Metapsychology )