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The Fragmentation of Being offers answers to some of the most fundamental questions in ontology. There are many kinds of beings but are there also many kinds of being? The world contains a variety of objects, each of which, let us provisionally assume, exists, but do some objects exist in different ways? Do some objects enjoy more being or existence than other objects? Are there different ways in which one object might enjoy more being than another?
Most contemporary metaphysicians would answer "no" to each of these questions. So widespread is this consensus that the questions this book addressed are rarely even raised let alone explicitly answered. But Kris McDaniel carefully examines a wide range of reasons for answering each of these questions with a "yes". In doing so, he connects these questions with many important metaphysical topics, including substance and accident, time and persistence, the nature of ontological categories, possibility and necessity, presence and absence, persons and value, ground and consequence, and essence and accident.
In addition to discussing contemporary problems and theories, McDaniel also discusses the ontological views of many important figures in the history of philosophy, including Aquinas, Aristotle, Descartes, Heidegger, Husserl, Kant, Leibniz, Meinong, and many more.
List of contents
- Introduction
- 1: Ways of Being
- 2: A Return to the Analogy of Being
- 3: Ways of Being and Time
- 4: Categories of Being
- 5: Being and Almost Nothingness
- 6: Persons and Value
- 7: Degrees of Being
- 8: Being and Ground
- 9: Being and Essence
- Concluding Unsystematic Postscript
About the author
Kris McDaniel is Professor of Philosophy at Syracuse University, New York. He has published on a wide variety of topics in metaphysics (such as modality, composition, metaontology, and persistence over time), as well as topics in the history of philosophy (such as Kant, Heidegger, and British Idealism), and in ethics.
Summary
Kris McDaniel argues that there are different ways in which things exist. For instance, past things don't exist in the same way as present things. Numbers don't exist in the same way as physical objects; nor do holes, which are real, but less real than what they are in. McDaniel's theory of being illuminates a wide range of metaphysical topics.
Report
IThe Fragmentation of Being explores whether there are modes of being, and if so, what modes of being there are, and whether some of these modes of being are ontologically superior to others...My main goal is to present, develop, and evaluate various versions of ontological pluralism- the doctrine that there are modes of being in order to see whether these versions are plausible metaphysical theories. Kris McDaniel, Philos Studies
