In the short chapter on him in the book Falling in Love with Wisdom: American Philosophers Talk About Their Calling, Vallicella discusses the philosophical questions which he happened to think about in his youth, such as "What if God hadn't created anything?", "What if even God didn't exist", and "Why is good, good, and evil, evil?", and his thoughts on the inquiry of philosophy.[7]
What is it for any
contingent thing to exist? Why does any contingent thing exist? For some time now, the preferred style in addressing such questions has been deflationary when it has not been
eliminativist. In its critical half, this book thoroughly analyzes and demolishes the main deflationary and eliminativist accounts of
existence, including those of
Brentano,
Frege,
Russell, and
Quine, thereby restoring existence to its rightful place as one of the deep topics in philosophy, if not the deepest. In its constructive half, the book defends the
thesis that the two questions admit of a unified answer, and that this answer takes the form of what the author calls a
paradigmtheory of
existence. The central idea of the
paradigm theory is that existence itself is a paradigmatically existent concrete individual. In this way the author vindicates
onto-theology and puts paid to the
Heideggerian conceit that
Being cannot itself be a
being. This work will be of interest to all serious students and teachers of philosophy, especially those interested in
metaphysics and the
philosophy of religion.
Chapters
The Problem of Existence, by Arthur Witherall, Aldershot:
Ashgate Publishing, 2002, Philo, 6 (1), 2003, 176–88.[9]
"John Polkinghorne, The Faith of a Physicist: Reflections of a Bottom-Up Thinker," WF Vallicella, International Studies in Philosophy, 1996, State University of New York
In the short chapter on him in the book Falling in Love with Wisdom: American Philosophers Talk About Their Calling, Vallicella discusses the philosophical questions which he happened to think about in his youth, such as "What if God hadn't created anything?", "What if even God didn't exist", and "Why is good, good, and evil, evil?", and his thoughts on the inquiry of philosophy.[7]
What is it for any
contingent thing to exist? Why does any contingent thing exist? For some time now, the preferred style in addressing such questions has been deflationary when it has not been
eliminativist. In its critical half, this book thoroughly analyzes and demolishes the main deflationary and eliminativist accounts of
existence, including those of
Brentano,
Frege,
Russell, and
Quine, thereby restoring existence to its rightful place as one of the deep topics in philosophy, if not the deepest. In its constructive half, the book defends the
thesis that the two questions admit of a unified answer, and that this answer takes the form of what the author calls a
paradigmtheory of
existence. The central idea of the
paradigm theory is that existence itself is a paradigmatically existent concrete individual. In this way the author vindicates
onto-theology and puts paid to the
Heideggerian conceit that
Being cannot itself be a
being. This work will be of interest to all serious students and teachers of philosophy, especially those interested in
metaphysics and the
philosophy of religion.
Chapters
The Problem of Existence, by Arthur Witherall, Aldershot:
Ashgate Publishing, 2002, Philo, 6 (1), 2003, 176–88.[9]
"John Polkinghorne, The Faith of a Physicist: Reflections of a Bottom-Up Thinker," WF Vallicella, International Studies in Philosophy, 1996, State University of New York