Recent books and monographs

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2021

Fletcher, G. (2021). Dear Prudence: The Nature and Normativity of Prudential Discourse. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198858263.001.0001

Philosophers have long theorized about which things make people’s lives go well, and why, and the extent to which morality and self-interest can be reconciled. By contrast, we have spent little time on meta-prudential questions, questions about prudential discourse (thought and talk about what is, e.g., good and bad for us, what contributes to well-being, and what we have prudential reason, or prudentially ought, to do). This situation is surprising. Prudential discourse is, prima facie, a normative form of discourse and cries out for further investigation of what it is like and whether it has problematic commitments. It also marks a stark contrast from moral discourse, about which there has been extensive theorizing in metaethics. This book has three broad aims. First, to explore the nature of prudential discourse. Second, to argue that prudential discourse is normative and authoritative, like moral discourse. Third, to show that prudential discourse is worthy of further, explicit, attention both due to its intrinsic interest but also for the light it can shed on the meta-normative more broadly.

2020

Timmerman, T., & Cholbi, M. (Eds.) (2020). Exploring the Philosophy of Death and Dying: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives. (1st ed.) Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003106050

Exploring the Philosophy of Death and Dying: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives is the first book to offer students the full breadth of philosophical issues that are raised by the end of life. Included are many of the essential voices that have contributed to the philosophy of death and dying throughout history and in contemporary research. The 38 chapters in its nine sections contain classic texts (by authors such as Epicurus, Hume, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer) and new short argumentative essays, specially commissioned for this volume, by world-leading contemporary experts.

Exploring the Philosophy of Death and Dying introduces students to both theoretical issues (whether we can survive death, whether death is truly bad for us, whether immortality would be desirable, etc.) and urgent practical issues (the ethics of suicide, the value of grief, the appropriate medical criteria for declaring death, etc.) raised by human mortality, enabling instructors to adapt it to a wide array of institutions and student audiences.

Wolff, J. E. (2020). The Metaphysics of Quantities. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198837084.001.0001

This book articulates and defends a new and original answer to two questions: What are physical quantities and what makes them quantitative? This novel position—substantival structuralism—says that quantitativeness is an irreducible feature of particular attributes, and quantitative attributes are best understood as substantival structured spaces. Physical quantities like mass, momentum, or temperature play an important role in formulating laws of nature and in testing scientific theories. It is therefore important to have a clear philosophical understanding of what makes these attributes special. Traditional views of quantities have either suggested that quantities are determinables, that is, attributes that require determination by magnitudes, or that quantities are in some sense numerical, but neither view is satisfactory. The book shows how to use the representational theory of measurement to provide a better, more abstract criterion for quantitativeness: only attributes whose numerical representation has a high degree of uniqueness are quantitative. The best ontology for quantities is offered by a form of sophisticated substantivalism applied to quantities as structured spaces. Substantivalism, because an infinite domain is required to satisfy the formal requirements of quantitativeness; structured spaces, because they contain fundamental relations; sophisticated substantivalism because the identity of positions in such spaces is irrelevant. The resulting view is a form structuralism about quantities. The topic of the book falls squarely in the metaphysics of science, with contributions to general metaphysics and philosophy of science.

Massimi, M., & Mccoy, C. (Eds.) (2020). Understanding Perspectivism: Scientific Challenges and Methodological Prospects. (Routledge Studies in the Philosophy of Science). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315145198

This book articulates and defends a new and original answer to two questions: What are physical quantities and what makes them quantitative? This novel position—substantival structuralism—says that quantitativeness is an irreducible feature of particular attributes, and quantitative attributes are best understood as substantival structured spaces. Physical quantities like mass, momentum, or temperature play an important role in formulating laws of nature and in testing scientific theories. It is therefore important to have a clear philosophical understanding of what makes these attributes special. Traditional views of quantities have either suggested that quantities are determinables, that is, attributes that require determination by magnitudes, or that quantities are in some sense numerical, but neither view is satisfactory. The book shows how to use the representational theory of measurement to provide a better, more abstract criterion for quantitativeness: only attributes whose numerical representation has a high degree of uniqueness are quantitative. The best ontology for quantities is offered by a form of sophisticated substantivalism applied to quantities as structured spaces. Substantivalism, because an infinite domain is required to satisfy the formal requirements of quantitativeness; structured spaces, because they contain fundamental relations; sophisticated substantivalism because the identity of positions in such spaces is irrelevant. The resulting view is a form structuralism about quantities. The topic of the book falls squarely in the metaphysics of science, with contributions to general metaphysics and philosophy of science.

2019

Cretu, A., & Massimi, M. (Eds.) (2019). Knowledge from a Human Point of View. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27041-4

This book – as the title suggests – explores some of the historical roots and epistemological ramifications of perspectivism. Perspectivism has recently emerged in philosophy of science as an interesting new position in the debate between scientific realism and anti-realism. But there is a lot more to perspectivism than discussions in philosophy of science so far have suggested. Perspectivism is a much broader view that emphasizes how our knowledge (in particular our scientific knowledge of nature) is situated; it is always from a human vantage point (as opposed to some Nagelian "view from nowhere"). This edited collection brings together a diverse team of established and early career scholars across a variety of fields (from the history of philosophy to epistemology and philosophy of science). The resulting nine essays trace some of the seminal ideas of perspectivism back to Kant, Nietzsche, the American Pragmatists, and Putnam, while the second part of the book tackles issues concerning the relation between perspectivism, relativism, and standpoint theories, and the implications of perspectivism for epistemological debates about veritism, epistemic normativity and the foundations of human knowledge.

Lavelle, J. (2019). The Social Mind: A Philosophical Introduction. (1st ed.) Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315735535

A pioneering collection of new research that explores categories, constructions, and change in the syntax of the English language. The volume, with contributions by world-renowned scholars as well as some emerging scholars in the field, covers a wide variety of approaches to grammatical categories and categorial change, constructions and constructional change, and comparative and typological research. Each of the fourteen chapters, based on the analysis of authentic data, highlights the wealth and breadth of the study of English syntax (including morphosyntax), both theoretically and empirically, from Old English through to the present day. The result is a body of research which will add substantially to the current study of the syntax of the English language, by stimulating further research in the field.

Cholbi, M., & Weber, M. (Eds.) (2019). The future of work, technology, and basic income. (1 ed.) Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429455902

Technological advances in computerization and robotics threaten to eliminate countless jobs from the labor market in the near future. These advances have reignited the debate about universal basic income. The essays in this collection offer unique and compelling perspectives on the ever-changing nature of work and the plausibility of a universal basic income to address the elimination of jobs from the workforce. The essays address a number of topics related to these issues, including the prospects of libertarian and anarchist justifications for a universal basic income, the positive impact of a basic income on intimate laborers such as sex workers and surrogates, the nature of "bad work" and who will do it if everyone receives a basic income, whether a universal basic income is objectionably paternalistic, and viable alternatives to a universal basic income. This book raises complex questions and avenues for future research about universal basic income and the future of work in our increasingly technological society. It will be of keen interest to graduate students and scholars in political philosophy, economics, political science, and public policy who are interested in these debates.