Is There a True Metaphysics of Material Objects?

Noûs 36 (s1):118-145 (2002)
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Abstract

I argue that metaphysical views of material objects should be understood as 'packages', rather than individual claims, where the other parts of the package include how the theory addresses 'recalcitant data', and that when the packages meet certain general desiderata - which all of the currently competing views *can* meet - there is nothing in the world that could make one of the theories true as opposed to any of the others.

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2008

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10.1111/1468-0068.36.s1.5

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reprint Sidelle, Alan (2008) "Is There a True Metaphysics of Material Objects?". Noûs 36(s1):118-145
reprint Sidelle, Alan (2010) "Is There a True Metaphysics of Material Objects?". Philosophical Issues 12(1):118-145

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Alan Sidelle
University of Wisconsin, Madison

Citations of this work

Ordinary objects.Daniel Z. Korman & Jonathan Barker - 2025 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Ontological realism.Theodore Sider - 2009 - In David Chalmers, David Manley & Ryan Wasserman, Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. pp. 384--423.
The contingency of composition.Ross P. Cameron - 2007 - Philosophical Studies 136 (1):99-121.

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References found in this work

Meaning and Necessity: A Study in Semantics and Modal Logic.Rudolf Carnap - 1947 - Chicago, IL, USA: University of Chicago Press.
T. - 2008 - In Nicholas Bunnin & Jiyuan Yu, The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 677-709.
Four Dimensionalism.Theodore Sider - 1997 - Philosophical Review 106 (2):197-231.

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