Jody Azzouni's Books

Ontology Without Borders

By: Jody Azzouni

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A new approach to the metaphysics, background logic, and semantics of ontological debate, Ontology Without Borders offers new solutions to perennial philosophical puzzles about constitution and the nonexistent. Book jacket.

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321

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Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0190622555

ISBN 13

9780190622558

Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science

By: Jody Azzouni

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Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science

By: Jody Azzouni

Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science is a fascinating study of the bounds between science and language: in what sense, and of what, does science provide knowledge? Is science an instrument only distantly related to what's real? Can the language of science be used to adequately describe the truth? In this book, Jodi Azziouni investigates the technology of science - the actual forging and exploiting of causal links, between ourselves and what we endeavor to know and understand.

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259

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Psychology Press

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ISBN 10

0415333547

ISBN 13

9780415333542

Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science

By: Jody Azzouni

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Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science

By: Jody Azzouni

Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science is a fascinating study of the bounds between science and language: in what sense, and of what, does science provide knowledge? Is science an instrument only distantly related to what's real? Can the language of science be used to adequately describe the truth? In this book, Jody Azziouni investigates the technology of science - the actual forging and exploiting of causal links, between ourselves and what we endeavor to know and understand.

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392

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Routledge

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ISBN 10

1134593422

ISBN 13

9781134593422

Deflating Existential Consequence

A Case for Nominalism

By: Jody Azzouni

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Deflating Existential Consequence

A Case for Nominalism

By: Jody Azzouni

If we must take mathematical statements to be true, must we also believe in the existence of abstracta eternal invisible mathematical objects accessible only by the power of pure thought? Jody Azzouni says no, and he claims that the way to escape such commitments is to accept (as an essential part of scientific doctrine) true statements which are about objects that don't exist in any sense at all. Azzouni illustrates what the metaphysical landscape looks like once we avoid a militant Realism which forces our commitment to anything that our theories quantify. Escaping metaphysical straitjackets (such as the correspondence theory of truth), while retaining the insight that some truths are about objects that do exist, Azzouni says that we can sort scientifically-given objects into two categories: ones which exist, and to which we forge instrumental access in order to learn their properties, and ones which do not, that is, which are made up in exactly the same sense that fictional objects are. He offers as a case study a small portion of Newtonian physics, and one result of his classification of its ontological commitments, is that it does not commit us to absolute space and time.

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264

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Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0198036248

ISBN 13

9780198036241

Tracking Reason

Proof, Consequence, and Truth

By: Jody Azzouni

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Tracking Reason

Proof, Consequence, and Truth

By: Jody Azzouni

When ordinary people--mathematicians among them--take something to follow (deductively) from something else, they are exposing the backbone of our self-ascribed ability to reason. Jody Azzouni investigates the connection between that ordinary notion of consequence and the formal analogues invented by logicians. One claim of the book is that, despite our apparent intuitive grasp of consequence, we do not introspect rules by which we reason, nor do we grasp the scope and range of the domain, as it were, of our reasoning. This point is illustrated with a close analysis of a paradigmatic case of ordinary reasoning: mathematical proof.

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255

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Oxford University Press

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ISBN 10

019518713X

ISBN 13

9780195187137

Ontology Without Borders

By: Jody Azzouni

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Ontology Without Borders

By: Jody Azzouni

Our experience of objects (and consequently our theorizing about them) is very rich. We perceive objects as possessing individuation conditions. They appear to have boundaries in space and time, for example, and they appear to move independently of a background of other objects or a landscape. In Ontology Without Boundaries Jody Azzouni undertakes an analysis of our concept of object, and shows what about that notion is truly due to the world and what about it is a projection onto the world of our senses and thinking. Location and individuation conditions are our product: there is no echo of them in the world. Features, the ways that objects seem to be, aren't projections. Azzouni shows how the resulting austere metaphysics tames a host of ancient philosophical problems about constitution ("Ship of Theseus," "Sorities"), as well as contemporary puzzles about reductionism. In addition, it's shown that the same sorts of individuation conditions for properties, which philosophers use to distinguish between various kinds of odd abstracta-universals, tropes, and so on, are also projections. Accompanying our notion of an object is a background logic that makes cogent ontological debate about anything from Platonic objects to Bigfoot. Contemporary views about this background logic ("quantifier variance") make ontological debate incoherent. Azzouni shows how a neutral interpretation of quantifiers and quantifier domains makes sense of both philosophical and pre-philosophical ontological debates. Azzouni also shows how the same apparatus makes sense of our speaking about a host of items--Mickey Mouse, unicorns, Martians--that nearly all of us deny exist. It's allowed by what Azzouni shows about the background logic of our ontological debates, as well as the semantics of the language of those debates that we can disagree over the existence of things, like unicorns, without that background logic and semantics forcing ontological commitments onto speakers that they don't have.

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321

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Oxford University Press

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ISBN 10

0190622571

ISBN 13

9780190622572

The Rule-Following Paradox and its Implications for Metaphysics

By: Jody Azzouni

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The Rule-Following Paradox and its Implications for Metaphysics

By: Jody Azzouni

This monograph presents Azzouni’s new approach to the rule-following paradox. His solution leaves intact an isolated individual’s capacity to follow rules, and it simultaneously avoids replacing the truth conditions for meaning-talk with mere assertability conditions for that talk. Kripke’s influential version of Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox—and Wittgenstein’s views more generally—on the contrary, make rule-following practices and assertions about those practices subject to community norms without which they lose their cogency. Azzouni summarizes and develops Kripke’s original version of Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox to make salient the linchpin assumptions of the paradox. By doing so, Azzouni reveals how compelling Kripke’s earlier work on the paradox was. Objections raised over the years by Fodor, Forbes Ginsborg, Goldfarb, Tait, Wright, and many others, are all shown to fail. No straight solution (a solution that denies an assumption of the paradox) can be made to work. Azzouni illustrates this in detail by showing that a popular family of straight solutions due to Lewis and refined by Williams, “reference magnetism,” fail as well. And yet an overlooked sceptical solution is still available in logical space. Azzouni describes a series of “disposition-meaning” private languages that he shows can be successfully used by a population of speakers to communicate with one another despite their ideolectical character. The same sorts of languages enable solitary “Robinson Crusoes” to survive and flourish in their island habitats. These languages—sufficiently refined—have the same properties normal human languages have; and this is the key to solving the rule-following paradox without sacrificing the individual’s authority over her self-imposed rules or her ability to follow those rules. Azzouni concludes this unusual monograph by uncovering a striking resemblance between the rule-following paradox and Hume’s problem of induction: he shows the rule-following paradox to be a corollary of Hume’s problem that arises when the problem of induction is applied to an individual’s own abilities to follow rules. “The book is clearly and engagingly written, and the conclusions are well-argued-for. (Depressingly well-argued-for in the case of Chapter 3, as I've always been partial to Lewisian responses to Putnam's model-theoretic argument--I'm rethinking that now.) And the proposed solution to the rule-following paradox really is novel.” Joshua Brown - Gustavus Adolphus College

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134

Publisher

Springer

Published Date

ISBN 10

3319490613

ISBN 13

9783319490618

Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science

By: Jody Azzouni

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Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science

By: Jody Azzouni

Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science is a fascinating study of the bounds between science and language: in what sense, and of what, does science provide knowledge? Is science an instrument only distantly related to what's real? Can the language of science be used to adequately describe the truth? In this book, Jody Azziouni investigates the technology of science - the actual forging and exploiting of causal links, between ourselves and what we endeavor to know and understand.

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262

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Routledge

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ISBN 10

1134593430

ISBN 13

9781134593439

Talking About Nothing

Numbers, Hallucinations, and Fictions

By: Jody Azzouni

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Talking About Nothing

Numbers, Hallucinations, and Fictions

By: Jody Azzouni

Ordinary language and scientific language enable us to speak about, in a singular way (using demonstratives and names), what we recognize not to exist: fictions, the contents of our hallucinations, abstract objects, and various idealized but nonexistent objects that our scientific theories are often couched in terms of. Indeed, references to such nonexistent items-especially in the case of the application of mathematics to the sciences-are indispensable. We cannot avoid talking about such things. Scientific and ordinary languages thus enable us to say things about Pegasus or about hallucinated objects that are true (or false), such as "Pegasus was believed by the ancient Greeks to be a flying horse," or "That elf I'm now hallucinating over there is wearing blue shoes." Standard contemporary metaphysical views and semantic analyses of singular idioms on offer in contemporary philosophy of language have not successfully accommodated these routine practices of saying true and false things about the nonexistent while simultaneously honoring the insight that such things do not exist in any way at all (and have no properties). That is, philosophers often feel driven to claim that such objects do exist, or they claim that all our talk isn't genuine truth-apt talk, but only pretence. This book reconfigures metaphysics (and the role of metaphysics in semantics) in radical ways that allow the accommodation of our ordinary ways of speaking of what does not exist while retaining the absolutely crucial presupposition that such objects exist in no way at all, have no properties, and so are not the truth-makers for the truths and falsities that are about them.

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282

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Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199780439

ISBN 13

9780199780433

The Rule-Following Paradox and its Implications for Metaphysics

By: Jody Azzouni

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The Rule-Following Paradox and its Implications for Metaphysics

By: Jody Azzouni

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134

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Springer

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3319490613

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9783319490618

Tracking Reason

Proof, Consequence, and Truth

By: Jody Azzouni

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Tracking Reason

Proof, Consequence, and Truth

By: Jody Azzouni

When ordinary people including mathematicians, take something to follow from something else, they are exposing the backbone of our ability to reason. Azzouni investigates the connection between that ordinary notion of consequence and the formal analogues invented by logicians.

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248

Published Date

ISBN 10

0199850577

ISBN 13

9780199850570

Talking About Nothing

Numbers, Hallucinations, and Fictions

By: Jody Azzouni

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Talking About Nothing

Numbers, Hallucinations, and Fictions

By: Jody Azzouni

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282

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Oxford University Press

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ISBN 10

019989003X

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9780199890033

Deflating Existential Consequence

A Case for Nominalism

By: Jody Azzouni

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Deflating Existential Consequence

A Case for Nominalism

By: Jody Azzouni

If we take mathematical statements to be true, must we also believe in the existence of abstract invisible mathematical objects? This text claims that the way to escape such a commitment is to accept true statements which are about objects that don't exist in any sense at all.

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250

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Oxford University Press, USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

0195159888

ISBN 13

9780195159882

Attributing Knowledge

What It Means to Know Something

By: Jody Azzouni

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Attributing Knowledge

What It Means to Know Something

By: Jody Azzouni

In Attributing Knowledge, Jody Azzouni challenges philosophical conventions about what it means to know something. He argues that the restrictive conditions philosophers place on knowers only hold in special cases; knowledge can be attributed to babies, sophisticated animals (great apes, orcas), unsophisticated animals (bees), and machinery (drones, driverless cars). Azzouni also gives a fresh defense of fallibilism. Relying on lexical semantics and ordinary usage, he shows that there are no knowledge norms for assertion or action. He examines everyday cases of knowledge challenge and attribution to show many recent and popular epistemological positions are wrong. By providing a long-sought intelligible characterization of knowledge attribution, Azzouni explains why the concept has puzzled philosophers so long, and he solves longstanding and recent puzzles that have perplexed epistemologists--including the dogmatism paradox, Gettier puzzles, and the surprise-exam paradox. "This is a terrific book, full of surprises. For instance, Chapter 9 is full of points that are original, insightful, and useful in helping to resolve stale debates. I especially liked the points that we don't ordinarily describe someone as losing knowledge by gaining defeating evidence, that "knows" is vague and tri-scoped, that vagueness needn't be explained by appeal to precise metasemantic machinery, and that Williamson's anti-luminosity argument founders on the fact that knowledge doesn't require confidence. Bravo!" --Ram Neta, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Praise for Jody Azzouni's Ontology without Borders: "Azzouni offers a very strong drink, proposing that we do without central elements of what almost anyone would call logic or ontology. His arguments are serious and wide-ranging. If he's right, the reader will have learned something very important. If he's wrong, then the reader who figures out how he went wrong will also have learned something very important. Not every book has this feature." --Michael Gorman, The Catholic University of America

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352

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Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0197508820

ISBN 13

9780197508824

Metaphysical Myths, Mathematical Practice

The Ontology and Epistemology of the Exact Sciences

By: Jody Azzouni

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Metaphysical Myths, Mathematical Practice

The Ontology and Epistemology of the Exact Sciences

By: Jody Azzouni

This original and exciting study offers a completely new perspective on the philosophy of mathematics. Most philosophers of mathematics try to show either that the sort of knowledge mathematicians have is similar to the sort of knowledge specialists in the empirical sciences have or that the kind of knowledge mathematicians have, although apparently about objects such as numbers, sets, and so on, isn't really about those sorts of things at all. Jody Azzouni argues that mathematical knowledge is a special kind of knowledge that must be gathered in its own unique way. He analyzes the linguistic pitfalls and misperceptions philosophers in this field are often prone to, and explores the misapplications of epistemic principles from the empirical sciences to the exact sciences. What emerges is a picture of mathematics sensitive both to mathematical practice and to the ontological and epistemological issues that concern philosophers. The book will be of special interest to philosophers of science, mathematics, logic, and language. It should also interest mathematicians themselves.

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284

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0521442230

ISBN 13

9780521442237

Deflating Existential Consequence

A Case for Nominalism

By: Jody Azzouni

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Deflating Existential Consequence

A Case for Nominalism

By: Jody Azzouni

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Page Count

241

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ISBN 10

0199834997

ISBN 13

9780199834990

Book's by Jody Azzouni

Ontology Without Borders

Ontology Without Borders

Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science

Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science

Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science

Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science

Deflating Existential Consequence

Deflating Existential Consequence

Tracking Reason

Tracking Reason

Ontology Without Borders

Ontology Without Borders

The Rule-Following Paradox and its Implications for Metaphysics

The Rule-Following Paradox and its Implications for Metaphysics

Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science

Knowledge and Reference in Empirical Science

Talking About Nothing

Talking About Nothing

The Rule-Following Paradox and its Implications for Metaphysics

The Rule-Following Paradox and its Implications for Metaphysics

Tracking Reason

Tracking Reason

Talking About Nothing

Talking About Nothing

Deflating Existential Consequence

Deflating Existential Consequence

Attributing Knowledge

Attributing Knowledge

Metaphysical Myths, Mathematical Practice

Metaphysical Myths, Mathematical Practice

Deflating Existential Consequence

Deflating Existential Consequence

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