Table of Contents

Introduction: Carving Nature at the Joints, Richard Davies (University of Bergamo, Italy) Part I: Does Nature Carve Itself? 1. Mental acts, externalism and fiat objects: an Ockhamist solution, Riccardo Fedriga (University of Bologna, Italy) 2. Is the World really a World of Objects? A Note on Quinean Ontology, Antonio Rainone (“L’Orientale” University of Naples, Italy) 3. Spatial Fictionalism. A Solution of the Grounding Problem, Nicola Piras (University of Sassari, Italy) 4. Talking about Properties: A Couple of Doubts about Hofweber’s Internalist View, Elisa Paganini (State University of Milan, Italy) Part II: Where Do Limits Lie? 5. The Eye of the Needle: Seeing Holes, Clotilde Calabi (State University of Milan, Italy) 6. Bona Fideness of Material Entities and their Boundaries, Lars Vogt (University of Bonn, Germany) 7. A Conceptualist View in the Metaphysics of Species, Ciro De Florio and Aldo Frigerio (both Catholic University of Milan, Italy) Part III: Where Do Tools Come From? 8. Artifacts and fiat objects: two families apart?, Massimiliano Carrara and Marzia Soavi (both University of Padua, Italy) 9. The Semantics of Artifactual Words, Marco Santambrogio (University of Parma, Italy) 10. Are linguistic objects fiat or bona fide? An ancient proposal, Maddalena Bonelli (University of Bergamo, Italy) Part IV: What Does Mind-Dependency Depend On? 11. Leibniz’s principle and psycho-neural identity, Andrea Bottani and Alfredo Paternoster (both University of Bergamo, Italy) 12. Do we exist? Mereological nihilism, collective thinking and dualism, Alfredo Tomasetta (University School for Advanced Studies IUSS, Pavia) Abstracts Index of Names Index of Principal Subjects

Promotional Information

An in-depth explanation of the burgeoning topic of the natural and artifactual object split within analytic philosophy.

About the Author

Richard Davies is a Professor of Philosophy at University of Bergamo, Italy.

Reviews

The 13 essays Davies (Univ. of Bergamo, Italy) has gathered discuss problems arising from the distinction between natural and nonnatural objects and between language—the supreme human artifact—and language-indifferent nature … Summing Up: Recommended. Researchers and faculty.
*CHOICE*

When philosophers deal with ontology, they still turn their attentions primarily to ideal worlds constructed out of sets, or bare particulars, or atomless gunk. Outside philosophy, in contrast, ontology is being vigorously applied to real-world problems in areas such as genomics, engineering design, materials science or geopolitics. This groundbreaking volume is the first major study of the philosophical issues brought to light by this new applied ontology. It will be an indispensable resource for the work that is to come.
*Barry Smith, Director of National Center for Ontological Research, State University of New York at Buffalo, USA*

Everybody agrees: there is a big difference between the natural and the artifactual, between the mind-independent features of reality and the products of our worldmaking practices. The challenge, as the essays in this book admirably show, is where to draw the line, and how to do so without begging the question. A rich, engaging, highly original contribution to the classical debate between metaphysical realism and constructivism.
*Achille C. Varzi, Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University, USA*