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Perdurantism can harmonize identity with change in another way. In four-dimensionalism, a version of perdurantism, what persists is a four-dimensional object which does not change although three-dimensional slices of the object may differ.
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Objects appear to us in space and time, while abstract entities such as classes, properties, and relations do not. How do space and time serve this function as a ground for objects? Are space and time entities themselves, of some form? Must they exist prior to objects? How exactly can they be defined? How is time relat...
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Classical philosophy recognized a number of causes, including teleological final causes. In special relativity and quantum field theory the notions of space, time and causality become tangled together, with temporal orders of causations becoming dependent on who is observing them. The laws of physics are symmetrical in...
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For that matter, can an effect precede its cause? This was the title of a 1954 paper by Michael Dummett, which sparked a discussion that continues today. Earlier, in 1947, C. S. Lewis had argued that one can meaningfully pray concerning the outcome of, e.g., a medical test while recognizing that the outcome is determin...
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Causality is linked by many philosophers to the concept of counterfactuals. To say that A caused B means that if A had not happened then B would not have happened. This view was advanced by David Lewis in his 1973 paper "Causation". His subsequent papers further develop his theory of causation.
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Causality is usually required as a foundation for philosophy of science if science aims to understand causes and effects and make predictions about them.
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Metaphysicians investigate questions about the ways the world could have been. David Lewis, in "On the Plurality of Worlds", endorsed a view called concrete modal realism, according to which facts about how things could have been are made true by other concrete worlds in which things are different. Other philosophers, ...
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Metaphysical cosmology is the branch of metaphysics that deals with the world as the totality of all phenomena in space and time. Historically, it formed a major part of the subject alongside ontology, though its role is more peripheral in contemporary philosophy. It has had a broad scope, and in many cases was founded...
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Cosmogony deals specifically with the origin of the universe. Modern metaphysical cosmology and cosmogony try to address questions such as:
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Accounting for the existence of mind in a world largely composed of matter is a metaphysical problem which is so large and important as to have become a specialized subject of study in its own right, philosophy of mind.
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Substance dualism is a classical theory in which mind and body are essentially different, with the mind having some of the attributes traditionally assigned to the soul, and which creates an immediate conceptual puzzle about how the two interact. This form of substance dualism differs from the dualism of some eastern p...
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Determinism is the philosophical proposition that every event, including human cognition, decision and action, is causally determined by an unbroken chain of prior occurrences. It holds that nothing happens that has not already been determined. The principal consequence of the deterministic claim is that it poses a cha...
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The problem of free will is the problem of whether rational agents exercise control over their own actions and decisions. Addressing this problem requires understanding the relation between freedom and causation, and determining whether the laws of nature are causally deterministic. Some philosophers, known as incompat...
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Others, labeled compatibilists (or "soft determinists"), believe that the two ideas can be reconciled coherently. Adherents of this view include Thomas Hobbes and many modern philosophers such as John Martin Fischer, Gary Watson, Harry Frankfurt, and the like.
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Incompatibilists who accept free will but reject determinism are called libertarians, a term not to be confused with the political sense. Robert Kane and Alvin Plantinga are modern defenders of this theory.
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The earliest type of classification of social construction traces back to Plato in his dialogue Phaedrus where he claims that the biological classification system seems to carve nature at the joints. In contrast, later philosophers such as Michel Foucault and Jorge Luis Borges have challenged the capacity of natural an...
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There are different ways to set up the notion of number in metaphysics theories. Platonist theories postulate number as a fundamental category itself. Others consider it to be a property of an entity called a "group" comprising other entities; or to be a relation held between several groups of entities, such as "the nu...
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Although metaphysics as a philosophical enterprise is highly hypothetical, it also has practical application in most other branches of philosophy, science, and now also information technology. Such areas generally assume some basic ontology (such as a system of objects, properties, classes, and space-time) as well as o...
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In science, for example, some theories are based on the ontological assumption of objects with properties (such as electrons having charge) while others may reject objects completely (such as quantum field theories, where spread-out "electronness" becomes property of space-time rather than an object).
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"Social" branches of philosophy such as philosophy of morality, aesthetics and philosophy of religion (which in turn give rise to practical subjects such as ethics, politics, law, and art) all require metaphysical foundations, which may be considered as branches or applications of metaphysics. For example, they may pos...
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Systems engineering is essentially based on metaphysics, although without acknowledging it. This is because systems-engineering is primarily concerned with identifying what would be of interest in a prospective new system. Investigating the nature of the situation aka ontology and surveying the possibilities in measuri...
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Prior to the modern history of science, scientific questions were addressed as a part of natural philosophy. Originally, the term "science" () simply meant "knowledge". The scientific method, however, transformed natural philosophy into an empirical activity deriving from experiment, unlike the rest of philosophy. By t...
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Metaphysics continues asking "why" where science leaves off. For example, any theory of fundamental physics is based on some set of axioms, which may postulate the existence of entities such as atoms, particles, forces, charges, mass, or fields. Stating such postulates is considered to be the "end" of a science theory....
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Much recent work has been devoted to analyzing the role of metaphysics in scientific theorizing. Alexandre Koyré led this movement, declaring in his book "Metaphysics and Measurement", "It is not by following experiment, but by outstripping experiment, that the scientific mind makes progress." That metaphysical proposi...
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An example from biology of Lakatos' thesis: David Hull has argued that changes in the ontological status of the species concept have been central in the development of biological thought from Aristotle through Cuvier, Lamarck, and Darwin. Darwin's ignorance of metaphysics made it more difficult for him to respond to hi...
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In physics, new metaphysical ideas have arisen in connection with quantum mechanics, where subatomic particles arguably do not have the same sort of individuality as the particulars with which philosophy has traditionally been concerned. Also, adherence to a deterministic metaphysics in the face of the challenge posed ...
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In chemistry, Gilbert Newton Lewis addressed the nature of motion, arguing that an electron should not be said to move when it has none of the properties of motion.
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Katherine Hawley notes that the metaphysics even of a widely accepted scientific theory may be challenged if it can be argued that the metaphysical presuppositions of the theory make no contribution to its predictive success.
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There is a relationship between theological doctrines and philosophical reflection in the philosophy of a religion (such as Christian philosophy); philosophical reflections are strictly rational. On this way of seeing the two disciplines, if at least one of the premises of an argument is derived from revelation, the ar...
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Meta-metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with the foundations of metaphysics. A number of individuals have suggested that much or all of metaphysics should be rejected, a meta-metaphysical position known as metaphysical deflationism or ontological deflationism.
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In the 16th century, Francis Bacon rejected scholastic metaphysics, and argued strongly for what is now called empiricism, being seen later as the father of modern empirical science. In the 18th century, David Hume took a strong position, arguing that all genuine knowledge involves either mathematics or matters of fact...
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If we take in our hand any volume [book]; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, "Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?" No. "Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?" No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain no...
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Thirty-three years after Hume's "Enquiry" appeared, Immanuel Kant published his "Critique of Pure Reason". Although he followed Hume in rejecting much of previous metaphysics, he argued that there was still room for some synthetic "a priori" knowledge, concerned with matters of fact yet obtainable independent of experi...
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Wittgenstein introduced the concept that metaphysics could be influenced by theories of aesthetics, via logic, vis. a world composed of "atomical facts".
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In the 1930s, A.J. Ayer and Rudolf Carnap endorsed Hume's position; Carnap quoted the passage above. They argued that metaphysical statements are neither true nor false but meaningless since, according to their verifiability theory of meaning, a statement is meaningful only if there can be empirical evidence for or aga...
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Arguing against such rejections, the Scholastic philosopher Edward Feser held that Hume's critique of metaphysics, and specifically Hume's fork, is "notoriously self-refuting". Feser argues that Hume's fork itself is not a conceptual truth and is not empirically testable.
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Some living philosophers, such as Amie Thomasson, have argued that many metaphysical questions can be dissolved just by looking at the way words are used; others, such as Ted Sider, have argued that metaphysical questions are substantive, and that progress can be made toward answering them by comparing theories accordi...
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Cognitive archeology such as analysis of cave paintings and other pre-historic art and customs suggests that a form of perennial philosophy or Shamanic metaphysics may stretch back to the birth of behavioral modernity, all around the world. Similar beliefs are found in present-day "stone age" cultures such as Australia...
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Bronze Age cultures such as ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt (along with similarly structured but chronologically later cultures such as Mayans and Aztecs) developed belief systems based on mythology, anthropomorphic gods, mind–body dualism, and a spirit world, to explain causes and cosmology. These cultures appea...
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The first named Greek philosopher, according to Aristotle, is Thales of Miletus, early 6th century BCE. He made use of purely physical explanations to explain the phenomena of the world rather than the mythological and divine explanations of tradition. He is thought to have posited water as the single underlying princi...
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Another school was the Eleatics, in southern Italy. The group was founded in the early fifth century BCE by Parmenides, and included Zeno of Elea and Melissus of Samos. Methodologically, the Eleatics were broadly rationalist, and took logical standards of clarity and necessity to be the criteria of truth. Parmenides' c...
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Heraclitus of Ephesus, in contrast, made change central, teaching that "all things flow". His philosophy, expressed in brief aphorisms, is quite cryptic. For instance, he also taught the unity of opposites.
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Democritus and his teacher Leucippus, are known for formulating an atomic theory for the cosmos. They are considered forerunners of the scientific method.
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Metaphysics in Chinese philosophy can be traced back to the earliest Chinese philosophical concepts from the Zhou dynasty such as Tian (Heaven) and yin and yang. The fourth century BCE saw a turn towards cosmogony with the rise of Taoism (in the Daodejing and Zhuangzi) and sees the natural world as dynamic and constant...
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After the fall of the Han dynasty (220 CE), China saw the rise of the Neo-Taoist Xuanxue school. This school was very influential in developing the concepts of later Chinese metaphysics. Buddhist philosophy entered China (c. 1st century) and was influenced by the native Chinese metaphysical concepts to develop new theo...
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Socrates is known for his dialectic or questioning approach to philosophy rather than a positive metaphysical doctrine.
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His pupil, Plato is famous for his theory of forms (which he places in the mouth of Socrates in his dialogues). Platonic realism (also considered a form of idealism) is considered to be a solution to the problem of universals; i.e., what particular objects have in common is that they share a specific Form which is univ...
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Platonism developed into Neoplatonism, a philosophy with a monotheistic and mystical flavour that survived well into the early Christian era.
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Plato's pupil Aristotle wrote widely on almost every subject, including metaphysics. His solution to the problem of universals contrasts with Plato's. Whereas Platonic Forms are existentially apparent in the visible world, Aristotelian essences dwell in particulars.
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Potentiality and actuality are principles of a dichotomy which Aristotle used throughout his philosophical works to analyze motion, causality and other issues.
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The Aristotelian theory of change and causality stretches to four causes: the material, formal, efficient and final. The efficient cause corresponds to what is now known as a cause "simplicity". Final causes are explicitly teleological, a concept now regarded as controversial in science. The Matter/Form dichotomy was t...
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The opening arguments in Aristotle's "Metaphysics", Book I, revolve around the senses, knowledge, experience, theory, and wisdom. The first main focus in the "Metaphysics" is attempting to determine how intellect "advances from sensation through memory, experience, and art, to theoretical knowledge". Aristotle claims t...
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"Sāṃkhya" is an ancient system of Indian philosophy based on a dualism involving the ultimate principles of consciousness and matter. It is described as the rationalist school of Indian philosophy. It is most related to the Yoga school of Hinduism, and its method was most influential on the development of Early Buddhis...
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The Sāmkhya is an enumerationist philosophy whose epistemology accepts three of six pramanas (proofs) as the only reliable means of gaining knowledge. These include "pratyakṣa" (perception), "anumāṇa" (inference) and "śabda" ("āptavacana", word/testimony of reliable sources).
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Samkhya is strongly dualist. Sāmkhya philosophy regards the universe as consisting of two realities; puruṣa (consciousness) and prakṛti (matter). Jiva (a living being) is that state in which puruṣa is bonded to prakṛti in some form. This fusion, state the Samkhya scholars, led to the emergence of "buddhi" ("spiritual a...
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The existence of God or supreme being is not directly asserted, nor considered relevant by the Samkhya philosophers. Sāṃkhya denies the final cause of Ishvara (God). While the Samkhya school considers the Vedas as a reliable source of knowledge, it is an atheistic philosophy according to Paul Deussen and other scholars...
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Samkhya is known for its theory of guṇas (qualities, innate tendencies). Guṇa, it states, are of three types: "sattva" being good, compassionate, illuminating, positive, and constructive; "rajas" is one of activity, chaotic, passion, impulsive, potentially good or bad; and "tamas" being the quality of darkness, ignoran...
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Realization of the nature of self-identity is the principal object of the Vedanta system of Indian metaphysics. In the Upanishads, self-consciousness is not the first-person indexical self-awareness or the self-awareness which is self-reference without identification, and also not the self-consciousness which as a kind...
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The word "self-consciousness" in the Upanishads means the knowledge about the existence and nature of "manusya", human being. It means the consciousness of our own real being, the primary reality. Self-consciousness means self-knowledge, the knowledge of Prajna i.e. of Prana which is attained by a Brahman. According to...
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Metaphysicians regard the self either to be distinct from the absolute or entirely identical with the absolute. They have given form to three schools of thought – the "dualistic school", the "quasi-dualistic school" and the "monistic school", as the result of their varying mystical experiences. Prakrti and Atman, when ...
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Self-consciousness is the fourth state of consciousness or "Turiya", the first three being "Vaisvanara", "Taijasa" and "Prajna". These are the four states of individual consciousness.
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There are three distinct stages leading to self-realisation. The first stage is in mystically apprehending the glory of the self within one as though one were distinct from it. The second stage is in identifying the "I-within" with the self, that one is in essential nature entirely identical with the pure self. The thi...
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In Buddhist philosophy there are various metaphysical traditions that have proposed different questions about the nature of reality based on the teachings of the Buddha in the early Buddhist texts. The Buddha of the early texts does not focus on metaphysical questions but on ethical and spiritual training and in some c...
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Later philosophical traditions include the Madhyamika school of Nagarjuna, which further developed the theory of the emptiness (shunyata) of all phenomena or dharmas which rejects any kind of substance. This has been interpreted as a form of anti-foundationalism and anti-realism which sees reality as having no ultimate...
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Major ideas in Islamic metaphysics () have surrounded the concept of "weḥdah" (وحدة) meaning 'unity', or in Arabic توحيد "tawhid". "Waḥdat al-wujūd" literally means the 'unity of existence' or 'unity of being'. In modern times the phrase has been translated as "pantheism." "Wujud" (i.e. existence or presence) here refe...
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Between about 1100 and 1500, philosophy as a discipline took place as part of the Catholic church's teaching system, known as scholasticism. Scholastic philosophy took place within an established framework blending Christian theology with Aristotelian teachings. Although fundamental orthodoxies were not commonly challe...
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In the early modern period (17th and 18th centuries), the system-building "scope" of philosophy is often linked to the rationalist "method" of philosophy, that is the technique of deducing the nature of the world by pure reason. The scholastic concepts of substance and accident were employed.
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Christian Wolff had theoretical philosophy divided into an ontology or "philosophia prima" as a general metaphysics, which arises as a preliminary to the distinction of the three "special metaphysics" on the soul, world and God: rational psychology, rational cosmology and rational theology. The three disciplines are ca...
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British empiricism marked something of a reaction to rationalist and system-building metaphysics, or "speculative" metaphysics as it was pejoratively termed. The skeptic David Hume famously declared that most metaphysics should be consigned to the flames (see below). Hume was notorious among his contemporaries as one o...
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Immanuel Kant attempted a grand synthesis and revision of the trends already mentioned: scholastic philosophy, systematic metaphysics, and skeptical empiricism, not to forget the burgeoning science of his day. As did the systems builders, he had an overarching framework in which all questions were to be addressed. Like...
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Kant described his shift in metaphysics away from making claims about an objective noumenal world, towards exploring the subjective phenomenal world, as a Copernican Revolution, by analogy to (though opposite in direction to) Copernicus' shift from man (the subject) to the sun (an object) at the center of the universe.
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Kant saw rationalist philosophers as aiming for a kind of metaphysical knowledge he defined as the "synthetic apriori"—that is knowledge that does not come from the senses (it is a priori) but is nonetheless about reality (synthetic). Inasmuch as it is about reality, it differs from abstract mathematical propositions (...
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Nineteenth century philosophy was overwhelmingly influenced by Kant and his successors. Schopenhauer, Schelling, Fichte and Hegel all purveyed their own panoramic versions of German Idealism, Kant's own caution about metaphysical speculation, and refutation of idealism, having fallen by the wayside. The idealistic impu...
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During the period when idealism was dominant in philosophy, science had been making great advances. The arrival of a new generation of scientifically minded philosophers led to a sharp decline in the popularity of idealism during the 1920s.
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Analytic philosophy was spearheaded by Bertrand Russell and G. E. Moore. Russell and William James tried to compromise between idealism and materialism with the theory of neutral monism.
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The early to mid-twentieth-century philosophy saw a trend to reject metaphysical questions as meaningless. The driving force behind this tendency was the philosophy of logical positivism as espoused by the Vienna Circle, which argued that the meaning of a statement was its prediction of observable results of an experim...
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At around the same time, the American pragmatists were steering a middle course between materialism and idealism.
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System-building metaphysics, with a fresh inspiration from science, was revived by A. N. Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne.
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The forces that shaped analytic philosophy—the break with idealism, and the influence of science—were much less significant outside the English speaking world, although there was a shared turn toward language. Continental philosophy continued in a trajectory from post Kantianism.
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The phenomenology of Husserl and others was intended as a collaborative project for the investigation of the features and structure of consciousness common to all humans, in line with Kant's basing his synthetic apriori on the uniform operation of consciousness. It was officially neutral with regards to ontology, but w...
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Heidegger, author of "Being and Time", saw himself as re-focusing on Being-qua-being, introducing the novel concept of "Dasein" in the process. Classing himself an existentialist, Sartre wrote an extensive study of "Being and Nothingness".
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There are two fundamental aspects of everyday experience: change and persistence. Until recently, the Western philosophical tradition has arguably championed substance and persistence, with some notable exceptions, however. According to process thinkers, novelty, flux and accident do matter, and sometimes they constitu...
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In a broad sense, process metaphysics is as old as Western philosophy, with figures such as Heraclitus, Plotinus, Duns Scotus, Leibniz, David Hume, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, Gustav Theodor Fechner, Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg, Charles Renouvier, Karl Marx, Ernst Mach, Frie...
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In a strict sense, process metaphysics may be limited to the works of a few philosophers: G. W. F. Hegel, Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, Henri Bergson, A. N. Whitehead, and John Dewey. From a European perspective, there was a very significant and early Whiteheadian influence on the works of outstanding scholars...
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While early analytic philosophy tended to reject metaphysical theorizing, under the influence of logical positivism, it was revived in the second half of the twentieth century. Philosophers such as David K. Lewis and David Armstrong developed elaborate theories on a range of topics such as universals, causation, possib...
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Among the developments that led to the revival of metaphysical theorizing were Quine's attack on the analytic–synthetic distinction, which was generally taken to undermine Carnap's distinction between existence questions internal to a framework and those external to it.
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The philosophy of fiction, the problem of empty names, and the debate over existence's status as a property have all come of relative obscurity into the limelight, while perennial issues such as free will, possible worlds, and the philosophy of time have had new life breathed into them.
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The analytic view is of metaphysics as studying phenomenal human concepts rather than making claims about the noumenal world, so its style often blurs into philosophy of language and introspective psychology. Compared to system-building, it can seem very dry, stylistically similar to computer programming, mathematics o...
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The 5.56×45mm NATO (official NATO nomenclature 5.56 NATO, but often pronounced "five-five-six") is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate cartridge family developed in the late 1970s in Belgium by FN Herstal. It consists of the SS109, L110, and SS111 cartridges. On 28 October 1980, under STANAG 4172, it was standardized a...
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In 1954, the larger 7.62×51mm NATO rifle cartridge was selected as the first standard NATO rifle cartridge. At the time of selection there had been criticism that the recoil power of the 7.62×51mm NATO, when fired from a handheld lightweight modern service rifle, did not allow a sufficient automatic rate of fire for mo...
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The British had extensive evidence through their own experimentation with intermediate cartridges since 1945, and were on the point of adopting the .280 (7 mm) cartridge when the selection of 7.62×51mm (.300) as the NATO standard was made. The FN company had also been involved in the development of the .280 round, incl...
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The development of the cartridge that eventually became the .223 Remington (from which 5.56mm NATO would eventually be developed) would be intrinsically linked to the development of a new lightweight combat rifle. The cartridge and rifle were developed as one unit by Fairchild Industries, Remington Arms, and several en...
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Springfield Armory's Earle Harvey lengthened the .222 Remington cartridge case to meet the requirements. It was then known as the .224 Springfield. Concurrently with the SCHV project, Springfield Armory was developing a 7.62mm rifle. Harvey was ordered to cease all work on the SCHV to avoid any competition for resource...
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Eugene Stoner of Armalite (a division of Fairchild Industries) had been advised to produce a scaled-down version of the 7.62mm AR-10 design. In May 1957, Stoner gave a live-fire demonstration of the prototype of the AR-15 for General Willard G. Wyman, Commander-in-Chief of CONARC. As a result, CONARC ordered rifles to ...
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Robert Hutton (technical editor of "Guns & Ammo" magazine) started development of a powder load to reach the goal. He used DuPont IMR4198, IMR3031, and an Olin powder to work up loads. Testing was done with a Remington 722 rifle with a 22-inch Apex barrel. During a public demonstration, the round successfully penetrate...
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Stoner contacted both Winchester and Remington about increasing the case capacity. Remington created a larger cartridge called the ".222 Special", which was loaded with DuPont IMR4475 powder.
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During parallel testing of the T44E4 (future M14) and the AR-15 in 1958, the T44E4 experienced 16 failures per 1,000 rounds fired compared to 6.1 for the AR-15.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=35022
18,697
Due to several different .222 caliber cartridges being developed for the SCHV project, the 222 Special was renamed .223 Remington in 1959. In May of that year, a report was produced stating that five- to seven-man squads armed with AR-15 rifles had higher hit probabilities than 11-man squads armed with M-14 rifles. At ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=35022
18,698
Marksmanship testing in 1961 comparing the M-16 to the M-14 indicated 43% of M-16 shooters achieved "expert" while only 22% of M-14 shooters did. General LeMay subsequently ordered 80,000 rifles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=35022
18,699
In the spring of 1962, Remington submitted the specifications of the .223 Remington to the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute (SAAMI). In July 1962, operational testing ended with a recommendation for adoption of the M-16 rifle chambered in .223 Remington.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=35022