Universals

Illustrates the history, civilization, and social conditions of the United States via artifacts, paintings, and other objects from the collections of cultural institutions in Philadelphia and environs.

Things are particulars and their qualities are universals, but do universals have an existence distinct from the particular things describable by those terms? And what must be their nature if they do? This book provides a careful and assured survey of the central issues of debate surrounding universals, in particular those issues that have been a crucial part of the emergence of contemporary analytic ontology. The book begins with a taxonomy of extreme nominalist, moderate nominalist, and realist positions on properties, and outlines the way each handles the phenomena of predication, resemblance, and abstract reference. The debate about properties and philosophical naturalism is also examined. Different forms of extreme nominalism, moderate nominalism, and minimalist realism are critiqued. Later chapters defend a traditional realist view of universals and examine the objections to realism from various infinite regresses, the difficulties in stating identity conditions for properties, and problems with realist accounts of knowledge of abstract objects. In addition, the debate between Platonists and Aristotelians is examined alongside a discussion of the relationship between properties and an adequate theory of existence. The book's final chapter explores the problem of individuating particulars. The book makes accessible a difficult topic without blunting the sophistication of argument required by a more advanced readership.

Praise for David Darling The Universal Book of Astronomy "A first-rate resource for readers and students of popular astronomy and general science. . . . Highly recommended." -Library Journal "A comprehensive survey and . . . a rare treat." -Focus The Complete Book of Spaceflight "Darling's content and presentation will have any reader moving from entry to entry." -The Observatory magazine Life Everywhere "This remarkable book exemplifies the best of today's popular science writing: it is lucid, informative, and thoroughly enjoyable." -Science Books & Films "An enthralling introduction to the new science of astrobiology." -Lynn Margulis Equations of Eternity "One of the clearest and most eloquent expositions of the quantum conundrum and its philosophical and metaphysical implications that I have read recently." -The New York Times Deep Time "A wonderful book. The perfect overview of the universe." -Larry Niven

Essays chart the shift of the concept of universality from essence to modality, from the abstract and static to the performative and productive. In today's increasingly digitalized and neoliberal societies, debates on universals and specifics have gained new momentum. This volume discusses the entanglements of the universal in the fields of art, architecture, and urbanism from the nineteenth century to the present. Highlighting the interrelation of the specific and the universal in each historical situation, these essays venture an epistemic shift of the concept of universality: from essence to modality, from the abstract and static to the performative and productive. Contributors Ursula Biemann, Gaia Caramellino, Filippo De Pieri, Johan F. Hartle, Samia Henni, Christa Kamleithner, Anne Kockelkorn, Katarzyna Ruchel-Stockmans, Emily E. Scott, Laila Seewang, Manuel Shvartzberg Carrió, Ariane Varela Braga, Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll, Alla Vronskaya, Andrew Stefan Weiner, Nina Zschocke

In this book, Theodore Scaltsas brings the insights of contemporary philosophy to bear on a classic problem in metaphysics that stems from Aristotle's theory of substance. Scaltsas provides an analysis of the enigmatic notions of potentiality and actuality, which he uses to explain Aristotle's substantial holism by showing how the concrete and the abstract parts of a substance form a dynamic, diachronic whole.

Since the politicization of anthropology in the 1970s, most anthropologists have been reluctant to approach the topic of universals—that is, phenomena that occur regularly in all known human societies. In this volume, Christoph Antweiler reasserts the importance of these cross-cultural commonalities for anthropological research and for life and co-existence beyond the academy. The question presented here is how anthropology can help us approach humanity in its entirety, understanding the world less as a globe, with an emphasis on differences, but as a planet, from a vantage point open to commonalities.

THE UNIVERSAL ONE was originally published in 1927 and distributed to the top scientists in the country. It is being republished at this crucial period for the sole purpose of again releasing vital new scientific knowledge to this new age- of new comprehension. Today the whole world is in a state of chaos fighting against the forces of greed, envy, jealousy and fear. Disharmony is rife. All of our human relations are in a state of violent upheaval. Civilization is in reverse. Science is being used to destroy instead of to build. We talk of world peace, yet those who are to plan the new world do not know the answer, the solution. Present knowledge of man's relation to Nature and Natural Law which controls his human relations is, as yet, inadequate to meet the situation. Man is still too near his jungle to either know the law which inexorably governs his every action and that of everything in Nature or to comprehend that he must obey Nature or be self-destroyed. Still dominated by jungle habits, he settles his human relations by jungle methods. Wars and world chaos will continue until new knowledge applicable to the coming new cycle in man's evolution is acquired by him. What is this new knowledge? A consistent cosmogony is sorely needed for this newly dawning day of man's exaltation which is to come. Walter Russell spent a full seven years in writing this book. When it was first published in 1927, it won more condemnation than favor from a world which was not then as ready for it as now. The book mixed science and metaphysics in a manner which nullified its impression upon physicists. Gradually, however, many of its then radical statements have been verified by some of the world's greatest scientists and have won him many followers. The physicist draws a sharp line between things which he can in some way detect by the evidence of his senses and things which lie beyond that evidence. There is no denial of a "something" beyond the range of his senses and his sensed instruments, but what may be there is conjectural and, therefore, inadmissible as scientific data of a reliable nature. In other words, material evidence which lies within the narrow limits of man's sense-range is the only admissible evidence to science. But what about that vast range which will not respond to our sensed bodies and sensed instruments? Down the ages a rare few have been permitted to sever the senses which connect matter with its motivated Source in the consciousness of Universal Mind. These few have become conscious of the cosmos and have tried to tell the world of its simplicity. Each of these has faced an impossible task. The generalities and symbols which they did set down have been discounted and relegated to poetry or metaphysics or mysticism.

This book summarizes findings from interview studies probing K-3 students' knowledge and thinking about topics commonly addressed in the primary grades social studies curriculum.