E. J. Lowe

A Metaphysical Foundation for Natural Science

The Four-Category Ontology

Personal Agency consists of two parts. In Part II, a radically libertarian theory of action is defended which combines aspects of agent causalism and volitionism. This theory accords to volitions the status of basic mental actions, maintaining that these are spontaneous exercises of the will—a 'two-way' power which rational agents can freely exercise in the light of reason. Lowe contends that substances, not events, are the causal source of all change in the world—with rational, free agents like ourselves having a special place in the causal order as unmoved movers, or initiators of new causal chains. And he defends a thoroughgoing externalism regarding reasons for action, holding these to be mind-independent worldly entities rather than the beliefs and desires of agents. Part I prepares the ground for this theory by undermining the threat presented to it by physicalism. It does this by challenging the causal closure argument for physicalism in all of its forms and by showing that a dualistic philosophy of mind—one which holds that human mental states and their subjects cannot be identified with bodily states and human bodies respectively—is both metaphysically coherent and entirely consistent with known empirical facts.

The Metaphysics of Mind and Action

Personal Agency

In this 2000 book Jonathan Lowe offers a lucid and wide-ranging introduction to the philosophy of mind. Using a problem-centred approach designed to stimulate as well as instruct, he begins with a general examination of the mind-body problem and moves on to detailed examination of more specific philosophical issues concerning sensation, perception, thought and language, rationality, artificial intelligence, action, personal identity and self-knowledge. His discussion is notably broad in scope, and distinctive in giving equal attention to deep metaphysical questions concerning the mind and to the discoveries and theories of modern scientific psychology. It will be of interest to any reader with a basic grounding in modern philosophy.

An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind

Ferns : British and Exotic

Our native Ferns

John Locke is widely acknowledged as the most important figure in the history of English philosophy and An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is his greatest intellectual work, emphasising the importance of experience for the formation of knowledge. The Routledge Guidebook to Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding introduces the major themes of Locke’s great book and serves as a companion to this key work, examining: The context of Locke’s work and the background to his writing Each part of the text in relation to its goals, meaning and impact The reception of the book when it was first seen by the world The relevance of Locke’s work to philosophy today, its legacy and influence With further reading suggested throughout, this text follows Locke’s original work closely, making it essential reading for all students of philosophy, and all those wishing to get to grips with this classic work.

The Routledge Guidebook to Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Our native ferns, vol.1, by E.J.Lowe

S. C. Gibb

Sophie C. Gibb

R. D. Ingthorsson

This book demonstrates the importance of ontology for a central debate in philosophy of mind. Mental causation seems an obvious aspect of the world. But it is hard to understand how it can happen unless we get clear about what the entities involved in the process are. An international team of contributors presents new work on this problem.

Mental Causation and Ontology

In this innovative study of the relationship between persons and their bodies, E. J. Lowe demonstrates the inadequacy of physicalism, even in its mildest, non-reductionist guises, as a basis for a scientifically and philosophically acceptable account of human beings as subjects of experience, thought and action. He defends a substantival theory of the self as an enduring and irreducible entity - a theory which is unashamedly committed to a distinctly non-Cartesian dualism of self and body. Taking up the physicalist challenge to any robust form of psychophysical interactionism, he shows how an attribution of independent causal powers to the mental states of human subjects is perfectly consistent with a thoroughly naturalistic world view. He concludes his study by examining in detail the role which conscious mental states play in the human subject's exercise of its most central capacities for perception, action, thought and self-knowledge.

Subjects of Experience

Taking into account significant developments in the metaphysical thinking of E. J. Lowe over the past 20 years, More Kinds of Being:A Further Study of Individuation, Identity, and the Logic of Sortal Terms presents a thorough reworking and expansion of the 1989 edition of Kinds of Being. Brings many of the original ideas and arguments put forth in Kinds of Being thoroughly up to date in light of new developments Features a thorough reworking and expansion of the earlier work, rather than just a new edition Reflects the author's conversion to what he calls 'the four-category ontology,' a metaphysical system that takes its inspiration from Aristotle Provides a unified discussion of individuation and identity that should prove to be essential reading for philosophers working in metaphysics.

A Further Study of Individuation, Identity, and the Logic of Sortal Terms

More Kinds of Being

Edward Joseph Lowe

E. J. Lowe sets out and defends his theory of what there is. His four-category ontology is a metaphysical system that recognizes two fundamental categorial distinctions which cut across each other to generate four fundamental ontological categories. The distinctions are between the particular and the universal and between the substantial and the non-substantial. The four categories thus generated are substantial particulars, non-substantial particulars, substantial universals andnon-substantial universals. Non-substantial universals include properties and relations, conceived as universals. Non-substantial particulars include property-instances and relation-instances, otherwise known as non-relational and relational tropes or modes. Substantial particulars include propertiedindividuals, the paradigm examples of which are persisting, concrete objects. Substantial universals are otherwise known as substantial kinds and include as paradigm examples natural kinds of persisting objects.This ontology has a lengthy pedigree, many commentators attributing it to Aristotle on the basis of certain passages in his apparently early work, the Categories. At various times during the history of Western philosophy, it has been revived or rediscovered, but it has never found universal favour, perhaps on account of its apparent lack of parsimony as well as its commitment to universals. In pursuit of ontological economy, metaphysicians have generally preferred to recognize fewerthan four fundamental ontological categories. However, Occam's razor stipulates only that we should not multiply entities beyond necessity; Lowe argues that the four-category ontology has an explanatory power unrivalled by more parsimonious systems, and that this counts decisively in its favour. He shows thatit provides a powerful explanatory framework for a unified account of causation, dispositions, natural laws, natural necessity and many other related matters, such as the semantics of counterfactual conditionals and the character of the truthmaking relation. As such, it constitutes a thoroughgoing metaphysical foundation for natural science.

Ernest J. Lowe

Lowe defends a common-sense view of ourselves as free agents, capable of bringing about changes in the world through the choices we make, rather than being caused to act as we do by factors external to our will. He demonstrates many weaknesses of the materialist conception of the human mind and its powers that is dominant in Western philosophy.

Lowe investigates the forms of thought, showing how this study is crucial to understanding the powers of the intellect.

A Study in Philosophical Logic

Forms of Thought

Professor of Philosophy E J Lowe

Jonathan Lowe argues that metaphysics should be restored to a central position in philosophy, as the most fundamental form of rational inquiry, whose findings underpin those of all other disciplines. He portrays metaphysics as charting the possibilities of existence, by identifying the categories of being and the relations of ontological dependency between entities of different categories. He proceeds to set out a unified and original metaphysical system: he defends a substanceontology, according to which the existence of the world as one world in time depends upon the existence of persisting things which retain their identity over time and through processes of qualitative change. And he contends that even necessary beings, such as the abstract objects of mathematics, dependultimately for their existence upon there being a concrete world of enduring substances. Within his system of metaphysics Lowe seeks to answer many of the deepest and most challenging questions in philosophy.

Substance, Identity, and Time

The Possibility of Metaphysics

A. Rami

Truth depends in some sense on reality. But it is a rather delicate matter to spell this intuition out in a plausible and precise way. According to the theory of truth-making this intuition implies that either every truth or at least every truth of a certain class of truths has a so-called truth-maker, an entity whose existence accounts for truth. This book aims to provide several ways of assessing the correctness of this controversial claim. This book presents a detailed introduction to the theory of truth-making, which outlines truth-maker relations, the ontological category of truth-making entities, and the scope of a truth-maker theory. The essays brought together here represent the most important articles on truth-making in the last three decades as well as new essays by leading researchers in the field of the theory of truth and of truth-making.

Truth and Truth-making

E. Jonathan Lowe

A lucid and wide-ranging introduction suitable for readers with a basic grounding in philosophy.

Antonella Corradini

Sergio Galvan

In recent years numerous attempts have been made by analytic philosophers to naturalize various different domains of philosophical inquiry. All of these attempts have had the common goal of rendering these areas of philosophy amenable to empirical methods, with the intention of securing for them the supposedly objective status and broad intellectual appeal currently associated with such approaches. This volume brings together internationally recognised analytic philosophers, including Alvin Plantinga, Peter van Inwagen and Robert Audi, to question the project of naturalism. The articles investigate what it means to naturalize a domain of philosophical inquiry and look at how this applies to the various sub-disciplines of philosophy including epistemology, metaphysics and the philosophy of the mind. The issue of whether naturalism is desirable is raised and the contributors take seriously the possibility that excellent analytic philosophy can be undertaken without naturalization. Controversial and thought-provoking, Analytic Philosophy Without Naturalism examines interesting and contentious methodological issues in analytic philosophy and explores the connections between philosophy and science.

E. J. Lowe

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