The Existence of the World

by Reinhardt Grossmann

Originally published in 1992. The history of Western philosophy can be seen as a battle between those that insist that the "physical universe" exists and those would claim that there is a much larger "world" which contains atemporal and nonspatial things as well. The central part of this book, and the battle, concerns the existence of universals. Starting with the mediaeval definition of the issue found in Porphry and Boethius, the author then considers modern and contemporary versions of the battle. He concludes that what is at stake between naturalists and ontologists is the existence and nature of a number of important categories, like structures, relations, sets, numbers and so on.

Genres: Philosophy, Metaphysics

150 pages, Paperback

First published September 26, 1991

Reviews

[Aljoša Toplak · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a neat introduction to the study of ontology and some of the debates in that field, particularly the so-called "problem of universals". Grossman gives a nice historical overview of some issues, albeit they are presented in a way to fit the narrative and view the book is trying to forward.

Since I'm not that well-versed in ontology and I mainly think in naturalistic terms, it was difficult to truly think the things the author tried to convey. A common naturalist will grant existence only to "individual things", while abstractions will usually be accounted for as being mental concepts. Grossman, on the other hand, is a realist about the existence of individual things, aswell as their properties, relations to other individuals, the structures they make up, the sets they are part of, the quantifiers that we use to form propositions, and facts. Although he presents many arguments against his opposing views, I simply failed to be convinced by his position. Although he presents some interesting points against nominalism, I feel like his critique of conceptualism missed the mark.

[Christian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eine kompakte Einführung in die Hintergründe der Nominalisten und Ontologen. Ohne Grundwissen in Logik möglicherweise schwerer nachvollziehbar.
An manchen Stellen wurde es schwierig zu folgen, da die Gedankengänge sehr dicht verschriftlicht wurden und man vermutlich mehr Hintergrundwissen mitbringen müsste.
Dennoch grandios, da sehr viel Wissen auf wenig Platz präsentiert wird.