CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2015
| Author | Kodaj, Dániel |
|---|---|
| Title | A defense of idealism |
| Summary | This dissertation defends idealism. Chapter 1 defines idealism as the thesis that physical objects are ideal, with ideal objects defined as objects the existence of which necessitates the existence of subjects who can observe them. The definition is fine-tuned in various ways, and it is related to recent theories of metaphysical fundamentality. Chapter 2 reconstructs three contemporary arguments for idealism, Howard Robinson’s argument against real matter and John Foster’s arguments against real space. I claim that Robinson’s argument is open to the objection that spacetime is real, but this objection, in turn, is blocked by Foster. Chapter 3 presents a new argument against real spacetime from a puzzle about relativity. Chapter 4 looks at two metaphysical objections to idealism, the truthmaker objection, which says that the idealist cannot supply truthmakers for physical truths, and the nomic objection, which says that the idealist cannot explain laws. I argue that these objections can be deflected in two ways, in a sparse Humean way and in a theistic fashion. |
| Supervisor | Howard Robinson |
| Department | Philosophy PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2015/kodaj_daniel.pdf |
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