Part IV: Minds, Bodies, and Persons. This allows the explanation of laws of nature that have not been instantiated. [26] MacBride argues that there can be relations where the number of terms in the relation varies across instances. [20] Armstrong collaborated with C. B. Martin on a collection of critical essays on John Locke and George Berkeley. The word ‘Nominalism’, as used by contemporaryphilosophers in the Anglo-American tradition, is ambiguous. [56], Armstrong receiving his doctorate of letters (h.c.) at Nottingham University, UK on 13 December 2007, Proceedings of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, Haecceitism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), "Why does Australia have an outsized influence on philosophy? Armstrong, David Malet. Part II: God and Evil. He gives the example of a woman who has learned her husband is dead but cannot bring herself to believe her husband is dead. His chief philosophical achievement has been the development of a core metaphysical programme, embracing the topics of universals, laws, modality and facts: a naturalistic metaphysics, consistent with a scientific view of the natural world. David Armstrong (1926-2014) often D. M. Armstrong, was a prominent Australian Philosopher. Am 13. Dezember 2007 David Malet Armstrong (* 8. Ab 1964 war er Professor an der University of Sydney bis zu seiner Emeritierung 1992. From this fundamental assumption flows a rejection of abstract objects including Platonic forms. He previously married Madeleine Annette Haydon in 1950. [11], Armstrong married Jennifer Mary de Bohun Clark in 1982 and had step children. Maya Eddon: Armstrong on Quantities and Resemblance (PDF; 2,4 MB), Philosophical Studies 136 (2007) 385–404; Daniel von Wachter: David Armstrong, in: Information Philosophie 5/2002, S. 24–29 (PDF; 46 kB) Daniel von Wachter: How to Misunderstand David Armstrong’s Theory of Possibility (PDF; 106 kB) Professor David Armstrong – obituary. During his career, he was a visiting lecturer at a number of institutions including Yale, Stanford, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Texas at Austin and Franklin and Marshall College. David M. Armstrong bei der Verleihung des D.Litt. David Lewis produced a body of philosophical writing that, in four books and scores of articles, spanned every major philosophical area, with perhaps the greatest concentration in metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophical logic, and philosophy of mind. [50], Armstrong's view of knowledge is that the conditions of knowledge are satisfied when you have a justified true belief that you arrived at through a reliable process: that is, the belief was caused by some factor in the external world (hence the label of externalism). Philosophie. [6], Keith Campbell said that Armstrong's contributions to metaphysics and epistemology "helped to shape philosophy's agenda and terms of debate", and that Armstrong's work "always concerned to elaborate and defend a philosophy which is ontically economical, synoptic, and compatibly continuous with established results in the natural sciences". His chief philosophical achievement has been the development of a core metaphysical programme, embracing the topics of universals, laws, modality and facts: a naturalistic metaphysics, consistent with a scientific view of the natural world. "The Nature of Mind" is a philosophical essay by David Armstrong, originally published in The Nature of Mind and Other Essays in 1980. To illustrate the theory, Stephen Mumford gives the example of all ravens are black. [29] He provides an analogy to the argument in Euthyphro: to say that electrons are electrons because they are part of the class of electrons puts the cart before the horse. And in fact they do not. [53], On the question of the relationship between beliefs and knowledge, Armstrong defends a "weak acceptance" of the belief condition, namely that if a person can be said to know some thing p, he or she believes p. In a paper for the Aristotelian Society, Armstrong rejects a series of linguistic arguments for a rejection of the belief condition which argue that one can have knowledge without having belief because a common usage of the word 'belief' is to imply lack of knowledge—Armstrong gives the example of if you asked a man on a railway station whether the train has just left and he said "I believe it has", you would take from this that he does not know that it has. David Malet Armstrong (8 July 1926 – 13 May 2014),[4] often D. M. Armstrong, was an Australian philosopher. The ultimate ontology of universals would only be realised with the completion of physical science. [28], In Armstrong's view, nominalisms can also be criticised for producing a blob theory of reality. In Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics, Armstrong states that his philosophical system rests upon "the assumption that all that exists is the space time world, the physical world as we say". In this essay, Armstrong outlines a philosophical account of the mind that is compatible with the Materialist scientific view of the mind. Mass would thus be a universal (subject to mass not being discarded by future physicists). David Malet Armstrong, oft D. M. Armstrong (* 8. The result of all this intellectual work has been that Armstrong, along with so many others of his generation including his good friend David Lewis, have changed the way philosophers do philosophy and see the world. The particulars in Armstrong's ontology must have at least one universal—just as he rejects uninstantiated universals, he also rejects "unpropertied particulars". Armstrong is best known for his work on metaphysics and the philosophy of mind. His chief philosophical achievement has been the development of a core metaphysical programme, embracing the topics of universals, laws, modality and facts: a naturalistic metaphysics, consistent with a scientific view of the natural world. David Armstrong (Philosophy Now) | Mumford, Stephen | ISBN: 9781844650996 | Kostenloser Versand für alle Bücher mit Versand und Verkauf duch Amazon. [18], Armstrong's development as a philosopher was influenced heavily by John Anderson, David Lewis, and J. J. C. Smart,[19] as well as by Ullin Place, Herbert Feigl, Gilbert Ryle and G. E. Armstrong, David Malet. The connection between knowledge and the external world, for Armstrong, is a nomological relationship (that is, a law of nature relationship). He is well known for his work on metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, and for his defence of a factualist ontology, a functionalist theory of the mind, an externalist epistemology, and a necessitarian conception of the laws of nature. [10] The two departments were reunified in 2000. Mai 2014 in Sydney), war ein australischer Philosoph und Professor an der University of Sydney. David (D. M.) Armstrong is one of Australia's greatest philosophers. [8][13], In 1950, Armstrong formed an Anti-Conscription Committee with David Stove and Eric Dowling, all three former students of John Anderson, the Australian philosopher, who supported conscription and also believed that anti-conscription opinions ought to be suppressed. Part I: Philosophy. [12] He also served in the Royal Australian Navy, in which his father had been a commodore. They are part of the class of electrons because they are electrons. David Malet Armstrong kann als die herausragendste Gestalt in der australischen Philosophie über beinahe die ganze letzte Hälfte dieser Zeit gelten. Dabei vertrat er eine identitätstheoretische Position in der Tradition von John Smart und Ullin Place. Talk by James Franklin on the life and work of philosopher David Malet Armstrong, given to the Glebe Realists on 3 Nov 2020. [22], In metaphysics, Armstrong defends the view that universals exist (although Platonic uninstantiated universals do not exist). Dabei setzt er sich von Gesetzesauffassungen in der Tradition David Humes ab, die Naturgesetze auf Regularitäten zurückführen wollen. [34], Central to Armstrong's philosophy is the idea of states of affairs ("facts" in Russell's terminology): in Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics, Armstrong claims that states of affairs are "the fundamental structures in reality". She both believes and disbelieves her husband is dead: it just happens that one of her two beliefs is justified, true and satisfies some knowledge conditions. This primitive results in a vicious regress for both kinds of nominalisms,[30] Armstrong suggests, thus motivating his states-of-affairs based system that unites properties by postulating a primitive tie of instantiation [31] based on a fact-ontology, called states of affairs. Armstrong's response is to affirm a theory he describes as the Principle of Instantial Invariance, wherein the adicity of properties are essential and invariant. Am bekanntesten sind seine Arbeiten zur Indexikalität von Demonstrativpronomen. He justifies this by saying that the physical world "seems obviously to exist" while other things "seem much more hypothetical". Knowledge traditionally entails true belief, but true belief does not entail knowledge. Objects have structure: they have parts, those parts are made of molecules, which are in turn made up of atoms standing in relation to one another, which are in turn made up of subatomic particles and so on. It may be the case that R (a, b) obtains in the world but R (b, a) does not. [45] Negative truths have truthmakers in Armstrong's account: he gives the example of a wall that is painted green. in Philosophie führende Aufbaustudium zu ab-solvieren. [51] Here, Armstrong's view is broadly similar to that of Alvin Goldman and Robert Nozick. Those universals match up with the fundamental particles that science tells us about. Stephen Mumford, David Armstrong, Acumen, 2007, 206pp., $22.95 (pbk), ISBN 9781844651009. Armstrong's philosophy is broadly naturalistic. David Armstrong's book is a contribution to the philosophical discussion about possible worlds. David Benjamin Kaplan (* 1933) ist ein US-amerikanischer Philosoph. In A Materialist Theory of Mind, he accepted that mental states such as consciousness exist, but stated that they can be explained as physical phenomena. [24], Armstrong's universals are "sparse": not every predicate will have an accompanying property, but only those which are deemed basic by scientific investigation. Danach war er in den Jahren 1954/55 als Dozent (Lecturer) an der London University tätig. He is well known for his work on metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, and for his defence of a factualist ontology, a functionalist theory of the mind, an externalist epistemology, and a necessitarian conception of the laws of nature. Diese stellt sich Armstrong jedoch in dem Sinne als abhängig von Gegenständen vor, dass sie nicht unabhängig von ihnen existieren können. David Armstrong. Im Anschluss erfolgte ein Aufbaustudium an der Oxford University von 1952 bis 1954. Armstrong hatte Gastprofessuren unter anderem an der Stanford University, Universität Graz, University of Notre Dame und der Yale University inne. 1926 in Melbourne geboren, studierte er vier Jahre lang in Sydney Philosophie, um dann 1952 bis 1954 in Oxford das von Gilbert Ryle neu eingerichtete, in zwei Jahren zum B.Phil. [35] A state of affairs roughly put is an instantiation of a particular and a universal: a state of affairs might be that a particular atom exists, instantiating a universal (say, that it is of a particular element, if chemical elements are ultimately accepted as part of Armstrong's universals). Taking Wittgenstein's Tractatus as his point of departure, Professor Armstrong argues that nonactual possibilities and possible worlds are recombinations of actually existing elements, and as such are useful fictions. One bird could have escaped the virus only to be eaten by a predator on the day before its fiftieth birthday. Cookie-Einstellungen Diese Website benutzt Cookies, die für den technischen Betrieb der Website erforderlich sind und stets gesetzt werden. Dezember 2007 bekam er den Doctor of Letters (h. c.) der University of Nottingham, England verliehen. [23], Armstrong further rejects nominalisms that deny that properties and relations exist in reality because he suggests that these sorts of nominalisms, specifically referring to what he calls class nominalism, and resemblance nominalism, postulate primitives of either class membership or resemblance. In Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics, Armstrong states that his philosophical system rests upon "the assumption that all that exists is the space time world, the physical world as we say". [46], The difficulty in providing an adequate account of truthmakers for events in the past is one reason Armstrong gives for rejecting presentism—the view that only the present exists (another reason being the incompatibility of such a view with special relativity). Mumford cites the frequently-used example of the moa bird: "It is supposed that every bird of this now-extinct species died at a young age, though not because of anything in its genetic makeup. "[41] Under the theory of Armstrong, Tooley and Dretske, such a coincidence would not be a law of nature. Seine Hauptarbeitsgebiete waren die Philosophie des Geistes, Ontologie und Wissenschaftstheorie. Dieser besagt, dass es neben Gegenständen auch noch Eigenschaften als respektable, grundlegende Entitäten gebe. David Armstrong is one of Australia's greatest philosophers. [48] Armstrong attributes his adoption of the central-state theory to the work of J. J. C. Smart—specifically the paper 'Sensations and Brain Processes'—and traces the lineage from there to Ullin Place's 1956 paper 'Is Consciousness a Brain Process? To say that these are distinct senses of the wordpresupposes that universal and abstract object do notmean the same thing. In Sydney war zu … [27], Armstrong rejects nominalist accounts of properties that attempt to align properties simply with classes. Armstrong rejects dispositionalism, the idea that dispositional properties (or powers as they are sometimes referred to) are ontologically significant and have an important role in explaining laws of nature. Presentists, Armstrong argues, must either deny that truthmakers are needed for statements about the past, or account for them "by postulating rather strange truthmakers". Also muss es auch Eigenschaften geben, welche die Tatsachen über Eigenschaften wahr machen. In universal: Platonic and Aristotelian realism …by the contemporary Australian philosopher David Armstrong, universals are perhaps not quite as immanent as they are according to the bundle theorists, but they nevertheless obey an Aristotelian “principle of instantiation,” insofar as no universal can exist without instances. Coextension is a problem they face: if properties are simply classes, in a world where all blue things are also wet, class nominalists are unable to draw a distinction between the property of being blue and being wet. From this fundamental assumption flows a rejection of abstract objects including Platonic forms. David (D. M.) Armstrong is one of Australia's greatest philosophers. Literatur von und über David Malet Armstrong, How to Misunderstand David Armstrong’s Theory of Possibility, https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Malet_Armstrong&oldid=208853082, Mitglied der American Academy of Arts and Sciences, „Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike“, australischer Philosoph und Hochschullehrer. Eine zweite Ehe schloss er 1982 mit Jennifer Mary de Bohun Clark. Armstrongs Hauptgrund für die Annahme von Universalien ist das von ihm so genannte truth maker principle (Wahrmacherprinzip): Für jede kontingente Wahrheit muss es etwas geben, was sie wahr macht. • Berkeley's Theory of Vision: A Critical Examination of Bishop Berkeley's Essay towards a New Theory of Vision. Published: May 31, 2008. [21], Armstrong's philosophy, while systematic, does not spend any time on social or ethical matters, and also does not attempt to build a philosophy of language. In another, more modernbut equally entrenched sense, it implies the rejection of abstractobjects. [47], Armstrong holds to a physicalist, functionalist theory of the mind. He once described his slogan as 'Put semantics last'[12] and, in Universals & Scientific Realism, he rebuts an arguments in favour of Plato's theory of forms that rely on semantics by describing "a long but, I think, on the whole discreditable tradition which tries to settle ontological questions on the basis of semantic considerations". David M. Armstrong - 1973 - Philosophy of Science 40 (June):178-93. (1926- ) David Malet Armstrong's book Knowledge, Truth and Belief (1973, pp.150-61) contains an important analysis of the infinite regress of inferences - "reasons behind the reasons" - first noticed by Plato in the Theatetus (200D-201C). According to Armstrong, complex relations which seem to challenge the principle are not ontologically real but are second-order properties that can be reduced to more basic properties that subscribe to the Principle of Instantial Invariance. Armstrong vertrat einen reduktiven Physikalismus. [23] Armstrong describes his philosophy as a form of scientific realism. Juli 1926, Melbourne, Australien; † 13. Ein zentrales Element in Armstrongs Werk ist sein Universalienrealismus. Seine Hauptarbeitsgebiete waren die Philosophie des Geistes, Ontologie und Wissenschaftstheorie. Armstrong gilt zudem als einer der wichtigsten Vertreter eines reduktiven Materialismus in der Philosophie des Geistes. Zudem wählte man ihn im Jahre 1998 zum korrespondierenden Mitglied der British Academy[1] und 2008 als ausländisches Ehrenmitglied in die American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In onesense, its most traditional sense deriving from the Middle Ages, itimplies the rejection of universals. Cookie-Einstellungen Diese Website benutzt Cookies, die für den technischen Betrieb der Website erforderlich sind und stets gesetzt werden. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne 1960. [14], To mark the 50th anniversary in 2014 of Armstrong's appointment to the Challis Chair of Philosophy at Sydney University, Quadrant magazine published a tribute to him (originally written in 1991) by David Stove[15] and an overview of Armstrong's work by Andrew Irvine. Februar 2021 um 20:32 Uhr bearbeitet. [43], Regarding truth, Armstrong holds to what he describes as a "maximalist version" of truthmaker theory: he believes that every truth has a truthmaker, although there doesn't necessarily exist a one-to-one mapping between truth and truthmaker. Vor. David Armstrong (Philosophy Now, Band 11) | Mumford, Stephen | ISBN: 9780773533318 | Kostenloser Versand für alle Bücher mit Versand und Verkauf duch Amazon. Dies gilt auch für Naturgesetze, die Armstrong als Relationen zwischen Universalien versteht. Seine Arbeiten haben die Entwicklung der Logik und Sprachphilosophie maßgeblich vorangetrieben. Armstrong vertrat einen reduktiven Physikalismus. Under the theory of Armstrong, Tooley and Dretske, there is a relation of necessity between the universals ravenhood and blackness, rather than there being a relationship with every single raven. Armstrong a défendu le physicalisme en métaphysique, le réalisme scientifique dans le champ épistémologique, ainsi qu'une forme réductionniste de matérialisme en philosophie de l'esprit. Blobbiness also threatens Platonic universals: a particular instantiating a universal in a world of Platonic universals becomes a matter of the blob-particular having a relation to a universal elsewhere (in the Platonic heaven, say), rather than having an internal relation in the way that a chemical element does to a constituent atom. [16][17], Armstrong's philosophy is broadly naturalistic. David Malet Armstrong (* 8. [32], In terms of the origin of Armstrong's view of universals, Armstrong says his view of universals is "relatively unexplored territory" but points to Hilary Putnam's 1970 paper 'On Properties'[33] as a possible forerunner. '[49], Stephen Mumford said that Armstrong's A Materialist Theory of Mind "represents an authoritative statement of Australian materialism and was, and still is, a seminal piece of philosophy". Diese Seite wurde zuletzt am 15. David Malet Armstrong (8 July 1926 – 13 May 2014), often D. M. Armstrong, was an Australian philosopher. Il a également développé une ontologie des états de choses (states of affairs) associée à une épistémologie des vérifacteurs (truthmakers). Die Ontologie aus grundlegenden, bei Armstrong immer physischen, Gegenständen und Eigenschaften sollen in einem starken realistischen Sinne das beschreiben, was es wirklich gibt. Armstrong: Sydney's most distinguished philosopher: life and work", "David Armstrong and Australian Materialism", "The KK (Knowing that One Knows) Principle", David Armstrong (1926-2014), Sydney philosopher, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Malet_Armstrong&oldid=1013648030, Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English, Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers, Wikipedia articles with CINII identifiers, Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 22 March 2021, at 18:51. Juli 1926 in Melbourne, Australien; † 13. [25], Armstrong's theory of universals treats relations as having no particular ontological difficulty, they can be treated in the same way non-relational properties are. David Armstrong ist der Name folgender Personen: David Armstrong (Fotograf) (1954–2014), US-amerikanischer Fotograf; David Armstrong (Fußballspieler, 1954) (* 1954), englischer Fußballspieler; David Armstrong (Bobfahrer) (* 1964), britischer Bobfahrer; David Armstrong (Fußballspieler, 1987) (* 1987), nordirischer Fußballspieler; David Armstrong-Jones, 2. Mai 2014 in Sydney) war ein australischer Philosoph und Professor an der University of Sydney. Das Studium schloss er 1950 mit Auszeichnung ab. David Armstrong a bâti un système philosophique qui couvre aussi bien le champ de la métap… Dort erwarb er 1960 den PhD. Philosophie. If some particular a has a non-symmetric relation R to another particular b, then R (a, b) differs from R (b, a). [8], In 1974, when the University of Sydney's Philosophy department split into two departments[9]—the Department for General Philosophy and the Department for Traditional and Modern Philosophy—Armstrong joined the latter along with David Stove and Keith Campbell, while the former department pursued more radical politics and taught courses on Marxism and feminism. Zurück. 1956 ging er nach Australien zurück und lehrte an der Universität Melbourne (1956–1963). He also says that "Plato in his later works, Aristotle and the Scholastic Realists were ahead of contemporary philosophy in this matter, although handicapped by the relative backwardness of the science and the scientific methodology of their day". He taught at Birkbeck College in 1954–55, then at the University of Melbourne from 1956–63. But Armstrong differs on this: the unconfident examinee has a belief that Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, he knows that she died in 1603, but he does not know that he knows. Without states of affairs instantiating the particulars and universals (including relations), we cannot account for the truth of the one case and the falsity of the other. How Armstrong's theory of universals deals with relations with varying adicities has been raised as an issue by Fraser MacBride. A student is asked when Queen Elizabeth I died, and he hesitatingly answers "1603" and exhibits no confidence in his answer. Armstrong uses the analogy of a thermometer: as a thermometer changes to reflect the temperature of the environment it is in, so must one's beliefs if they are reliably formed. Reviewed by Alexander Bird, University of Bristol. He has forgotten that at some point previously, he studied English history. (h.c.) der University of Nottingham am 13. Armstrong then suggests that a supervenience relation exists between these second order properties and the ontologically authentic universals given to us by physics. One obvious task for an introductory text concerning the work of a particular philosopher is to express the central ideas of that philosopher in as clear a manner as possible. Rather, it died mainly because of some virus that just happened to sweep through the population. Juli 1926, Melbourne, Australien) ist ein australischer Philosoph und Professor an der University of Sydney.… Nach dem Schulbesuch in Oxford und Australien sowie Militärdienst bei der australischen Marine (1945/46) studierte Armstrong an der University of Sydney ab 1947 Philosophie. Armstrong war der Sohn des Commodore J.M.Armstrong, der in der US-Navy Dienst tat. [39] This account posits that the relations between universals are truthmakers for the statements about physical laws, and it is realist as it accepts that laws of nature are a feature of the world rather than just a way we talk about the world. Armstrong identifies the laws as holding between universals rather than particulars as an account of laws involving just particulars rather than universals would not adequately explain how laws of nature operate in the case of counterfactuals.[40]. [5] He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008. For although differentphilosophers … David Armstrong (Philosophy Now) (English Edition) eBook: Stephen Mumford: Amazon.de: Kindle-Shop The wall being painted green is a truth for the proposition that it is not painted white and the proposition that it is not painted red and so on. David Malet Armstrong (born 8 July 1926), often D. M. Armstrong, is an Australian philosopher.He is well known for his work on metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, and for his defence of a factualist ontology, a functionalist theory of the mind, an externalist epistemology, and a necessitarian conception of the laws of nature. Armstrong realises that we will need to refer to and use properties that are not considered universals in his sparse ontology—for instance, being able to refer to something being a game (to use the example from Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations). In his essay The Nature of Mind, Armstrong outlines a philosophical account of the mind that is compatible with the Materialist scientific view of the mind. [23], Armstrong's theory of universals gives him the basis for an understanding of laws of nature as being relations between universals, a non-Humean account of laws of nature proposed independently by Armstrong,[37] Michael Tooley,[38] and Fred Dretske. His chief philosophical achievement has been the development of a core metaphysical programme, embracing the topics of universals, laws, modality and facts: a naturalistic metaphysics, consistent with a scientific view of the natural world.