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Substance has long been one of the key categories in metaphysics. This Element focuses on contemporary work on substance, and in particular on contemporary substance ontologies, metaphysical systems in which substance is one of the fundamental categories and individual substances are among the basic building blocks of reality. The topics discussed include the different metaphysical roles which substances have been tasked with playing; different critieria of substancehood (accounts of what is it to be a substance); arguments for and against the existence of substances; and different accounts of which entities, if any, count as substances.

Substance (Philosophy) --- Matter --- Metaphysics --- Ontology --- Reality

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Brings a new dimension to thinking about philosophical materialism and realism in the wake of phenomenology and deconstructionChallenges speculative realism’s critique of contemporary Continental philosophy as correlationismUses Merleau-Ponty and Nancy to develop an ontology that respects the materiality and exteriority of what exists without reinstating the mind–world divideShows how Merleau-Ponty and Nancy overcome the Cartesian presupposition at work in current realist appeal to step out of our own thoughts to reach the ‘great outdoors’Provides an alternative to the phenomenological reduction of being to senseDefends anthropomorphism as a way of overcoming the Cartesian–Sartrian ontology of the objectMarie-Eve Morin proposes a reinterpretation of the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty and Nancy from the perspective of realist and object-oriented tendencies in contemporary philosophy. The realist critique of subject-centred anthropocentric thinking indicates the danger, inherent in the phenomenological approach, of reducing being to sense. Morin demonstrates how Merleau-Ponty and Nancy avoid this pitfall through the development of ontologies that respect the materiality and exteriority of what exists without reaffirming the Cartesian divide between mind and world.Morin orients her analysis around three ideas where Merleau-Ponty’s and Nancy’s thinking intersect: Body, Thing, Being. Each time, she tracks the role of difference or spacing within sensing and sense-making. She concludes that their respective conceptions – as encroachment and promiscuity or as unpassable limit – may provide counterweights to each other.

Ontology. --- Phenomenology. --- Philosophy, French --- PHILOSOPHY / Movements / Phenomenology. --- Philosophy, Modern --- Being --- Philosophy --- Metaphysics --- Necessity (Philosophy) --- Substance (Philosophy)

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This book, based on ethnographic research in Romania, traces the ontological red lines that form a world in which xenophobic landscapes are possible. The last couple hundred years in Romania's history have been marked by change of political regimes, but this manuscript pays equal attention to an important continuity in Romania's ontological world: its understanding of the landscape, and the relationship between Romanian people and their land. From political discourses to children's books, to literature, and explanations found for everyday events, the book follows the ways in which the landscape of Romania has been understood as a sentient being imbued with willpower and ability to act on the world. The sentience specific to Romania's landscape is characterized by xenophobia-a fear and distrust of ethno-religious others-that has been historically interpreted by Romanians as manifesting through acts of violence enacted by the landscape towards various groups of humans understood as dangerous to the country's unity. The novelty of this book lies in the fact that it is an in-depth analysis of an ontological world in which sentient landscapes are de-romanticized and presented in their uncomfortable complexity. The concept of sentient xenophobic mountains can add a great deal to the current literature on the ontological turn and ontological multiplicities, by questioning binaries like colonized/colonizer, indigenous/colonial, sentient landscape/industrial superpower. Romania's history makes it a good case study for this exercise, as the country has been at the margins of empires, both desired because of its natural resources and rejected because of the perceived inferiority of its people, both racialized and racist, both neoliberal and imagining absolute sovereignty.

Xenophobia --- Ethnology --- Ontology. --- Social conditions. --- History. --- Descriptive sociology --- Social conditions --- Social history --- History --- Sociology --- Being --- Philosophy --- Metaphysics --- Necessity (Philosophy) --- Substance (Philosophy) --- Zenophobia --- Phobias --- Europe

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How might we change ourselves without ending our existence? What could we become, if we had access to an advanced form of bioengineering that allowed us dramatically to alter our genome? Could we remain in existence after ceasing to be alive? What is it to be human? Might we still exist after changing ourselves into something that is not human? What is the significance of human extinction? Steven Luper addresses these questions and more in this thought-provoking study. He defends an animalist account, which says that we are organisms, but claims that we are also material objects. His book goes to the heart of the most complex questions about what we are and what we might become. Using case studies from the life sciences as well as thought experiments, Luper develops a new way of thinking about the nature of life and death, and whether and how human extinction matters.

Object (Philosophy) --- Ontology. --- Organisms. --- Life. --- Death. --- Posthumanism. --- Philosophy --- Death --- Dying --- End of life --- Life --- Terminal care --- Terminally ill --- Thanatology --- Biological organisms --- Biota --- Living organisms --- Life (Biology) --- Species --- Being --- Metaphysics --- Necessity (Philosophy) --- Substance (Philosophy)

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This edited collection provides new perspectives on some metaphysical questions arising in quantum mechanics. These questions have been long-standing and are of continued interest to researchers and graduate students working in physics, philosophy of physics and metaphysics. It features contributions from a diverse set of researchers, ranging from senior scholars to junior academics, working in varied fields, from physics to philosophy of physics and metaphysics. The contributors reflect on issues about fundamentality (is quantum theory fundamental? If so, what is its fundamental ontology?), ontological dependence (how do ordinary objects exist even if they are not fundamental?), realism (what kind of realism is compatible with quantum theory?), indeterminacy (can the world itself exhibit ontological indeterminacy?). With contributions from both physicists (including Nobel Prize winner Gerard 't Hooft), science communicators and philosophers. .

Metaphysics. --- Quantum theory --- Philosophy. --- Philosophy --- God --- Ontology --- Philosophy of mind --- Science—Philosophy. --- Quantum physics. --- Philosophy—History. --- Ontology. --- Philosophy of Science. --- Quantum Physics. --- History of Philosophy. --- Quantum dynamics --- Quantum mechanics --- Quantum physics --- Physics --- Mechanics --- Thermodynamics --- Being --- Metaphysics --- Necessity (Philosophy) --- Substance (Philosophy)