The texts of the book are concerned with G. Bergmann's open and new problems and their active role on issues in contemporary metaphysics, like the ontology of ties, connexions and relations, problems of exemplification, substrates and tropes theories, particulars, persistence and the metaphysics of space, time and existence. Papers deal with these themes by themselves, or discuss them in an associated way: some of them aim to clarify the complicated conceptual Relations Bergmann have enlarged with major themes of philosophers like Aristotle, Brentano, Meinong and Sellars. The purpose of the book is to provide some light on his central interests, but also in regard of the evolution of the actual scope of his thought.

This posthumous work by Gustav Bergmann was essentially complete before his death in 1987. In it, he proposes a systematic ontological system that would account for all the basic areas of human thought and experience within an extended framework of logical atomism. Bergmann's approach to traditional problems of ontology seeks to balance the competing demands of phenomenology, which emphasizes the reality presented to us by experience, and of metaphysics, which delineates the most general kinds of existents given in experience and the most general kinds of relationships they bear to one another. Beginning with atomic facts composed of phenomenally presented qualities, Bergmann goes on to develop an ontology that can account for the ordinary objects of everyday experience, the mental states through which we become aware of and acquire knowledge of these objects, and even the truths of logic and mathematics that allow us to extend our thought and discourse about ordinary objects beyond what may be phenomenally apparent. Many ontologists will be particularly interested in the attention Bergmann pays to the concept of logical form. In his earlier works, Bergmann claimed that "the form of the world is in the world"; the "fact" that a thing or a complex has a certain logical or syntactic form, he argued, is itself one more fact of our experienced reality, rather than a contribution of the mind or of linguistic conventions. Critics of this claim have suggested that paradoxes and contradictions result from it. In New Foundations of Ontology Bergmann responds, arguing that his concept of logical form does not necessarily create the problems noted in earlier critiques.

The Linguistic Turn provides a rich and representative introduction to the entire historical and doctrinal range of the linguistic philosophy movement. In two retrospective essays titled "Ten Years After" and "Twenty-Five Years After," Rorty shows how his book was shaped by the time in which it was written and traces the directions philosophical study has taken since. "All too rarely an anthology is put together that reflects imagination, command, and comprehensiveness. Rorty's collection is just such a book."—Review of Metaphysics

This book, first published in 1987, offers a reconstruction of Berkeley’s doctrine on notions by examining the implications of his repeated suggestion that there is a close relationship between his doctrine and his semantic theory. The study ties in with some of the most important topics in modern analytic philosophy, and casts important light on modern philosophical concerns as well as on Berkeley’s thought.

Gustav Bergmann (1906-1987) was, arguably, the greatest ontologist of the twentieth century in pursuing the fundamental questions of first philosophy as deeply as any philosopher of any time. In 2006 and 2007, international conferences devoted solely to Bergmann’s work were held at the University of Iowa in the USA, Université de Provence in France, and Università degli Studi Roma Tre in Italy. The papers in this volume were presented at the first of these conferences, in Iowa City, where Bergmann taught for nearly four decades after escaping from Europe, following the dissolution of the Vienna Circle of which he had been the youngest member. There are nine philosophical papers, reminiscences of three of his students, and a complete bibliography of his published writings.

While Wilfrid Sellars’ philosophy is often depicted in an ahistorical fashion, this book explores the consequences of placing his work in its historical context. In order to show how Sellars’ early publications depend on contextual factors, Peter Olen reconstructs the conceptions of language, psychological, and social explanation that dominated American philosophy in the early 20th century. Because of Sellars’ differing explanations of language and behaviour, Olen argues that many of Sellars’ early commitments are incompatible with his later works. In the course of doing so, Olen highlights problematic tensions between Sellars’ early and later conceptions of language, meta-philosophy, and normativity. Supplementing the main text is a collection of previously unpublished archival material from Wilfrid Sellars, Gustav Bergmann, Everett Hall, and other early 20th century philosophers. This text will be a useful resource to those with an interest in the history of American philosophy, the history of analytic philosophy, Wilfrid Sellars’ philosophy, and the myriad issues surrounding normativity and language.

The essays collected in this volume are all concerned with the connection between fiction and truth. This question is of utmost importance to metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophical logic and epistemology, raising in each of these areas and at their intersections a large number of issues related to creation, existence, reference, identity, modality, belief, assertion, imagination, pretense, etc. All these topics and many more are addressed in this collection, which brings together original essays written from various points of view by philosophers of diverse trends. These essays constitute major contributions to the current debates that the connection between truth and fiction continually enlivens, and give a sense of the directions in which research on this question is heading.

This book models and simulates metaphysics by presenting the metaphysics of a model. The small size of the model makes it possible to treat metaphysical matters with a more than usual systematicity and comprehensiveness. In the mirror of sustained analogy, simulation-metaphysics offers a wealth of insights on the real thing: on the doctrines, the methods, and the epistemology of metaphysics.