This provocative book argues that people are naturally endowed with the ability to speak an articulate language and to form a culture. Language and cultural life require self-appraisal, and hence an evolution--through self-conflict--of desires into values. Nerlich demonstrates that this valuing is a natural process, one that underlies the morals of duty and obligation. He concludes that such valuing will be good only if it results in objective values that are authentic to the individual's nature and surrounding culture.

Values and Valuing: Speculations on the Ethical Life of Persons

History

Nerlich, Graham

Asia

Clarendon Press

Graham Nerlich is one of the most distinguished of contemporary philosophers of space and time. Eleven of his essays are here brought together in a carefully structured volume; they deal with ontology and methodology in relativity, variable curvature and general relativity, and time and causation. The author has provided a general introduction and also introductions to each part to bring the discussion up-to-date and draw out the general themes. This volume will be welcomed by all philosophers of physics, and of science in general.

What Spacetime Explains: Metaphysical Essays on Space and Time

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Cambridge University Press

In this revised and updated edition of his classic book, Graham Nerlich develops a metaphysical account of space as a concrete entity, showing it to play a key explanatory role in space and spacetime theories.

The Shape of Space

This is a revised and updated edition of Graham Nerlich's classic book (1976). It develops a metaphysical account of space that treats it as a real and concrete entity, showing that shape plays a key explanatory role in space and spacetime theories. Arguing that geometrical explanation is very like causal explanation, Professor Nerlich prepares the ground for philosophical argument and investigates how different spaces would affect perception differently. Along the way Professor Nerlich criticizes and rejects conventionalism as a non-realist metaphysics of space, concluding that there is, in fact, no problem of underdetermination for this aspect of spacetime theories, while offering an extensive discussion of the relativity of motion.

This is a revised and updated edition of Graham Nerlich's classic book (1976). It develops a metaphysical account of space that treats it as a real and concrete entity, showing that shape plays a key explanatory role in space and spacetime theories. Arguing that geometrical explanation is very like causal explanation, Professor Nerlich prepares the ground for philosophical argument and investigates how different spaces would affect perception differently. Along the way Professor Nerlich criticizes and rejects conventionalism as a non-realist metaphysics of space, concluding that there is, in fact, no problem of underdetermination for this aspect of spacetime theories, while offering an extensive discussion of the relativity of motion.

This book is about spacetime, and how, in General Relativity, it performs its widely accepted role of explaining all the phenomena of gravity. Space and time have long been contentious presences in theories of mechanics because of their metaphysical peculiarities. Philosophical worries continue to fog a clear understanding of just how spacetime performs this role. In early sections of his revolutionary paper of 1916, Einstein claimed that his use of a new style of formulation removes "the last remnant of physical objectivity from space and time". His satisfaction in banishing these metaphysical anxieties was evident. However in 1917 it was shown his claim was ungrounded. He readily accepted the criticism: it left intact all the maths and physics of the theory. These amply justify the widespread, orthodox view of spacetime's fundamental role in the theory. Einstein banished no demon but rather released a genie - spacetime. However, his hostility continued, resulting in attempts to rewrite the role of spacetime. These had some later influence but never caught on. Einstein set supreme importance on the role of imagination in scientific theory and valued it as his most significant gift. In science, perhaps in culture generally, relativity is unsurpassed in its imaginative conceptual daring. Yet he and others paused at its metaphysical novelty and radicalism: hostility to spacetime persists. This book presents an unqualified philosophical defence of the conceptual coherence and uniqueness of spatiotemporality. It offers an alternative to the relationist/substantivalist dilemma; it explains Minkowski's derivation of spacetime without the light postulate; it defends, clarifies and stresses the deep role of spacetime in the standard novelties of both relativity theories. A study of spacetime in relativity shows how an insubstantial entity can nevertheless be concrete. That solves the metaphysical worry over its intelligibility and reveals it as fundamental to ontology.

Einstein's Genie: Spacetime out of the Bottle

Minkowski Institute Press

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Books by Nerlich, Graham

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Nerlich, Graham. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Values and Valuing: Speculations on the Ethical Life of Persons

What Spacetime Explains: Metaphysical Essays on Space and Time

The Shape of Space

The Shape of Space

What Spacetime Explains: Metaphysical Essays on Space and Time

The Shape of Space

Einstein's Genie: Spacetime out of the Bottle