Douglas Edwards
Douglas Edwards
BA (Kent), MLitt, PhD (St Andrews)
https://sites.google.com/site/doedwards/
I am a philosopher who works mainly on topics in metaphysics and philosophy of language (particularly issues related to truth), but I am also interested in many other things.
I wrote a monograph, The Metaphysics of Truth, which was published by Oxford University Press in August 2018. Before that, my first book Properties was published by Polity Press in 2014. I also edited Truth: A Contemporary Reader for Bloomsbury Press, which was published in September 2019.
My most recent book is a book on pro wrestling and philosophy called Philosophy Smackdown for Polity Press, published in Spring 2020.
I currently work at Utica College, in Utica, New York. Prior to this I worked at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, the University of Aberdeen, and University College Dublin, after doing my PhD at the University of St Andrews.
I am an Associate Editor of the journal Analysis.
Address: https://sites.google.com/site/doedwards/
BA (Kent), MLitt, PhD (St Andrews)
https://sites.google.com/site/doedwards/
I am a philosopher who works mainly on topics in metaphysics and philosophy of language (particularly issues related to truth), but I am also interested in many other things.
I wrote a monograph, The Metaphysics of Truth, which was published by Oxford University Press in August 2018. Before that, my first book Properties was published by Polity Press in 2014. I also edited Truth: A Contemporary Reader for Bloomsbury Press, which was published in September 2019.
My most recent book is a book on pro wrestling and philosophy called Philosophy Smackdown for Polity Press, published in Spring 2020.
I currently work at Utica College, in Utica, New York. Prior to this I worked at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, the University of Aberdeen, and University College Dublin, after doing my PhD at the University of St Andrews.
I am an Associate Editor of the journal Analysis.
Address: https://sites.google.com/site/doedwards/
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Philosophy Smackdown is a study of pro wrestling as distinctive as pro wrestling itself: it is the first philosophical look at this major cultural spectacle. Philosopher and fan Douglas Edwards takes both philosophy and pro wrestling to parts unknown. With liveliness, humor and insight, he shows that pro wrestling is fertile ground for reflection on fundamental human issues, such as reality, freedom, identity, morality, justice, and meaning. He explores these through pivotal events in pro wrestling, from the eighties heyday of Hulkamania to the recent emergence of AEW.
Philosophy Smackdown is a read that will delight philosophers and pro wrestling fans alike. It’s time to ask yourself: Whatcha gonna do when Philosophy Smackdown runs wild on you?
blades of grass and human beings, to name just a few, each occupying their own
special region of space-time. When we distinguish between them, though, we often
don’t just make use of the idea that they exist in different locations, we also talk about
the different features, attributes, or properties that they have. For instance, you and I
have the property of being human, whereas tables and chairs do not. Roses and fire
engines have the property of being red (or, at least, some do), whereas blades of grass
do not. Conversely, the properties that objects have also help us to make sense of the
ways in which distinct objects are similar: roses and fire engines are similar in an
important way, as are you and I, because of the properties they, and we, share.
However, admitting of properties immediately raises some interesting metaphysical
questions. For example, how do we make sense of the idea that the redness of a fire
engine is the same as the redness of a rose when the fire engine and the rose exist in
different places? Does this mean that one thing - the property redness - exists in
different places at once, and, if so, how?
Understanding properties has been one of the main tasks of metaphysicians since the
ancients, and a number of innovative proposals have been put forward. The aim of
this book is to provide an accessible introduction to the main theories of properties,
including the views that properties are universals, that properties are constructed from
tropes, and that properties are classes, or sets, of objects. The book will chart these
central positions in the debate, and more, and note their strengths and weaknesses. It
will also address the main challenge to views that take properties seriously – that
posed by Quine – which argues, contrary to what we said above, that we do not need
properties to do any interesting explanatory work. The book will also address the
question of what a theory of properties is intended to do, and take seriously the
question of whether any single theory of properties is able to account for all the
features properties have been taken to have.
The book is also intended to explain the implications of debates about properties. In
particular, it will be shown that these are not debates solely of interest to those
wanting to respond to a particular problem in metaphysics, but also to those engaged
in debates elsewhere in philosophy. This is because many debates can be phrased as
debates about the nature (or existence) of properties of a particular kind. For instance,
moral realists are generally required to respond to concerns about the nature of moral
properties, and how they could guide our actions in certain ways. Also, recent debates
about the nature of truth are often seen as debates about whether or not truth is a
property, and, if it is, what kind of property it might be. The final chapter of this book
will explain how the issue of the nature of properties bears on these examples, and
vice versa, and will aim to show how the different accounts of properties explored in
previous chapters might be affected."
Papers by Douglas Edwards
Website by Douglas Edwards