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9 of 11 found the following review helpful:
A masterpiece that philosophers can no longer appreciate May 18, 2005
John Post's THE FACES OF EXISTENCE (1986) is not among the most widely read or commented upon books in philosophy. This is due to a deficiency in the philosophical profession, not to a deficiency in Post's book, which may well be one of the two or three best books published in the second half of the 20th century. Post presents a systematic philosophy that is more conceptually precise and argumentatively rigorous than virtually all of the books on narrowly specialized topics. Post thus suceeds in doing what was thought impossible; a "grand metaphysical system" that achieves the highest level of precision and argumentative support. Post's over-all view is a non-reductive phbysicalism, moral realism and allows for a naturalist pantheism, without however positing anything non-natural. Analytic philosophy is sometimes criticized for being too narrowly specialized and not providing an over-all philosophical world-view. Post's book provides such a world-view, and does so in an original book that is nowhere out-matched in the qualities analytic philosophers desire, precision, justification of each thesis, up to date with contemporary philosophy and science, etc. The fact that his book has been bypassed in favor of less rigorous, narrowly focused books on a narrowly defined subject-matter is a sign that the analytic philosophy profession is increasingly becoming occupied by imprecisely thinking "technical specialists", who are not more interested in the deeper philosophical issues than the technical specialists in the fields of law, business, medicine, aviation and the like. John Post may well be one of the last genuine philosophers, as the philosophy profession becomes no different than the legal profession, business profession, banking profession, and other such "surface of life" professions. Apart from the philosophers of religion, the few who write relatively similarly to Post are Milton Munitz, Quentin Smith, Arthur Witherall and . . . ? That can't be all. If it were, philosophy is in effect a dead discipline. Perhaps, 500 years from now, Post's book will be viewed as one of the last half-dozen books or so that are "philosophical" in the real sense of this word. As physics (Big Bang Cosmology, Quantum Gravity Cosmology) becomes more profound as it progresses, philosophy becomes more superficial as it "progresses". I might suggest that if intelligent people are interested in pursuing the profounder questions, they should now go into the field of physical cosmology, not philosophy.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
Table of Contents Mar 05, 2005
More essays are available on Prof. Post website
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/~postjf/contentsfe.htm
Table of Contents, The Faces of Existence: An Essay in Nonreductive Metaphysics --
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 -- Truth
§1.0. Introduction
§1.1. Realism
1.1.1. The Determinacy of Truth
1.1.2. Correspondence
1.1.3. The Determinacy of Aboutness
1.1.4. Reference, Causality, Knowledge
1.1.5. Truth and (Other) Norms
§1.2. Domains of Truth, Faces of Existence
§1.3. Problems with Criteria
§1.4. Criteria versus Prerequisites for Truth
§1.5. Seven Prerequisites for Truth
§1.6. Additional Virtues for Beliefs
Chapter 2 -- Mystery and Ultimate Explanation
§2.0. Introduction
§2.1. Mystery
§2.2. Explanations
§2.3. Infinite Parades of Explanation
§2.4. How to Refute Principles of Sufficient Reason
§2.5. Ultimate Explanation
§2.6. The Secret of Chaco Canyon
§2.7. Science and Ultimate Explanation
Chapter 3 -- Universe
§3.0. Introduction
§3.1. What Is the Physical Universe?
3.1.1. What Is a Physical Existent?
3.1.2. The Sum of the Physical Existents
§3.2. Mystery and the Universe
§3.3. First Cause
§3.4. Eternal Universe
3.4.1. Immutable
3.4.2. Not in Time
3.4.3. Tenseless
3.4.4.Existing "All at Once"
3.4.5. Without Beginning or End
§3.5. The Universe beyond the Universe
Chapter 4 -- Nonreductive Physicalism
§4.0. Introduction
§4.1. "Everything Is Physical"
§4.2. "No Difference without a Physical Difference"
§4.3. "All Truth Is Determined by Physical Truth"
§4.4. Determination by Reference
§4.5. Emergence: From the Physical to the Nonphysical
§4.6. Comprehensiveness versus Monopoly
Chapter 5 -- Relating the Domains
§5.0. Introduction
§5.1. Connective Theories
§5.2. Bridge Principles and Metaphors
§5.3. Metaphor
§5.4. Discussing Sundials with a Bat
Chapter 6 -- Fact and Value
§6.0. Introduction
§6.1. The Determinacy of Valuation
§6.2. Objections and Replies
§6.3. Correspondence with the Facts
Chapter 7 -- The Measure of All Things
§7.0. Introduction
§7.1. Subjective and Objective
§7.2. The Very Idea of the Way the World Is
§7.3. The Very Idea of Ultimate Priority
§7.4. The Perils of Pluralism
§7.5. Emotions and Secondary Qualities: Faces or Masks?
§7.6. Whether Existence Is Absurd
Chapter 8 -- God
§8.0. Introduction
§8.1. Renaming the Whirlwind
§8.2. God as Not the Value of a Variable
§8.3. God as Partly the Value of a Variable
Bibliography / Index
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