The introduction presents some general reflections on what characterises Heidegger’s fundamental ontology and what makes his thought a particularly promising point of departure for doing social ontology. I first introduce Heidegger’s holistic conceptions of Dasein and being-in-the-world by way of contrast to Cartesian atomism. I then go on to show that Heidegger conceives of intersubjectivity as a triangular relation between self, world, and other rather than a dyadic relation between two independent subjects. My claim is that Heidegger’s social ontology is found directly in his conception of the shared world and that his more well-known accounts of the Anyone and solicitude should be understood within this general framework. I also reflect on the relation between Heidegger’s social ontology and his politics and provide an outline of the book.

Conrad eloquently wrote about his inability to write; he stuttered his way through his texts with nonlexical grunts, snarls, howls, murmurs, gurgles, snorts and hems; and he sought to stay true to “the stammerings of his conscience” (xliii), a working method alluded to in the Preface of The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’ (1897). In this chapter, I argue that distraction – usually a writer’s enemy – is another one of these unexpected features that Conrad used to propel his writing; his seemingly rambling digressions are part of a quest for verbal precision. Although he is frequently conceived of as a methodical and philosophical writer, distraction was a fundamental and serious part of his literary enterprise. By allowing distraction, inattentiveness and absent-mindedness to become part of his fiction, he was able to stay productive, steal the reader’s attention and add a level of everyday realism to his texts. Conrad, I maintain, writes in medias distractionis and consistently pays attention to those who do not pay attention.

This chapter focuses on the intellectual activities of Aristotelian philosophers within the late-Renaissance and early modern university context. It shows that Scholastic Aristotelianism constituted a varied, dynamic, and long-lasting philosophical tradition rooted in, but not limited to, problems arising from Aristotle’s texts. Late Scholastic solutions did not always pose obstacles to new sciences and matter theories, but also anticipated them. The chapter examines key variants of Aristotelianism in the context of their institutional settings and curricula. This provides an opportunity to re-assess radical Aristotelianism (e.g., Averroism), the late-Scholastic revival (e.g., the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum and Suárez) and Protestant Scholasticism. Developing Charles Schmitt’s thesis that there were many different, even conflicting, Aristotelianisms, the chapter argues that some so-called “anti-Aristotelians,” whom the moderns conscripted as allies to their cause, are better understood as working within a broader Aristotelian framework. Identifying the shared Aristotelian problem space of both more orthodox and controversial philosophers of the period affords a better understanding of both the conflicts themselves and the extensive debts that later developments bore to this tradition.

In the Scientific Revolution the concept of body evolved along several divergent lines, from conceptions that rely exclusively on extension and motion to more elaborate accounts that include attributes such as solidity and force. A host of complications were disputed, such as atomism versus the infinite divisibility of bodies, the distinction between primary and secondary properties, and the possibility of a vacuum. This chapter explores these and other issues, but with an emphasis on the relationship between body and spatial extension. Descartes's three-part distinction—i.e., whether the relationship between body and extension is conceptually, modally, or really distinct—serves as a framework for investigating the development of early modern theories of material body, a process that laid the basis for the ontology and epistemology of modern science.

In the 1630s, two different men proposed new and potentially powerful ways of understanding the natural world. Pierre Gassendi (1592-655) and René Descartes (1596-650) each devised a system that sought to explain all natural phenomena as the result of the movement of matter. Historians now call these the mechanical philosophies of nature, and they represent an important shift in early modern ideas about the world. Gassendi revived the ancient atomism of Epicurus (341–270 BCE) while Descartes envisioned a cosmos filled with swirling vortices of tiny particles, but despite the many differences between their philosophies, both struggled to answer the same question: How can we explain God, the human soul, and life itself in a mechanical universe? This was not a small problem, as many in the seventeenth century worried that reducing all things to the movement of matter could lead to doubt, skepticism, and even outright atheism. Both Gassendi and Descartes found ingenious ways to establish proofs for the presence of God in their philosophies, and also reconciled the very essence of what it means to be human — to them, the immortal soul — with a purely material universe.

This chapter shows how Lucretius repeatedly draws parallels between the human soul and the stars in DRN 3. These parallels are achieved through intertextual reference to the Aratea, Cicero’s poem on the stars. In drawing as densely on the Aratea as it demonstrably does, the DRN creates a problem for its interpretation. The Aratea, a translation of the Phaenomena of the Hellenistic poet Aratus, is a text with a markedly Stoic orientation, as I’ve shown elsewhere (Gee 2001 and 2013). The Stoic approach to the stars and the soul is that of an intelligent-design philosophy, and therefore in opposition to Lucretius’ atomist understanding of the universe and mankind. What then is the meaning of Lucretius’ tapestry of allusions to the Aratea? This chapter shows how Lucretius deliberately hijacks a text in the opposing philosophical tradition as part of his polemical strategy. Through close readings it becomes clear that Lucretius eviscerates Cicero’s poem of its intelligent-design substance and substitutes his own Epicurean content in its stead. The reader familiar with the Aratea now views the Stoic poem through the mesh of allusions in the DRN, with the result that Lucretius has partially eclipsed the worldview of the Aratea and replaced it with his own.

The first chapter focuses on early Muʿtazilite and Ashʿarite theologians. It examines the birth and development of Ashʿarite occasionalism as a response to the Muʿtazilite theological project which aims to preserve the intelligibility of the world and God and, to this end, is ready to accept the idea of necessity in the world and, even, in God. The modus operandi of Ashʿarite theological project in this context remains to preserve the divine will and freedom. This, then, leads to construction of, what I call, a theology of possibility. It is within the larger context of this debate that occasionalist theory of causality emerges as the cornerstone of Ashʿarite theology of possibility. The chapter starts with an examination of early Ashʿarite and Muʿtazilite discussions about the relationship of the divine attributes to God. It then shows how these discussions led to the emergence of Ashʿarite occasionalism. Finally, it explores how the occasionalist perspective provided the basis for Ashʿarite convictions on other important cosmological and theological discussions.

The third chapter introduces Ghazālī’s and Rāzī’s responses to Ibn Sīnā’s theological and cosmological challenges to the occasionalist worldview. Ghazālī’s response is heavily influenced by Ashʿarite theology’s emphasis on the divine will and freedom. In this discussion, Ghazālī harkens back to the earlier Ashʿarite tradition, offers novel applications of old arguments, and raises important challenges to Ibn Sīnā. Rāzī, on the other hand, formulates a list of arguments for the defense of Ashʿarite cosmology based on a discrete and atomistic model of the universe. Rāzī’s atomistic arguments can be seen as a novel development in the occasionalist tradition. Rāzī’s use of Euclidian geometry for and against atomism also led to emergence of an occasionalist philosophy of science marked by pragmatic and sceptic attitude towards dominant scientific models.

Chapter 16 emphasises the complex diversity of the factors shaping the Greek and Indian intellectual revolutions, describes the metaphysical consequences of a variety of perspectives on money and accounts for the differences between brahman and the Parmenidean One.