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William F. Vallicella

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William F. Vallicella is an American philosopher.

Biography

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Vallicella has a Ph.D. (Boston College; 1978), taught for a number of years at University of Dayton (where he was a tenured Associate Professor of Philosophy; 1978–91) and Case Western Reserve University (Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy; 1989–91), and retired to Gold Canyon, Arizona from where he now contributes to philosophy mainly online.[1][2][3][4] He is the author of many published articles, primarily on the subjects of metaphysics and philosophy of religion.[5][6]

In the short chapter on him in the book Falling in Love with Wisdom: American Philosophers Talk About Their Calling, Vallicella discusses the philosophical questions which he happened to think about in his youth, such as "What if God hadn't created anything?", "What if even God didn't exist", and "Why is good, good, and evil, evil?", and his thoughts on the inquiry of philosophy.[7]

Publications

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Books

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  • Kant, subjectivity and facticity, Boston College, 1978
  • A Paradigm Theory of Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated, Kluwer Academic Publishers 2002, ISBN 1-4020-0887-2. Forbes summarizes this book as follows:[8]

What is it for any contingent thing to exist? Why does any contingent thing exist? For some time now, the preferred style in addressing such questions has been deflationary when it has not been eliminativist. In its critical half, this book thoroughly analyzes and demolishes the main deflationary and eliminativist accounts of existence, including those of Brentano, Frege, Russell, and Quine, thereby restoring existence to its rightful place as one of the deep topics in philosophy, if not the deepest. In its constructive half, the book defends the thesis that the two questions admit of a unified answer, and that this answer takes the form of what the author calls a paradigm theory of existence. The central idea of the paradigm theory is that existence itself is a paradigmatically existent concrete individual. In this way the author vindicates onto-theology and puts paid to the Heideggerian conceit that Being cannot itself be a being. This work will be of interest to all serious students and teachers of philosophy, especially those interested in metaphysics and the philosophy of religion.

Chapters

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Articles

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He has published over 40 scholarly articles,[10] including:

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Notes on Contributors". Philosophy. 75 (4): 475. 2000. doi:10.1017/s0031819100000620.
  2. ^ sketchy bio-details here
  3. ^ "Maverick Philosopher: On Being an Independent Philosopher". Maverickphilosopher.blogspot.com. October 26, 2004. Retrieved March 19, 2010.
  4. ^ a b Mullins, Matthew. "New Contributor – The Prosblogion". Prosblogion.ektopos.com. Retrieved March 19, 2010.
  5. ^ Philosophy (2000), 75 : 475–75, Cambridge University Press, December 11, 2000
  6. ^ [1] [dead link]
  7. ^ Falling in love with wisdom: American philosophers talk about their calling, David D. Karnos, Robert G. Shoemaker, Oxford University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-19-508917-0, ISBN 978-0-19-508917-2
  8. ^ Forbes book summary
  9. ^ a b Sanders, Andries F.; Ridder, Kristof De (2007). Fifty years of philosophy of ... – Google Books. ISBN 9789004148239. Retrieved March 19, 2010.
  10. ^ "Google Scholar".
  11. ^ Poidevin, Robin Le (1998). Questions of time and tense – Google Books. ISBN 9780198236955. Retrieved March 19, 2010.
  12. ^ Raspa, Venanzio (2006). Meinongian Issues in Contemporary ... – Google Books. ISBN 9783938793350. Retrieved March 19, 2010.
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