This book develops a stimulating new way of looking at texts, with case studies from Western and Indian literature.

The advances of book history and editorial theory remind us that it is vital to look behind the text we read. Sukanta Chaudhuri explores, at a very fundamental level, how texts are constituted and how they work. He applies insights from many lines of study not brought together so closely before: theories of language, signification and reception alongside bibliography, textual criticism, editorial theory and book history. Blending case studies with general observation and theory, he considers the implications of the physical form of the text; the relation between oral and written language, and between language and other media; the new territory opened up by electronic texts; and special categories like play-books and translations. Drawing on an exceptionally wide range of material, both Western literature and Indian works from Sanskrit aesthetics to the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore, Chaudhuri sets a new agenda for the study of texts.

The Metaphysics presents Aristotle's mature rejection of both the Platonic theory that what we perceive is just a pale reflection of reality and the hardheaded view that all processes are ultimately material. He argued instead that the reality or substance of things lies in their concrete forms, and in so doing he probed some of the deepest questions of philosophy: What is existence? How is change possible? And are there certain things that must exist for anything else to exist at all? The seminal notions discussed in The Metaphysics - of 'substance' and associated concepts of matter and form, essence and accident, potentiality and actuality - have had a profound and enduring influence, and laid the foundations for one of the central branches of Western philosophy.

'Metaphysics' is aimed at students of metaphysics who have already completed an introductory philosophy course. This third edition provides a fresh look at the key topics in metaphysics and includes new chapters on time and causation.

Metaphysics has shifted ground, moving away from necessity and possibility as the lens through which we look at things. Ted Sider shapes the agenda for the subject by exploring how this shift transforms the project of understanding the objects, properties, and quantities of the universe, and the relations between them, in terms of structures.

This book is just what it says it is: A theory of textuality divided into two parts, logical and epistemological.

This book begins with standard ontological topics--such as the nature of existence--and of metaphysics generally, such as the status of universals, form, and accidents. What is the proper subject matter of metaphysical speculation? Are essence and existence really distinct in bodies? Does the body lose its unifying form at death? Can an accident of a substance exist in separation from that substance? Are universals real, and, if so, are they anything more than general concepts? Among the figures it examines are Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Walter Chatton, John Buridan, Dietrich of Freiburg, Robert Holcot, Walter Burley, and the 11th-century Islamic philosopher Ibn-Sina (Avicenna).There is also an emphasis on metaphysics broadly conceived. Thus, additional discussions of connected topics in medieval logic, epistemology, and language provide a fuller account of the range of ideas included in the later medieval worldview.