Here's a battle of metaphysical heavyweights (EJ Lowe reviewing DM Armstrong's Sketch for a Systematic Metaphysics). [I was suddenly attracted to the idea of an unsystematic metaphysics, for which the contents of my brain may be a truth-maker.]
Anyway, there is a great historical irony lurking here: analytic philosophy got part of its identity by rebelling against the obscurity, metaphysical extravaganze, and lack of logical acuity of (British) Idealism (i.e., T.H. Green, F. H. Bradley, Bernard Bosanquet J. M. E. McTaggart, H. H. Joachim, J. H. Muirhead, and G. R. G. Mure, etc. Amusingly, in the review Bradley is discussed with utmost respect. McTaggert is treated with utmost seriousness in lots of debates on time again.)
Armstromng is best known (by me?) for his Truthmaker theory (which is pretty central to contemporary metaphysics); it presupposes i) propositions, ii) things that make them true, and iii) their (internal) relation. Thus, in the name of "hard-core naturalism," (often no better than dogmatic realism) a whole philosophic industry has been built around assuming the reality of timeless & eternal entities (or something that figures like a proxy for these [My brilliant ex-colleague, Kris McDaniel once gave a devestating review of Armstrong's particular take on propositions. [GET WELL SOON, KRIS!]] and relations. (Yes, we can also discuss falsemakers.) Somewhere, Hegel must be nodding something obscure about cunning...
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