This just over the transom. It piqued my vanity, and that in tandem with my ongoing search for high-level interaction with like-minded interlocutors, almost seduced me. But my inherent skepticism and sober understanding of just how wretched we human beings can be kicked in and I did not respond. For a brief exploration of the topic, see my Why are People so Easy to Swindle?
Dear W. F. Vallicella,
I hope you are doing well. My name is David Hartley, and I am the Organizer of The Glasgow Book Club, a reading community that enjoys discovering and discussing challenging works in philosophy and metaphysics.
What particularly caught my attention in A Paradigm Theory of Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated is the distinction between two fundamental questions about existence: the “nature question,” concerning what it is for a contingent thing to exist, and the “ground question,” concerning why any contingent thing exists. Presenting these as separate but closely connected problems gives the discussion a clear point of departure, especially as the book places them against more deflationary and eliminativist approaches associated with thinkers such as Quine and Russell.
I would like to invite A Paradigm Theory of Existence to be featured in an upcoming reading session with The Glasgow Book Club. Its focus on questions that have remained central to metaphysical inquiry would give our readers a substantial subject to consider and discuss.
If you would like to know more about the session, I would be happy to share the details.
Warm regards,
David Hartley
Organizer, The Glasgow Book Club