Metaphysics
An Anthology
Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies
2. Edition August 2011
736 Pages, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Thoroughly updated, the second edition of this highly successful
textbook continues to represent the most comprehensive and
authoritative collection of canonical readings in metaphysics. In
addition to updated material from the first edition, it presents
entirely new sections on ontology and the metaphysics of material
objects.
* One of the most comprehensive and authoritative metaphysics
anthologies available - now updated and expanded
* Offers the most important contemporary works on the central
issues of metaphysics
* Includes new sections on ontology and the metaphysics of
material objects, as well as readings on the topics of
fictionalism, fundamentality, tropes, vague identity, temporary
intrinsics, stage theory, and composition
* Surpasses other anthologies in its combination of contributions
from leading metaphysicians and a younger generation of
"rising-stars"
Part I: Ontology.
1. "On What There Is" (W. V. Quine).
2. "Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology" (RudolfCarnap).
3. "Holes" (David and Stephanie Lewis).
4. "Beyond Being and Nonbeing" (Roderick M.Chisholm).
5. "Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake?" (StephenYablo).
6. "Fictional Objects" (Amie L. Thomasson).
7. "On What Grounds What" (Jonathan Schaffer).
Part II: Identity.
8. "The Identity of Indiscernibles" (Max Black).
9. "Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity" (Robert M.Adams).
10. "Identity and Necessity" (Saul Kripke).
11. "Contingent Identity" (Allan Gibbard).
12. "Can There Be Vague Objects?" (Gareth Evans).
13. "Vague Identity" (Robert C. Stalnaker).
Part III: Modality.
14. "Modalities: Basic Concepts and Distinctions" (AlvinPlantinga).
15. "Actualism and Thisness" (Robert M. Adams).
16. "A Philosopher's Paradise: The Plurality of Worlds"(David Lewis).
17. "Possible Worlds" (Robert C. Stalnaker).
18. "Modal Fictionalism" (Gideon Rosen).
19. "Essence and Modality" (Kit Fine).
Part IV: Properties.
20. "Natural Kinds" (W. V. Quine).
21. "Causality and Properties" (Sydney Shoemaker).
22. "The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars" (KeithCampbell).
23. "New Work for a Theory of Universals" (DavidLewis).
24. "Universals as Attributes" (D. M. Armstrong).
Part V: Causation.
25. "On the Notion of Cause" (Bertrand Russell).
26. "Causes and Conditions" (J.L. Mackie).
27. "Causal Relations" (Donald Davidson).
28. "Causality and Determination" (G.E.M. Anscombe).
29. "Causation" (David Lewis).
30. "Causal Connections" (Wesley C. Salmon).
31. "Causation: Reductionism Versus Realism" (MichaelTooley).
32. "Two Concepts of Causation" (Ned Hall).
Part VI: Persistence.
33. "Identity Through Time" (Roderick M. Chisholm).
34. "Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis" (W. V.Quine).
35. "Parthood and Identity Across Time" (Judith JarvisThomson).
36. "Temporal Parts of Four-Dimensional Objects" (MarkHeller).
37. "The Problem of Temporary Intrinsics" (DavidLewis).
38. "Endurance and Temporary Intrinsics" (SallyHaslanger).
39. "All the World's a Stage" (Theodore Sider).
Part VII: Persons.
40. "Persons and Their Pasts" (Sydney Shoemaker).
41. "The Self and the Future" (Bernard Williams).
42. "Personal Identity" (Derek Parfit).
43. "Survival and Identity" (David Lewis).
44. "Lonely Souls: Causality and Substance Dualism" (JaegwonKim).
45. "The Ontological Status of Persons" (Lynne RudderBaker).
46. "An Argument for Animalism" (Eric T. Olson).
Part VIII: Objects.
47. "When are Objects Parts?" (Peter van Inwagen).
48. "Many But Almost One" (David Lewis).
49. "Existential Relativity" (Ernest Sosa).
50. "The Argument from Vagueness" (Theodore Sider).
51. "Epiphenomenalism and Eliminativism" (TrentonMerricks).
52. "Against Revisionary Ontology" (Eli Hirsch).
53. "Strange Kinds, Familiar Kinds, and the Charge ofArbitrariness" (Daniel Z. Korman).
at Brown University. His publications include a number of
influential papers on metaphysics and philosophy of mind. He is the
author of Supervenience and Mind (1993), Mind in a
Physical World (1998), Physicalism, or Something Near
Enough (2005), and Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind
(2010) and the co-editor of Blackwell's Epistemology: An
Anthology, second edition (2008).
Ernest Sosa taught from 1964 to 2007 at Brown University,
and is currently Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at
Rutgers University. Among his books are Knowledge in
Perspective (1991), Epistemic Justification (with
Laurence BonJour; Blackwell, 2003), A Virtue Epistemology
(2007), Reflective Knowledge (2009), and Knowing Full
Well (2010). He is also co-editor of Blackwell's
Epistemology: An Anthology, second edition (2008).
Daniel Korman is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He specializes in
metaphysics and has published articles in Oxford Studies in
Metaphysics, Noûs, and the Journal of
Philosophy.
