A Survey of Metaphysics

A systematic overview of modern metaphysics, covering all of the most important topics in the subject likely to be encountered on a metaphysics course. The emphasis is on contemporary views and issues rather than on the history of metaphysics.

This text provides an overview of modern metaphysics. The conception underlying the book is the fairly traditional one that metaphysics deals with the questions that can be raised concerning the fundamental structure of reality as a whole.

'E. J. Lowe, one of the UK's leading metaphysicians, has written a superb introduction to metaphysics. ... Lowe's book is the best introduction to metaphysics available.' THES

Autorentext

E.J. Lowe is Professor of Philosophy at University of Durham

Klappentext

A systematic overview of modern metaphysics, A Survey of Metaphysics covers all of the most important topics in the field. It adopts the fairly traditional conception of metaphysics as a subject that deals with the deepest questions that can be raised concerning the fundamental structure of reality as a whole. The book is divided into six main sections that address the following themes: identity and change, necessity and essence, causation, agency and events, space and time, and universals and particulars. It focuses on contemporary views and issues throughout, rather than on the history of metaphysics.

Zusammenfassung
A Survey of Metaphysics provides a systematic overview of modern metaphysics, covering all of the most important topics likely to be encountered on a metaphysics course. The conception of metaphysics underlying the book is the fairly traditional and widely-shared one that metaphysics deals with the deepest questions that can be raised concerning the fundamental structure of reality as a whole. The book is divided into six main parts, each relatively self-contained, focusing in turn on the following major themes: identity and change, necessity and essence, causation, agency and events, space and time, and universals and particulars. In an introductory chapter, the conception of metaphysics underlying the book is explained and defended against the many and varied opponents of metaphysics those students are likely to encounter. While the book makes reference when necessary to the history of metaphysics, its emphasis is on contemporary views and issues. The author's approach is not narrowly partisan, but avoids bland neutrality in matters of controversy.

Inhalt

• 1: Introduction: The nature of metaphysics

• Part I

• 2: Identity over time and change of composition

• 3: Qualitative change and the doctrine of temporal parts

• 4: Substantial change and spatiotemporal coincidence

• Part II

• 5: Necessity and identity

• 6: Essentialism

• 7: Possible worlds

• Part III

• 8: Conterfactual conditionals

• 9: Causes and conditions

• 10: Conterfactuals and event causation

• Part IV

• 11: Event causation and agent causation

• 12: Actions and Events

• 13: Events, things, and space-time

• Part V

• 14: Absolutism versus relationalism

• 15: Incongruent conterparts and the nature of space

• 16: The paradoxes of motion and the possibility of change

• 17: Tense and the reality of time

• 18: Causation and the direction of time

• Part VI

• 19: Realism versus nominalism

• 20: The abstract and the concrete