Metaphysics: The Big Questions

Description

Collection of the essential classic and contemporary readings in metaphysics. Introduction: what is metaphysics? -- Holes / David Lewis and Stephanie Lewis -- On what there is / W.V.O. Quine -- Beyond being and nonbeing / Roderick M. Chisholm -- Universals: an excerpt from The Problems of Philosophy / Bertrand Russell -- Universals as attributes: an excerpt from Universals: an Opinionated Introduction / David M. Armstrong -- Universals and resemblances: chapter 1 of Thinking and Experience / H.H. Price -- The elements of being / D.C. Williams -- The identity of indiscernibles / Max Black -- Distinct indiscernibles and the bundle theory / Dean W. Zimmerman -- Time: an excerpt from The Nature of Existence / J. MCT. E. McTaggart -- McTaggart's arguments against the reality of time: an excerpt from Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy / C.D. Broad -- The notion of the present / A.N. Prior -- Changes in events and changes in things / A.N. Prior -- The general problem of time and change: an excerpt from Scientific Thought / C.D. Broad -- The myth of passage / D.C. Williams -- Some free thinking about time / A.N. Prior -- The fourth dimension: an excerpt from The Ambidextrous Universe / Martin Gardner -- Incongruent counterparts and higher dimensions / James Van Cleve -- The traditional conception of space, and the principle of extensive abstraction: an excerpt from Scientific Thought / C.D. Broad -- Achilles and the tortoise / Max Black -- A contemporary look at Zeno's paradoxes: an excerpt from Space, Time, and Motion / Wesley C. Salmon -- Grasping the infinite / Jose A. Benardete -- The paradoxes of time travel / David Lewis. Of confused subjects which are equivalent to two subjects: an excerpt from The Port-Royal Logic / Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole -- The paradox of increase / Eric T. Olson -- Identity, ostension, and hypostasis / W.V.O. Quine -- In defense of stages: postscript B to "Survival and Identity" / David Lewis -- The problem of temporary intrinsics: an excerpt from On the Plurality of Worlds / David Lewis -- Temporary intrinsics and presentism / Dean W. Zimmerman -- Constant conjunction: an excerpt from A Treatise of Human Nature / David Hume -- Efficient cause and active power: an excerpt from Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind / Thomas Reid -- Psychological and physical causal laws: an excerpt from The Analysis of Mind / Bertrand Russell -- Causality: an excerpt from A Modern Introduction to Logic / L. Susan Stebbing -- Causality and determination / G.E.M. Anscombe -- Which physical thing am I?: an excerpt from "Is There a Mind?Body Problem?" / Roderick M. Chisholm -- Personal identity: a materialist account / Sydney Shoemaker -- An argument for animalism / Eric T. Olson -- Divided minds and the nature of persons / Derek Parfit -- Personal Iientity: the dualist theory / Richard Swinburne -- The causal theory of mind / David M. Armstrong -- The puzzle of conscious experience / David J. Chalmers -- Neutral monism: an Eecerpt from Philosophy / Bertrand Russell -- We are never free: an excerpt from The System of Nature / Paul-Henri Dietrich, Baron d'Holbach -- Free will as involving determination and inconceivable without it / R.E. Hobart -- Freedom, causation, and preexistence: an excerpt from Problems of Mind and Matter / John Wisdom -- Human freedom and the self / Roderick M. Chisholm -- The consequence argument / Peter van Inwagen -- The mystery of metaphysical freedom / Peter van Inwagen -- The agent as cause / Timothy O'Connor -- Alternate possibilities and moral responsibility / Harry G. Frankfurt -- Freedom of the will and the concept of a person / Harry G. Frankfurt. Modal realism at work: an excerpt From On the Plurality of Worlds / David K. Lewis -- Counterparts of persons and their bodies / David K. Lewis -- Identity and necessity / Saul Kripke -- After metaphysics, what? / Hilary Putnam -- Truth and convention / Hilary Putnam -- Nonabsolute existence and conceptual relativity: an excerpt from "Putnam's Pragmatic Realism" / Ernest Sosa -- Addendum to "Nonabsolute existence and conceptual relativity": objections and replies / Ernest Sosa -- The problem of being: chapter 3 of Some Problems of Philosophy / William James -- Why anything? Why this? / Derek Parfit -- Response to Derek Parfit / Richard Swinburne -- The cosmological argument: an excerpt from A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God / Samuel Clarke -- The cosmological argument and the principle of sufficient reason / William L. Rowe -- The ontological argument: chapters II-IV of the Proslogion / St. Anselm -- Anselm's ontological arguments / Norman Malcolm.