Time, Identity and the Self: Essays on Metaphysics

Description

This volume contains twenty-four essays by the British/Australian analytic metaphysician, Brian Garrett. These essays are followed by four short dialogues that emphasize and summarize some of the main points of the essays and discuss new perspectives that have emerged since their original publication. The volume covers topics on the metaphysics of time, the nature of identity, and the nature and importance of persons and human beings. The chapters constitute the fruits of almost four decades of philosophical research, from Brian’s two award-winning essays, published in Analysis in 1983 and The Philosophical Quarterly in 1992, to his latest ideas about Fatalism and the Grandfather Paradox. This book will be of interest to students and professional philosophers in the field of analytic philosophy. Foreword • Alan Hájek Preface • Jeremiah Joven Joaquin Acknowledgements Contents Part I: Time 1 “Thank Goodness That’s Over” Revisited 2 Experience and Time 3 Max Black and Backward Causation 4 Dummett on Reasons to Act and Bringing About the Past 5 Dummett on McTaggart’s Proof of the Unreality of Time 6 A Note on the Grandfather Paradox 7 Bulletproof Grandfathers, David Lewis, and ‘Can’t’-Judgements 8 A Dilemma for Eternalists Part II: Identity 9 Identity and Extrinsicness 10 Best Candidate Theories and Identity 11 PossibleWorlds and Identity 12 Vague Identity and Vague Objects 13 More on Rigidity and Scope 14 Enduring Endurantism 15 Identity of Truth-Conditions Part III: The Self 16 Some Notes on Animalism 17 Persons and Human Beings 18 The Story of ‘I’: Comments on Rudder Baker’s Constitution View of Persons 19 Personal Identity and Extrinsicness 20 Personal Identity and Reductionism 21 Bermúdez on Self-Consciousness 22 Anscombe on ‘I’ 23 Wittgenstein on the First-Person 24 Persons and Values Part IV: Afterthoughts 25 About Time 26 Affecting the Past 27 Of Identity 28 On Personal Identity Name Index Subject Index