Ontology, Identity, and Modality: Essays in Metaphysics

by Peter van Inwagen

• ISBN13: 9780521795487
• ISBN10: 0521795486
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-04-02
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book gathers together thirteen of Peter van Inwagen’s essays on metaphysics, several of which have acquired the status of modern classics in their field. They range widely across such topics as Quine’s philosophy of quantification, the ontology of fiction, the part-whole relation, the theory of 'temporal parts’, and human knowledge of modal truths. In addition, van Inwagen considers the question as to whether the psychological continuity theory of personal identity is compatible with materialism, and defends the thesis that possible states of affairs are abstract objects, in opposition to David Lewis’s 'extreme modal realism’. A specially-written introduction completes the collection, which will be an invaluable resource for anyone interested in metaphysics.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(10)
PART I ONTOLOGY	11	(62)
Meta-ontology	13	(19)
Why I don't understand substitutional quantification	32	(5)
Creatures of fiction	37	(20)
Why is there anything at all?	57	(16)
PART II IDENTITY	73	(90)
The doctrine of arbitrary undetached parts	75	(20)
Composition as identity	95	(16)
Four-dimensional objects	111	(11)
Temporal parts and identity across time	122	(22)
Materialism and the psychological-continuity account of personal identity	144	(19)
PART III MODALITY	163	(96)
Indexicality and actuality	165	(21)
Plantinga on trans-world identity	186	(20)
Two concepts of possible worlds	206	(37)
Modal epistemology	243	(16)
Index	259