Reading Metaphysics Selected Texts with Interactive Commentary

by Beebee, Helen; Dodd, Julian

• ISBN13: 9781405123662
• ISBN10: 1405123664
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-01-05
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

This volume collects together key contemporary texts in metaphysics. Designed for students or general readers with some background in philosophy, it has a distinctive pedagogical aim: to improve their ability to understand difficult philosophical texts, to engage critically with them, and to use them as a springboard for philosophical thought and writing.Each text is followed by a detailed commentary, which puts the author's views and arguments into context, explains key terms and argumentative moves, and - most importantly - asks a variety of questions. The questions are designed to prompt the reader to think hard about what the author is saying and why, to think of objections, and to formulate and justify his or her own views on the topic.The book includes texts by Kripke, Lewis, Parfit, Armstrong, Nagel and Dennett, amongst others. The topics covered are free will, personal identity, realism & nominalism, modality, persistence, realism and anti-realism.

Author Biography

Helen Beebee is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham. She is the author of Hume on Causation (2006) and co-editor, with Julian Dodd, of Truthmakers: The Contemporary Debate (2005).

Julian Dodd is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Manchester. He is the author of Works of Music: An Essay in Ontology (2007) and An Identity Theory of Truth (2000), and co-editor of Truthmakers: The Contemporary Debate (2005).

Table of Contents

Sources and Acknowledgements

Introduction

Personal Identity

Introduction

`Personal Identity'

Commentary on Parfit

`Personhood and Personal Identityrsquo

Commentary on Schechtman

Further Reading

Essay Questions

Free Will

Introduction

`The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism'

Commentary on van Inwagen

`Could Have Done Otherwise' (extract from Elbow Room)

Commentary on Dennett

Further Reading

Essay Questions

Appendix

Realism and Anti-realism

Introduction

`On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme' Commentary on Davidson

`Thought and Reality' (extract from The View from Nowhere)

Commentary on Nagel

Further reading

Essay questions

Realism and Nominalism

Introduction

`ldquo;Ostrich Nominalismrdquo; or ldquo;Mirage Realismrdquo;?'

Commentary on Devitt

`Against ldquo;Ostrichrdquo; Nominalism: A Reply to Michael Devitt'

Commentary on Armstrong

Further reading

Essay questions

Possible Worlds

Introduction

Extract from Counterfactuals

Commentary on Lewis

Extract from Naming and Necessity

Commentary on Kripke

Further reading

Essay questions

Persistence over Time

Introduction

Extract from On the Plurality of Worlds

Commentary on Lewis

`Endurance and Temporary Intrinsics'

Commentary on Haslanger

`Tensing the Copula' Commentary on Lewis

Further reading

Essay questions

Bibliography

Index

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