Reading Metaphysics Selected Texts with Interactive Commentary

by Beebee, Helen; Dodd, Julian

• ISBN13: 9781405123679
• ISBN10: 1405123672
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• 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	p. viii
Introduction	p. 1
Personal Identity	p. 9
Introduction	p. 9
'Personal Identity'	p. 13
Commentary on Parfit	p. 30
'Personhood and Personal Identity'	p. 36
Commentary on Schechtman	p. 54
Further Reading	p. 59
Essay Questions	p. 59
Free Will	p. 60
Introduction	p. 60
'The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism'	p. 62
Commentary on van Inwagen	p. 75
'Could Have Done Otherwise' (extract from Elbow Room)	p. 82
Commentary on Dennett	p. 93
Further Reading	p. 97
Essay Questions	p. 97
Appendix	p. 98
Realism and Anti-realism	p. 100
Introduction	p. 100
'On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme'	p. 106
Commentary on Davidson	p. 117
'Thought and Reality' (extract from The View from Nowhere)	p. 125
Commentary on Nagel	p. 139
Further reading	p. 145
Essay questions	p. 145
Realism and Nominalism	p. 146
Introduction	p. 146
'"Ostrich Nominalism" or "Mirage Realism"?'	p. 150
Commentary on Devitt	p. 157
'Against "Ostrich" Nominalism: A Reply to Michael Devitt'	p. 160
Commentary on Armstrong	p. 170
Further reading	p. 173
Essay questions	p. 174
Possible Worlds	p. 175
Introduction	p. 175
Extract from Counterfactuals	p. 183
Commentary on Lewis	p. 187
Extract from Naming and Necessity	p. 192
Commentary on Kripke	p. 197
Further reading	p. 203
Essay questions	p. 203
Persistence over Time	p. 204
Introduction	p. 204
Extract from On the Plurality of Worlds	p. 209
Commentary on Lewis	p. 212
'Endurance and Temporary Intrinsics'	p. 214
Commentary on Haslanger	p. 220
'Tensing the Copula'	p. 223
Commentary on Lewis	p. 230
Further reading	p. 233
Essay questions	p. 233
Bibliography	p. 234
Index	p. 240
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