Matters of Metaphysics [Paperback]

This selection of D. H. Mellor's work demonstrates the wide ranging originality of his work.This selection of D. H. Mellor's work demonstrates the wide-ranging originality of his work. It gathers sixteen major papers on related topics, which together form a complete modern metaphysics.This selection of D. H. Mellor's work demonstrates the wide-ranging originality of his work. It gathers sixteen major papers on related topics, which together form a complete modern metaphysics.This selection of Professor Mellor's work gathers together sixteen major papers on related topics written over the past fifteen years. Together they form a complete modern metaphysics. The book starts with the mind: the subjectivity of the self, consciousness, how like computers we are, and how psychology relates to physics. It then tackles dispositions, natural kinds, physical necessity, objective chances, laws of nature, and the relation of properties to predicates. From this it moves on to causation: what it relates, how it works, how it accomodates chance and defines one definition of time. Finally, the author shows how chance should affect our expectations and decisions, and how it solves the notorious problem of induction.Preface; Introduction; Part I. Minds: 1. Analytic philosophy and the self; 2. I and now (1989); 3. Consciousness and degrees of belief (1980); 4. How much of the mind is a computer? (1988); 5. (with Tim Crane) There is no question of physicalism (1990); Part II. Properties and Laws: 6. In defence of dispositions (1974); 7. Natural kinds (1977); 8. Necessities and universals in natural laws (1980); 9. Laws, chances and properties (1990); 10. Properties and predicates; Part III. Causation: 11. McTaggart, fixity and coming true (1981); 12. The singularly affecting facts of causation (1987); 13. On raising the chances of effects (1988); Part IV. Prediction and Decision: 14. Chance and degrees of belief (1982); 15. The warrant of induction (1988); 16. Objective decision mló@