Things Papers on Objects, Events, and Properties [Paperback]

Thingsis a collection of twelve essays by Stephen Yablo on metaphysics. He examines a range of first-order topics, including identity, coincidence, essence, causation, and properties. Some first-order debates are not worth pursuing, he argues: there is nothing at issue in them. Several of the papers explore the metaontology of abstract objects, and more generally of objects that are 'preconceived', their principal features being settled already by their job-descriptions. He rejects standard forms of fictionalism, opting ultimately for a view that puts presupposition in the role normally played by pretense. Almost all of Yablo's published work on these topics is collected here, along with the previously unpublished 'Carving Content at the Joints'.

1. Identity, Essence, and Indiscernibility
2. Intrinsicness
3. Cause and Essence
4. De Facto Dependence
5. Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake?
6. Apriority and Existence
7. Go Figure
8. Abstract Objects
9. The Myth of the Seven
10. Carving Content at the Joints
11. Must Existence -Questions Have Answers?
12. Non-Catastrophic Presupposition Failure

Stephen Yablois Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology