Varieties of Things: Foundations of Contemporary Metaphysics is about some of the most fundamental kinds of things that there are; the things that we encounter in everyday experience.
- A book about the things that we encounter in everyday experience.
- Contains a thorough and accessible discussion of the nature and aims of metaphysics.
- Examines a wide range of ontological categories, including both particulars and universals.
- Mounts a forceful and persuasive case for anti-reductionism.
Preface vii
Part I: Metaphysics and Its Tools
1 The Nature and Function of Metaphysics 3
The Methodology and Subject Matter of Metaphysics 4
Aristotle’s Conception of Metaphysics 8
Kant’s Conception of Metaphysics 11
A Working Conception of Metaphysics 14
2 Some Tools of Metaphysics 36
Criteria of Ontological Commitment: Two Examples 36
‘No Entity without Identity’: Identity Conditions for Objects 56
Individuation Conditions, Identity Conditions, and Metaphysical Kinds 59
Principles and Criteria of Identity 63
Part II: Particulars
3 Material Substances 79
Our Ontological Commitment to Material Substances 79
The Bundle Theory and the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles 81
Problems with the Bundle Theory 84
The Bare Substratum Theory and the Principle of Acquaintance 110
Objections to the Bare Substratum Theory 113lÓ_
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