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Contemporary Metaphysics: Review of David J. Chalmers, Constructing the World, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012, 494 Pages; John Heil, The Universe as We Find It, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012, 311 Pages; and Theodore R. Sider, Writing the Book of the World, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011, 318 Pages

Metaphysica

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Abstract

Metaphysics is definitely back on the agenda of contemporary philosophy. It is a metaphysics in the full traditional sense, seeking to provide the means to gain knowledge that covers being as a whole, not just parts of it (such as the metaphysics of mind, the metaphysics of values, etc.). Oxford University Press published three books in 2011 and 2012 each of which spells out that ambition. The present review sums up the main topics covered in these books and offers some comments.

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Notes

  1. Jackson (1994); reprinted in Jackson (1998). Quotation on p. 25/pp. 156–157 in the reprint.

  2. That distinction goes back to by Strawson (1959).

  3. For that view, see Ladyman and Ross (2007) and French (forthcoming).

References

  • Frank Jackson, “Armchair metaphysics”, in: J. O'Leary-Hawthorne and M. Michael (eds.): Philosophy in mind, Dordrecht: Kluwer1994, pp. 23-42

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  • Frank Jackson, Mind, method and conditionals. Selected essays, London: Routledge 1998, pp. 154-176. Quotation on p. 25/pp. 156-157 in the reprint

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  • Peter F. Strawson, Individuals. An essay in descriptive metaphysics, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1959, introduction

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  • James Ladyman and Don Ross, Everything must go. Metaphysics naturalised, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2007

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  • Michael Esfeld and Vincent Lam, “Ontic structural realism as a metaphysics of objects”, in Alisa and Peter Bokulich (eds.): Scientific structuralism, Dordrecht: Springer 2011, pp. 143–159

  • Lawrence Sklar, Space, time and spacetime, Berkeley: University of California Press 1974

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Michael Esfeld

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  1. Michael Esfeld
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Correspondence to Michael Esfeld.

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Esfeld, M. Contemporary Metaphysics: Review of David J. Chalmers, Constructing the World, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012, 494 Pages; John Heil, The Universe as We Find It, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012, 311 Pages; and Theodore R. Sider, Writing the Book of the World, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011, 318 Pages. Int Ontology Metaphysics 14, 143–148 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12133-013-0117-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12133-013-0117-2

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