Metaphysics, at least roughly speaking, is the systematic
investigation of fundamental presuppositions underlying commonsense
and scientific views of the world. Most of us believe that we have
bodies and minds, that we are free, that some things in the world
are composed of other things and that these things interact
causally with one another; we believe that, in addition to the "way
things are", there are other ways things could have been, and so
on. Common sense tells us that things change and time passes, but
contemporary physics tells us (or seems to tell us) that past,
present, and future are somehow metaphysically on a par-that the
past isn't "gone" and the future is "already" real. Common sense
and science both take it for granted that the world is governed by
laws, and that the laws in some sense represent how things must go
in the world (as opposed simply to telling us how they in fact
happen to go). Metaphysicians investigate all of these assumptions,
and more. They ask what it is to be a body or a mind, and what the
relation between body and mind might be; they ask what freedom
consists in, and whether freedom is possible; they ask about the
nature and possibility of causation, change, and the passage of
time; they try to figure out what it takes to be a law of nature
and whether the laws of nature might be necessary or contingent;
and so on. This four-volume collection will gather together many of
the most important classic and contemporary writings on these and
other central topics in metaphysics. Unlike some of the other
collections in this series, the classic writings will not occupy
their own volume (or even their own section); rather, they will be
sprinkled throughout as appropriate to the topics under
consideration. Below is a tentative list of volume-titles, along
with select tentative section headings (to give some indication of
the topics that will be covered in each volume). Structure: Vol. I:
Foundations * Meta-Ontology * Propositions, States of Affairs, and
Events * Universals, Properties, and Kinds * Substances, Bundles,
and Substrata Vol. II: Metaphysics of Modality * Possible Worlds *
Actualism and Possibilism * Essentialism * Causation and Laws of
Nature * Reduction and Supervenience Vol. III: Time and Identity *
Time * Individuation * Composition and Material Constitution *
Change and Persistence * Realism, Anti-Realism, and Vagueness Vol.
IV: God and Persons * The Existence of God * Mind and Body *
Personhood and the Self * Fatalism, Determinism, and Free Agency
General
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