Metaphysics: Contemporary Readings: 2nd Edition

Book Overview

Metaphysics: Contemporary Readings is a comprehensive anthology that draws together leading philosophers writing on the major themes in Metaphysics. Chapters appear under the headings:

Universals Particulars Modality and Possible Worlds Causation Time Persistence Realism and Anti-Realism.

Each section is prefaced by an introductory essay by the editor which guides students gently into each topic. Articles by the following leading philosophers are included:

Allaire, Anscombe, Armstrong, Black, Broad, Casullo, Dummett, Ewing, Heller, Hume, Kripke, Lewis, Mackie, McTaggart, Mellor, Merricks, Parfit, Plantinga, Price, Prior, Putnam, Quine, Russell, Smart, Swinburne, Taylor, Van Cleve, van Inwagen, Williams.

Featuring a new section on causation, this new edition is highly accessible and provides a broad-ranging exploration of the subject. Ideal for any philosophy student, this reader will prove essential reading for any metaphysics course. The sections and selections of readings have been updated to complement Michael Loux's textbook Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, third edition.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415962382
• ISBN13: 9780415962384
• Release Date: May 2008
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 664 Pages
• Weight: 2.16 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Good collection; a little incomplete.

This anthology of metaphysics essays is pretty essential for any college student involved in the subject. I can't really imagine the average person pleasure reading metaphysics essays for fun, so I wouldn't make that recommendation to casual readers. However, for the interested metaphysician or for the starving college senior in dire need of additional sources for his/her thesis this book is pretty essential. Goes especially in detail on the universal/particular debate, and explores theories of time especially well.

Very Useful Introductory Anthology

This volume is intended to be read in conjunction with Loux's capable introduction to the metaphysics in the Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy series. And, of course, it is an ideal text to be read in conjunction with that book. The subjects discussed in that book are given sections in this anthology, and Loux includes many, though not all, of the primary sources on which he relied in that book. Nevertheless, I see no reason why this book has to be read in conjunction with the other book. It is a perfectly fine selection of readings for a person who wants a picture of some of the main areas of debate in contemporary analytic metaphysics. Loux has provided a brief (roughly ten-page) introduction to each of the topics on which there are readings. Some of these introductions sketch the problems and quickly describe the main theses of each of the readings and how the readings relate to one other, and others simply provide a general overview of the problems without saying much about the particular readings. But all of these introductions, which are intended to explain and motivate the problem(s) to which the particular selections respond, should be very helpful to the beginner, and they probably provide enough background to begin reading the selections even if one has had no prior experience in these areas. So while this anthology doesn't cover everything of interest in contemporary metaphysics, it includes selections on enough topics that it provides the reader with a sense of what is going on in analytic metaphysics at the moment.The subjects covered in this anthology are universals, particulars, possible worlds, time, persistence through time, and global realism vs. anti-realism. Most of the sections include four or five readings apiece, and Loux has wisely decided not to dumb down this volume by selecting only works written for beginners. The individual selections, which primarily come from journal argues and monographs on the particular subjects, aren't easy, but most of them aren't forbiddingly difficult either. They should be accessible to anyone who has had a little philosophy and who carefully reads Loux's introductions to the particular sections. (It would, of course, help to read through the relevant sections in Loux's textbook before tackling the particular selections in this volume.) Furthermore, he has wisely selected work that has been very influential but that isn't overly technical. Most of the selections here are by important figures (Russell, Quine, Putnam, Lewis, Dummett, Plantinga, Kripke, Armstrong, van Inwagen, et al.) in the field, and many of them concern views that have set the agenda in these debates. But the reader should note that Loux has not included any work from the historical figures he discusses in his book. This is an anthology of selections in contemporary metaphysics, and so it does not include selections from important historical figures in the field. The reader should also note