The possibility of metaphysics : substance, identity, and time
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Bibliographic Information
The possibility of metaphysics : substance, identity, and time
Clarendon Press, 1998
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Note
Bibliography: p. [261]-267
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Jonathan Lowe argues that metaphysics should be restored to a central position in philosophy, as the most fundamental form of rational inquiry, whose findings underpin those of all other disciplines. He portrays metaphysics as charting the possibilities of existence, by identifying the categories of being and the relations of ontological dependency between entities of different categories. He proceeds to set out a unified and original metaphysical system: he defends
a substance ontology, according to which the existence of the world as one world in time depends upon the existence of persisting things which retain their identity over time and through processes of qualitative change. And he contends that even necessary beings, such as the abstract objects of
mathematics, depend ultimately for their existence upon there being a concrete world of enduring substances. Within his system of metaphysics Lowe seeks to answer many of the deepest and most challenging questions in philosophy.
Table of Contents
- 1. The Possibility of Metaphysics
- 2. Objects and Identity
- 3. Identity and Unity
- 4. Time and Persistence
- 5. Persistence and Substance
- 6. Substance and Dependence
- 7. Primitive Substances
- 8. Categories and Kinds
- 9. Matter and Form
- 10. Abstract Entities
- 11. Facts and the World
- 12. The Puzzle of Existence
- Bibliography
- Index
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