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• Cover
• Half Title
• Endorsements
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Notes on the Second Edition
• Acknowledgments
• Visual Tour of Metaphysics: An Introduction
• Preparatory Background: Logic for Metaphysics
• 0.1 Arguments
• 0.2 Validity
• 0.3 Soundness
• 0.4 Criticizing Arguments
• 0.5 The Principle of Charity and Enthymemes
• 0.6 Propositional Logic
• 0.7 First-Order Predicate Logic
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• 1 An Introduction to Ontology
• 1.1 Ontology: A Central Subfield of Metaphysics
• 1.2 The Puzzle of Nonexistent Objects
• 1.3 Finding One’s Ontological Commitments: Quine’s Method
• 1.4 The Method of Paraphrase
• 1.5 Ockham’s Razor
• 1.6 Where Should Metaphysical Inquiry Begin?
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• 2 Abstract Entities
• 2.1 More Than a Material World?
• 2.2 The Abstract/Concrete Distinction
• 2.3 Universals and the One Over Many Argument
• 2.4 Applying Quine’s Method
• 2.5 Nominalism and Other Options
• 2.6 Mathematical Objects
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• 3 Material Objects
• 3.1 What is a ‘Material’ Object?
• 3.2 The Paradoxes of Material Constitution
• 3.3 The Problem of the Many
• 3.4 The Special Composition Question
• 3.5 Moderate Answers to the Special Composition Question
• 3.6 Mereological Nihilism
• 3.7 Mereological Universalism
• 3.8 Vagueness
• 3.9 Back to the Paradoxes
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• 4 Critiques of Metaphysics
• 4.1 A Concern about Methodology
• 4.2 Carnap’s Two Critiques of Metaphysics
• 4.3 Responses to Carnap’s Arguments
• 4.4 Present Day Worries about Metaphysical Method
• 4.5 The Relationship Between Metaphysics and Science: A Proposal
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• 5 Natural and Social Kinds
• 5.1 A Traditional Account of Natural Kinds
• 5.2 The Homeostatic Property Cluster Account
• 5.3 Social Kinds and Social Reality
• 5.4 Social Construction
• 5.5 Constructing Human Kinds
• 5.6 Causal vs. Constitutive Construction
• 5.7 What Are We Doing When We Do Social Ontology?
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• 6 The Metaphysics of Race and Gender
• 6.1 Three Views about the Metaphysics of Race and Gender
• 6.2 Biological Realism about Race
• 6.3 Social Constructionism or Eliminativism?
• 6.4 Working Out a Social Constructionism about Race
• 6.5 Gender and Sex
• 6.6 Biological Realism about Gender
• 6.7 Essentialism or Eliminativism?
• 6.8 Social Constructionism about Gender
• 6.9 Conferralism about Gender
• 6.10 A World Without Gender?
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• 7 Grounding and Fundamentality
• 7.1 Fundamentally Questions
• 7.2 The Mind-Body Problem
• 7.3 Supervenience
• 7.4 The Limits of Supervenience
• 7.5 Grounding
• 7.6 Fundamentality
• 7.7 Fundamentality as Ontological Independence
• 7.8 The Fundamental as a Basis for the Nonfundamental
• 7.9 Is There a Fundamental Level?
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• 8 Time
• 8.1 Time’s Passage
• 8.2 Background on Special Relativity
• 8.3 The Argument from Special Relativity Against Presentism
• 8.4 The A-Theory and the B-Theory
• 8.5 The Truthmaker Objection
• 8.6 Time Travel
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• 9 Persistence
• 9.1 The Puzzle of Change
• 9.2 Some Views about Persistence
• 9.3 A Solution to the Paradoxes of Material Constitution
• 9.4 The Problem of Temporary Intrinsics
• 9.5 Exdurantism
• 9.6 Defending Three-Dimensionalism
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• 10 Modality
• 10.1 Possibility and Necessity: Modes of Truth
• 10.2 Varieties of Possibility and Necessity
• 10.3 The Possible Worlds Analysis of Modality
• 10.4 Ersatz Modal Realism
• 10.5 Rejecting the Possible Worlds Analysis
• 10.6 Essentialism and Anti-Essentialism
• 10.7 Essentialism Today
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• 11 Causation
• 11.1 Causation in the History of Philosophy
• 11.2 Hume’s Empiricism
• 11.3 Three Reductive Theories of Causation
• 11.4 An Objection to Reductive Theories of Causation
• 11.5 Process Theories of Causation
• 11.6 Two Projects in the Philosophy of Causation
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• 12 Free Will
• 12.1 What is Free Will?
• 12.2 The Problem of Free Will and Determinism
• 12.3 Determinism
• 12.4 Compatibilism
• 12.5 Frankfurt Cases
• 12.6 Manipulation Arguments
• 12.7 Libertarianism
• 12.8 Skepticism about Free Will
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• Glossary of Terms
• Works Cited
• Index