John Heil - What is Metaphysics?

9 1 Introduction 1 Introduction 1.0 Metaphysics Is . . . What? This book is addressed to readers curious about metaphysics. Today, purveyors of serious metaphysics reside in university philosophy departments, or, at any rate, would have spent time in academic settings. The book’s aim, however, is to convince you that, far from being an effete academic pastime, metaphysics is inevitable. Each of us embraces metaphysical theses, often without recognizing them as such. Philosophers are not the only philosophers. What distinguishes card-carrying, capital-P Philosophers from everyone else is just that the Philosophers embrace metaphysical doctrines self-consciously. Readers whose impressions of metaphysics stem from acquaintance with books featured on popular bookstore shelves bearing the label might have a somewhat different view of the subject. For those readers, metaphysics is likely to exude an aura of mysticism or maybe thoughts of tarot cards and astrological readings, coupled with a measure of unconstrained speculation. If, in picking up this book, this is what you were expecting, you might be alarmed – or relieved – to learn that the metaphysics to be discussed here comports with both hard-edged science and everyday experience. The Australians call this ontologically serious metaphysics. So conceived, metaphysics has a long history, and a much longer prehistory. This is not a historical survey, however, but a foray into a subject matter that runs the historical gamut. One underlying theme is that, whether anyone likes it or not, metaphysics is pervasive. Self-proclaimed skeptics who dismiss metaphysics as a frivolous waste of time most often do so on the basis of unexamined metaphysical commitments of their own, commitments unlikely to survive honest scrutiny. I will try to convince you of metaphysics’ inevitability, not by argument, but, starting with this chapter, by example. Because the book is meant to draw in nonspecialists, its focus will be on broad theses and suggestive arguments, rather than on the fine-grained details of these theses and arguments. This is not a matter of dumbing down the subject. The Devil is in the details, but the chief interest in, and significance of, metaphysics lies less in the details than in the extent to which metaphysics provides satisfying proposals for solutions to issues that lie just below the surface of everyday life, the arts, and the sciences. 1.0 Metaphysics Is . . . What? 1.1 Metametaphysics 1.2 Ontology 1.3 What Now? Glossary Further Readings

10 2 Time Goes By – Or Does It?2.0 Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow 2.1 The A Series and the B Series 2.2 A Fourth Dimension 2.3 Going with the Flow Glossary Further Readings

11 3 Appearance and Reality3.0 The Saga of Two Tables 3.1 Idealism 3.2 The Reconciliation Project 3.3 The Manifest and Scientific Images 3.4 Levels of Reality 3.5 Levels of Difficulty 3.6 The State of Play 3.7 Truthmaking Glossary Further Readings

12 4 What There Is4.0 Categories of Being 4.1 Substance and Property 4.2 Tropes 4.3 Universals 4.4 Historical Interlude 4.5 Modes 4.6 Universals Fight Back 4.7 Substances Glossary Further Readings

13 5 What Else There Is5.0 Relations 5.1 Internal and External Relations 5.2 Spatial (and Temporal) Locations 5.3 Causation 5.4 The Causal Matrix 5.5 Chancy Powers Glossary Further Readings

14 6 One from Many, Many from One6.0 Essences 6.1 Wholes from Parts 6.2 Complexes and Their Parts 6.3 Identity and Composition 6.4 Essences to the Rescue 6.5 Parts from Wholes 6.6 Personal Identity Glossary Further Readings

15 7 Aristotle vs Hume7.0 Bringings About 7.1 Aristotelianism 7.2 Humeanism 7.3 Qualitied Somethings 7.4 Speculative Cosmology 7.5 Hylomorphism 7.6 A Humean Cosmology Glossary Further Readings

16 8 Is this Chapter Really Necessary?8.0 Necessitation 8.1 Modality 8.2 Alternative Universes 8.3 Logical Possibility 8.4 Painless Modal Realism 8.5 A Spinozistic Cosmology Glossary Further Readings

17 9 Conscious Minds9.0 Body and Mind 9.1 Mental Phenomena 9.2 Origins of the Hard Problem 9.3 Emergence 9.4 Panpsychism 9.5 Back to Basics 9.6 Mary Learns Something New 9.7 What Is it Like to Experience an Experience? 9.8 Sensitivity Training Glossary Further Readings

18 10 Free Will10.0 Acting Freely 10.1 Is Free Will an Illusion? 10.2 Spontaneity 10.3 Approaches to Free Will 10.4 Reconciliation Glossary Further Readings

19 11 Are We There Yet?11.0 No Pain No Gain 11.1 Truthmaking Again 11.2 Realism 11.3 Ontological Seriousness 11.4 What Now? Further Readings

20 Index

21 End User License Agreement

1 Cover

2 Table of Contents

3 Endorsement

4 Series Page

5 Title Page

6 Copyright

7 Dedication

8 Preface Preface Metaphysics is, by my lights, a difficult, but indispensable, subject. Each of us harbors unexamined metaphysical preconceptions that might, or might not, survive serious scrutiny. This book aims to tease out those preconceptions in a manner that challenges you the reader to confront them. Many of your preconceptions are widely shared, and many, no doubt, are warranted even though you might not be in a position to vouch for them were you called upon to do so. Socrates observed that an unexamined life was not worth living. He did not mean that a life worth living requires having all the answers. He meant that we should recognize what we know and what we only think we know: we should understand our limitations and what these might portend. This is the spirit in which I offer this book. The goal is not to parade a string of metaphysical doctrines past you and declaim their pros and cons. The goal, rather, is to encourage you to reflect on matters that, for most of us, most of the time, remain beneath reflection. This is not a frivolous undertaking. Preconceptions spawn attitudes that color thoughts and actions, sometimes in surprising ways. Distinctively metaphysical attitudes are intertwined with attitudes we evince as we go about our business – in everyday life, in the arts, and in the sciences. The trick is to recognize them for what they are and thereby be in a position to take into account their influence – for good or ill – on the attitudes that govern our serious thoughts about the cosmos and our place in it. This book approaches metaphysics, not as an academic subject to be mastered then forgotten, but as a hands-on exercise, the lasting value of which lies in the doing. For this reason, I have not tried to hide my own views, an impossibility in any event. That might be worrisome were it not the case that the views are the vehicles, not the destinations. If I succeed in persuading you that metaphysics, far from being a purely academic pastime, is unavoidable, I will be content. If I leave you better equipped to recognize hidden metaphysical themes for what they are, I will be delighted. Although the book presupposes no prior acquaintance with metaphysics, I have tried to steer the conversation in ways that might engage even hardened academic philosophers. If you are among their ranks, you are hereby forewarned not to expect exhaustive treatments of individual metaphysical doctrines. There is a time and a place for everything, and this is neither the time, nor the place, for exhaustive treatments of anything. John Heil Melbourne July 2020

9 Acknowledgements

10 Begin Reading

11 Index

12 End User License Agreement

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