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Table of Contents
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Preface, xi
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How To Use This Book With The Metaphysicist Website, 1
1. Introduction, 3
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| 2. Abstract Entities 13
Information as a Physical Cause 16; The Idea of Abstraction 17;
Colors as Abstract Entities 18
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| 3. Being and Becoming 21
Being and Becoming in Modern Physics 22
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| 4. Causality 25
What Counts as a Cause? 26; The Problem of Induction 30;
Induction and the Scientific Method 31
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| 5. Chance 35
The Discovery of Ontological Chance 43
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| 6. Change 47
Cosmic Change as the Growth of Information Structures 50
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| 7. Coinciding Objects 55
An Information Analysis of “Coinciding Objects” 59
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| 8. Composition 63
Temporal Parts 66; Mereology 67; Mereological Essentialism 69;
Biomereological Essentialism 72; Composition as Holism and
Emergence 73
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| 9. Constitution 75
Is Constitution Identity? 75
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| 10. Essentialism 79
Intrinsic Information as Essence 79; Natural Kinds and Mereological
Essentialism 80
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| 11. Free Will 83
The Two-Stage Model of Free Will 85; Does Ontological Chance
Threaten Free Will? 92
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| 12. God and Immortality 95
No Creator, But There Was/Is A Creation 96; The Ergod 97;
The Problem of Immortality 98
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| 13. Identity 101
Information Identity 101; A Criterion for Identity 101; A Criterion
for Essence 103; Background of the Problem 104; Leibniz 107; Leibniz’s
Laws 108; Frege 109; Peirce 111; Principia Mathematica 112;
Wittgenstein 113; Frank Ramsey on Identity 114; Willard Van Orman
Quine on Identity 115; Ruth Barcan Marcus 120; David Wiggins 121;
Saul Kripke on Identity 122; Peter Geach on Relative Identity 125;
David Lewis 126; Relative Identity 126; A = A 129;
Identity through Time 130; Changes in Time 131;
Personal Identity 132; Identity and Biology 132; Vague Identity 133
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| 14. Individuation 135
The History of Individuation 135; The Biology of Individuation 139;
Individuation and Quantum Mechanics 140
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| 15. Mind-Body Problem 143
The Problem of Mental Causation 144; Mind as an Experience Recorder
and Reproducer 146; Consciousness a Property of Mind 149 |
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| 16. Modality 151
Actual Possibles and Possible Possibles 155; The Many Possible Worlds in
Our Actual World 156; Necessity of Identity and the Limits of
Necessitism 157; Modal Realism and Possible Worlds 159
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| 17. Necessity (or Contingency) 161
The Logical Necessity of the Analytic and the A Priori 161; The Logical Necessity
of Necessity 162; The Necessity of Identity 165; Separating
Necessity from Analyticity and A Prioricity 167; Necessity and
Free Will 170; No Logical Necessity in the Material World 172;
Necessitism 173 |
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| 18. Persistence 175
Perdurance 177; Endurance 179; Temporal Parts? 179 |
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| 19. Possibility 181
Actual Possibles 183; Actualism 184; Possibilities in Quantum Mechanics
185; Shannon and Quantum Indeterminism 186; An Information
Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics 189; Possible Worlds 190;
Other Possible Worlds 193 |
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| 20. Space and Time 195
Space and Time in Quantum Physics 196; Nonlocality and Entanglement
200; Visualizing Entanglement 201; Can Metaphysics Solve the
EPR Paradox? 203 |
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| 21. Universals 207
The One and the Many 211 |
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| 22.Vagueness 213
Vagueness and the Two-Slit Experiment 215
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| 23. Wave-Particle Duality 217
The Heart of the Puzzle 218; The History of Waves and Particles 221;
Dueling Wave and Particle Theories 222;
Dirac on Wave-Particle Duality 225 |
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| 24. The Debtor’s Paradox 227
Information Philosophy Resolves the Debtor’s Paradox 229 |
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| 25. Dion and Theon 233
What Chrysippus May Have Been Doing 234;
An Information Philosophy Analysis 237 |
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| 26. Frege’s Puzzle 241
Names and Reference 243; Quine’s Paradoxes 244;
The New Theory of Reference 246 |
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| 27. The Growing Argument 249
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| 28. The Infinite Regress 253
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| 29. Porphyry’s Fateful Question 257
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| 30. The Problem of the Many 259
Peter Unger 261; Peter Geach 262 |
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| 31. The Ship of Theseus 265
How Information Philosophy Resolves the Paradox 265;
How to Make Two Ships Out of One. 266 |
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| 32. Sorites Puzzle 269
Liar Paradox 271 |
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| 33. The Statue and the Clay 273
How to Make Two Out of One 275 |
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| 34. Tibbles, the Cat 279
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| 35. Metaphysicians 285
David M. Armstrong 285; Michael Burke 287; Rudolf Carnap 292;
David Chalmers 293; Roderick Chisholm 296; René Descartes 298;
Peter Geach 300; David Hume 302; Immanuel Kant 304; Saul
Kripke 305; David Lewis 315; E. Jonathan Lowe 316; Ruth Barcan
Marcus 318; Trenton Merricks 319; Huw Price 323; Willard Van
Orman Quine 325; Michael Rea 330; Alan Sidelle 332; Ted Sider 335;
Peter Unger 339; Peter van Inwagen 340; Timothy Williamson 349 |
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| 36. A History of Metaphysics 353
The Presocratics 353; Socrates and Plato 354; Aristotle 354; The Stoics
356; Academic Skeptics 360; The Scholastics 360; Descartes 361;
Leibniz 361; The Empiricists 364; Kant 365; Positivisms 366;
Linguistic Analysis 369; Modal Logic 370; The Necessity of Identity 374;
David Wiggins on Identity 375; Saul Kripke on Identity 377; David
Lewis on Identity 378; Modal Logic and Possible Worlds 379;
Why Modal Logic Is Not Metaphysics 381; The Return of Metaphysics
and Its Paradoxes 384 |
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| Appendix: Great Problems Solved? 387
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| Bibliography, 397
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| Index, 404
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