Metaphysics

Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1. Substance 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Substance versus properties 1.3 Substrate and properties, or bundles of tropes? 1.4 Aristotle's hylomorphism 1.5 Persistence of the substance 1.6 Conclusions Chapter 2. Properties and relations 2.1 Introduction 2.2. Do properties exist? Realism versus nominalism 2.3 Reductionism and Fundamentality 2.4 Dispositional properties (aka powers) and categorical properties 2.5 Are powers genuine and irreducible properties? 2.6 Are pure powers 'enough' to build the world out of? 2.7 Relations versus monadic properties 2.8 Conclusions Chapter 3. Modality and Essence 3.1. Introduction 3.2. Aristotle's essentialism 3.3. Against essentialism and non-logical necessity: Quine's critique of de re necessity 3.4. The revival of de re necessity and essentialism 3.4.1 Possible worlds 3.4.2 A posteriori necessity 3.5. Powers and modality 3.6 Conclusions Chapter 4. Causality 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Some Neo-Humean developments 4.3 Aristotle's theory of causation 4.4 Are there active and passive powers involved in causation? 4.5. Mental Causation 4.6 Conclusion Chapter 5. Determinism and Free Will 5.1 Introduction 5.2. A brief history of compatibilism and incompatibilism 5.3 The Consequence argument and the fortunes of incompatibilism 5.4 Moral responsibility and Free Will 5.5 Free will and the 'new dispositionalism' 5.6 Conclusion Conclusion Bibliography