Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics

Notes on contributors.
Introduction.
I. Abstract entities.
1.1 Abstract entities: Chris Swoyer (University ofOklahoma).
1.2 There are no abstract objects: Cian Dorr (University ofPittsburgh).
II. Causation and laws of nature.
2.1 Nailed to Hume's cross?: John W. Carroll (NorthCarolina State University).
2.2 Causation and laws of nature: Reductionism: JonathanSchaffer (University of Massachusetts-Amherst).
III. Modality and possible worlds.
3.1 Concrete possible worlds: Phillip Bricker(University ofMassachusetts- Amherst).
3.2 Ersatz possible worlds: Joseph Melia (University ofLeeds).
IV. Personal identity.
4.1 People and their bodies: Judith Jarvis Thomson (MIT).
4.2 Persons, bodies, and human beings: Derek Parfit (All SoulsCollege, Oxford).
V. Time.
5.1 The privileged present: defending an "A-theory"of time: Dean Zimmerman (Rutgers University).
5.2 The tenseless theory of time: J. J. C. Smart (AustralianNational University).
VI. Persistence.
6.1 Temporal parts: Theodore Sider (Rutgers University).
6.2 Three-dimensionalism vs. four-dimensionalism: John Hawthorne(Rutgers University).
VII. Free will.
7.1 Incompatibilism: Robert Kane (University of Texas atAustin).
7.2 Compatibilism, incompatibilism, and impossibilism: KadriVihvelin (University of Southern California).
VIII. Mereology.
8.1 The moon and sixpence: a defense of mereologicaluniversalism: James van Cleve (University of SouthernCalifornia).
8.2 Restricted composition: Ned Markosian (Western WashingtonUniversity).
IX. Meteontology.
9.1 Ontological arguments: interpretive charity and quantifiervariance: Eli Hirsch (Brandeis University).
9.2 The picture of reality as an amorphous lump: Matti Eklund(Cornell University).
Index