Matters of Metaphysics
Published on 27. June 1991
Book
Hardback
316 pages
978-0-521-41117-2 (ISBN)
Description
This selection of D. H. Mellor's work demonstrates the wide ranging originality of his work. It gathers together sixteen major papers on related topics. Together they form a complete modern metaphysics. The first five papers are on aspects of the mind: on our 'selves', their supposed subjectivity and how we refer to them, on the nature of conscious belief and on computational and physicalist theories of the mind. The next five papers deal with dispositions, natural kinds, laws of nature and how they involve natural necessity, universals and objective chances, and the relation between properties and predicates. Then follow three papers about the relations between time, change and causation, the nature of individual causes and effects and of the causal relation between them, and how causation depends on chance. The last three papers discuss the relation between chance and degrees of belief, give a solution to the problem of induction, and argue for an objective interpretation of decision theory.
Reviews / Votes
"The papers are briskly and clearly written, and vigorously argued, as any acquaintance with Mellor's work would lead one to expect....In a short review, it is impossible to adequately convey the richness of this collection. It stands as evidence of Mellor's lasting contribution to contemporary analytic metaphysics." Alex Byrne, The Philosophical ReviewMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
666 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-521-41117-2 (9780521411172)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
D. H. Mellor is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy in the University of Cambridge and an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
Content
Preface; Introduction; Part I. Minds: 1. Analytic philosophy and the self; 2. I and now (1989); 3. Consciousness and degrees of belief (1980); 4. How much of the mind is a computer? (1988); 5. (with Tim Crane) There is no question of physicalism (1990); Part II. Properties and Laws: 6. In defence of dispositions (1974); 7. Natural kinds (1977); 8. Necessities and universals in natural laws (1980); 9. Laws, chances and properties (1990); 10. Properties and predicates; Part III. Causation: 11. McTaggart, fixity and coming true (1981); 12. The singularly affecting facts of causation (1987); 13. On raising the chances of effects (1988); Part IV. Prediction and Decision: 14. Chance and degrees of belief (1982); 15. The warrant of induction (1988); 16. Objective decision making (1983); References.