In this paper I will argue in favor of the view that if physics is to become a coherent metaphysics of nature, it needs an interpretation, namely (i) a clear formulation of its ontological/metaphysical claims and (ii) and a precise understanding of how such claims are related to the world of our experience, which is the most important reservoir of traditional, merely aprioristic metaphysical sp...

Formal mereology should be of interest to metaphysicians because it allows us, in a rigorous way, to determine the consequence relations between metaphysical theses and theories, many of which are of metaphysical interest. Take, for example, the many and various puzzles of constitution, and the metaphysical theories that have been advanced to solve them. Ideally, it should be possible to analys...

A natural metametaphysical hope is that logic should be able to act as a neutral arbiter of metaphysical disputes, at least as a framework on which all parties can agree for eliciting the consequences of the rival metaphysical theories. An obvious problem for this hope is the proliferation of alternative logics, many of them motivated by metaphysical considerations. For example, rejection of th...

It has recently been suggested that a distinctive metaphysical relation — ‘Grounding’—is ultimately at issue in contexts in which some goings-on are said to hold ‘in virtue of’’, be (constitutively) ‘metaphysically dependent on’, or be ‘nothing over and above’ some others. Grounding is supposed to do good work (better than merely modal notions, in particular) in illuminating metaphysical depend...

Although biomedicine is responsible for the "miracles" of modern medicine, paradoxically it has also led to a quality-of-care crisis in which many patients feel disenfranchised from the health-care industry. To address this crisis, several medical commentators make an appeal for humanizing biomedicine, which has led to shifts in the philosophical boundaries of medical knowledge and practice. In...

In a recent article, Sam Page distinguishes four kinds of mind-(in)dependence: ontological, causal, structural, and individuative. He argues that, despite the fact that the metaphysical realism/antirealism debate has been frequently characterized as a debate between those who accept and those who deny that the world is causally and/or structurally dependent on minds, many antirealists are prima...

The total longitudinal form view of human beings is a metaphysical view which aims to locate our moral judgements about human embryos in a broader set of attitudes and characterisations. On this basis it has explanatory power and a real function in that it grounds our ethical discussion of embryos in other discourses. Contra Leavitt, this grounding suggests a broader criterion of relevance for ...

2 " The decisive movement in the conjuring trick has been made, and it was the very one we thought quite innocent "-Philosophical Investigations, § 308

It is a commonplace of modal metaphysics that belief in possible worlds not only burdens one with a large ontology but also raises metaphysical problems concerning their existence and identity conditions and epistemological problems concerning the justification of one’s belief in them. In this paper, we challenge this commonplace and show that belief in possible worlds doesn’t necessarily burde...

The goals of this paper are two-fold: I wish to clarify the Aristotelian conception of the law of non-contradiction as a metaphysical rather than a semantic or logical principle, and to defend the truth of the principle in this sense. First I will explain what it in fact means that the law of non-contradiction is a metaphysical principle. The core idea is that the law of non-contradiction is a ...