Metaphysics: An Anthology 2nd (second) edition published by Wiley-Blackwell (2011) Paperback

by Jaegwon Kim

This Anthology, intended to accompany A Companion to Metaphysics (Blackwell, 1995), brings together over 60 selections which represent the best and most important works in metaphysics during the last century. The selections are grouped under ten major metaphysical problems and each section is preceded by an introduction by the editors. Some of the problems covered are existence, identity, essence and essential properties, possible worlds, things and their identity over time, emergence and supervenience, causality, and realism/antirealism. The coverage is comprehensive and should be accessible to those without a background in technical philosophy.

Genres: Philosophy, Metaphysics, Nonfiction, Anthologies

Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Jaegwon Kim (born 1934 in Daegu, Korea (now in South Korea)) is a Korean-born American philosopher currently working at Brown University. He is best known for his work on mental causation and the mind-body problem. Key themes in his work include: a rejection of Cartesian metaphysics, the limitations of strict psychophysical identity, supervenience, and the individuation of events. Kim's work on these and other contemporary metaphysical and epistemological issues is well-represented by the papers collected in Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays (1993).

Kim's philosophical work focuses on the areas of philosophy of mind, metaphysics, action theory, epistemology, and philosophy of science.

Reviews

[Warren Fournier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Are you a burgeoning sci-fi author, or have you dreamed of coming up with the next great idea for a work of fantasy? Well, reading up on your metaphysics may help inspire you. And the Blackwell anthology of metaphysics can be your crash course.

The majority of these influential papers on analytic philosophy ask the reader to "imagine" or "suppose" a scenario in other worlds. Then they deconstruct the fantasy using logic to reach conclusions about how our real world works that hopefully are universal and necessary. For example, assume for a moment that we are able to divide ourselves like amoeba. Which person, then, is the real you? Or suppose we were to put Mr. Smith's brain into Mr. Brown's body. Would this Frankenstein creation be Mr. Brown or Mr. Smith? And you Doctor Who fans will have a field day applying principles of identity and the continuum of self in the concept of "regeneration."

I've owned this book for twenty years, and it has never ceased to amaze me. From exploring personality and self, to the persistence of objects through time, to ontology and causation, these 48 essays cover a comprehensive range of metaphysical questions from some of the most noted academics in the field, like Bertrand Russell, Roderick Chisholm, Ernest Sosa, Saul Kripke, and Sydney Shoemaker.

Now, I must warn you that not everything here will be accessible, even to readers who are fairly versed in philosophical nomenclature and concepts. It starts you off gently with the famous 1948 paper "On What There Is" by W.V. Quine, containing the quote that really sets the stage for this book: "To be is to be the value of a variable." Indeed! Then it isn't long before you are hit with an absolute doozie like "Referring to Nonexistent Objects" by Terence Parsons, which will make you not only question reality, but also why you are reading this book in the first place.

Some topics require you to have considerable previous knowledge not introduced in this anthology. For example, in Allan Gibbard's essay on "Contingent Identity," you first need to understand that "contingent" means accidental. You also need to know what is meant by "de re" modalities. These are properties that an entity must have by virtue of itself, and when we speak of the "essence" of something in metaphysics, we generally mean the "de re" modal properties of that entity. Gibbard then builds his entire paper upon 19th Century German philosopher Gottlob Frege's puzzle regarding Hesperus and Phosphorus, not found in this book. You would have to know that Frege pointed out that these two statements were true: 1) Hesperus is Hesperus and 2) Hesperus is Phosphorus. Therefore, you also have to know that Hesperus is the "morning star" and Phosphorus is "the evening star," and that both are terms to refer to the planet Venus at different times observed in the sky. The first statement is an "a priori" truth while the second is true "a posteriori" because it requires empirical evidence from astronomers. The significance is that both names have the same reference (the planet Venus) but different sense (the mode in which an object is given to the observer). From here, Gibbard then further explores how proper names gain their reference in the actual world. Is it possible for a thing to have the same reference and be identical in different worlds?

Not only can "Multiverse of Madness" fans get a kick out of this discussion, but this paper and others presented in this book highlight some of the logical problems of Essentialism, which is the view that entities have a set of attributes that necessarily constitutes identity, and one which has arguably led to potentially harmful extremist views of identity politics as well as mistakes in the science of biology and medicine. From my own career experience, I always found the teaching that hypertension in African Americans is somehow different based on race to be controversial if not erroneous, overlooking the contribution by socio-economic causes. Speaking of controversial, the rejection or acceptance of fixed essences of gender has been the basis of much our current culture war.

But as I already suggested, I can't in good conscience recommend this book without warning anyone who doesn't already have a background in logic and metaphysics that you must be willing to invest a little time with your own research in order to fill in some gaps of understanding you may run across. The papers in this collection were not written for the novice, being all published in journals of a readership consisting of academic peers. Case in point, several papers detail the actual proofs used to justify metaphysical conclusions, and these formulas employ first-order logic symbols, the use of blackboard bold face, Sheffer strokes, rarely used quantifiers, and other challenging notation that all require a deep study in standard translation and order of operations far beyond what my busy schedule will allow. I did keep a pencil and paper handy, upon which I kept a cheat sheet of logic symbols and tried to work through some of the equations myself. I had fun, but I am no metaphysician. So these statements and proofs could be solving the secret of life, the universe, and everything, but I, for one, will not be challenging the veracity of these theories.

But whether or not you work at MIT as a professor in philosophical logic, trust me, you'll find something to chew on, and which will keep you up late thinking. After all, there's 675 pages of material here that you are not likely to find anywhere else in one volume, presented in double-columned small print, meaning that you will more than get your money's worth, since good used copies are readily available and inexpensive.

So prepare to have your mind blown. This is the work that has created the framework for some of the most amazing advances in technology, such as artificial intelligence, which in the time of Aristotle would have seemed like magic. We need such a frame to do any science--for example, how else would we be able to classify species of animal? And as I mentioned above, these ideas are the battleground for major political, scientific, and cultural changes.

Note, this review is of the original edition published in 1999. There is a second edition which sells for over $100, and has some additional subjects written by some of the newest voices in metaphysics.

But unless you need that version for a class, I recommend the first edition for the price. Ideal for students of Western philosophy, for anyone interested in a deep dive in modern metaphysics, for authors and creative people eager to explore new worlds and lines of thought, and for anyone curious about the Big Questions.

[Nick Brancazio]

Go-to old white boy metaphysics.

[Christopher Webb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Massive, comprehensive anthology of key recent and contemporary papers. As challenging as it gets, and took me a good year to get through, but richly rewarding. Best to tackle Michael Loux's also outstanding, but less daunting, "Metaphysics: Contemporary Readings" before attempting this.