Metaphysics Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements Series

This volume is based on the lectures given in London at The Royal Institute of Philosophy's annual lecture series for 2016?17. The topic chosen for the series was metaphysics, an area where at the moment there is much exciting and innovative work being done. Several papers in the volume consider the nature of metaphysical explanation, its scope and limits. There are also papers on such central metaphysical topics as essence, necessity, possibility and identity. Ranging wider, and testifying to the breadth of metaphysics as a subject, there are treatments of free will, of solipsism in Wittgenstein's philosophy of the 1930s, of the nature of social practices, of the notion that the conceptual recommendations of metaphysics are to do with assessing and perhaps changing the way we live, and also a consideration of the ontological status of the foetus and the unborn child.

1. Laws for metaphysical explanation Jonathan Schaffer; 2. Irrealism about grounding Naomi Thompson; 3. Against conservatism in metaphysics Maegan Fairchild and John Hawthorne; 4. Cardinals, ordinals and the prospects for a Fregean foundation Eric Snyder, Stewart Shapiro and Richard Samuels; 5. The basis of necessity and possibility Bob Hale; 6. Changing metaphysics: what difference does it make? Amie L. Thomasson; 7. Lady parts: the metaphysics of pregnancy Elselijn Kingma; 8. Spaces of possibility Timothy Williamson; 9. Wittgenstein on solipsism in the 1930s: private pains, private languages, and two uses of 'I' Tim Button; 10. What is a social practice Sally Haslanger; 11. Almost identical, almost innocent Katherine Hawley; 12. Compatibilism, indeterminism, and chance Penelope Mackie; 13. Quantifier variance dissolved Suki Finn and Otávio Bueno; 14. Essence and mere necessity Jessica Leech; 15. Towards a hylomorphic solution to the grounding problem Kathrin Koslicki; 16. Metaphysical optimism Penelope Rush.

Anthony O'Hear is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Buckinghamshire, Director of The Royal Institute of Philosophy and Editor of the journal Philosophy.