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In
Rethinking Metaphysics, Amie Thomasson aims to change how we think about metaphysics: what it can do, and why it matters. Traditional metaphysics has aimed to discover deep truths about the world. But this has led to rivalries with science, epistemological mysteries, and a despairing scepticism about how we could gain knowledge in metaphysics. Thomasson argues that the problems with prior approaches to metaphysics arise from a problematic assumption that all discourse functions in the same way. By better understanding the plurality of linguistic functions, we can also disentangle ourselves from many old metaphysical problems--including problems about properties, numbers, morality and modality.
List of contents
- Part I. Why We Should Rethink Metaphysics
- Chapter 1: The Traditional Conception of Metaphysics
- Chapter 2: The Explanatory Conception of Metaphysics
- Chapter 3: The Structural Conception of Metaphysics
- Chapter 4: The Truthmaker Conception of Metaphysics
- Chapter 5: Fundamentality and Grounding Projects
- Part II. How We Should Rethink Metaphysics
- Chapter 6: Metaphysics as Conceptual Engineering
- Chapter 7: Identifying Linguistic Functions
- Chapter 8: Reverse Engineering: Unraveling Metaphysical Problems
- Chapter 9: Pragmatic Conceptual Engineering
- Chapter 10: The Perennial Philosophical Project
About the author
Amie L. Thomasson is the Daniel P. Stone Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy at Dartmouth College. She is the author of four prior books:
Ontology Made Easy (2014, winner of the Sanders Book Prize),
Norms and Necessity (2020),
Ordinary Objects (2007), and
Fiction and Metaphysics (1998); and co-editor of
Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind (2005). She has also published more than 80 papers on topics in metaphysics, philosophical methodology and metametaphysics, philosophy of art, social ontology, philosophy of mind and phenomenology. She has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and has twice held Fellowships with the National Endowment for the Humanities.
