Series Editor's Foreword ...................................... vii
Preface afid Acknowledgements .................................. ix
1 Metaphysics and Science ...................................... 1
1 Philosophy and science ....................................... 1
1.1 Naturalism? ............................................. 4
2 Where's the difference? ...................................... 8
2.1 Scope ................................................... 9
2.2 Questions and answers .................................. 11
2.3 Concepts, categories and methods ....................... 18
3 Conclusions: need for a compatibilist naturalism ............ 20
2 Naturalism .................................................. 29
1 Possibility, grounding and constructive naturalism .......... 29
1.1 Claims of possibility and kinds of modality ............ 29
1.1.1 Essences ......................................... 36
1.2 Existence and grounding ................................ 38
2 Experimental metaphysics and constructive naturalism ........ 41
3 Theory-choice in (naturalised) metaphysics .................. 46
4 Conclusions ................................................. 54
3 Matter ...................................................... 62
1 Identity and individuality in quantum mechanics ............. 62
1.1 A first evaluation ..................................... 71
1.2 Quantum statistics ..................................... 74
2 A conservative proposal ..................................... 81
2.1 Final evaluation ....................................... 87
3 Quantum fields and beyond ................................... 89
3.1 Relativistic and non-relativistic quantum field
theory ................................................. 89
3.2 Strings and other stuff ................................ 97
4 Ontic structural realism .................................... 99
5 Conclusions ................................................ 102
4 Space and Time ............................................. 114
1 The metaphysics of time .................................... 114
1.1 Substantivalism v. relationism ........................ 115
1.2 Presentism v. eternalism .............................. 121
2 Metaphysics and contemporary physics of space and time:
the verdict of the constructive naturalist ................. 132
2.1 Relationism and antirealism about time ................ 133
2.1.1 McTaggart and Gödel ............................ 133
2.1.2 Contemporary antirealism about time ............ 135
2.2 Presentism and eternalism: beyond relativity .......... 140
2.3 Taking stock .......................................... 143
3 Supersubstantivalism ....................................... 145
4 Conclusions ................................................ 147
5 Parts and Wholes ........................................... 156
1 Part-whole: definitions and issues ......................... 156
2 Horizontal issue: Humean supervenience and all that ........ 158
3 Evaluation and proposal .................................... 172
4 Vertical issue: grounding and fundamentality ............... 173
4.1 Priority monism ....................................... 173
4.2 Monism and structuralism .............................. 180
5 Evaluation and proposal .................................... 183
6 Conclusions ................................................ 184
Conclusions ................................................... 191
References .................................................... 192
Index ......................................................... 209
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