Reality

Peter Loptson

• Publisher: University of Ottawa Press
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9780776618876
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophical Metaphysics

In Reality: Fundamental Topics in Metaphysics, Peter Loptson argues for a conception of metaphysics as the most general or comprehensive method of inquiry. Working from a broadly analytic and naturalist perspective, he confronts positions that claim metaphysics to be impossible, as advanced in ancient, Kantian, post-Kantian, and contemporary philosophy, showing them to be unsuccessful. He draws the topics of his selective investigation of metaphysics partly from the work of Kant, whom he conceives as a primary guide to what metaphysical enquiry seeks to know. Loptson provides accounts of basic categories of what is real and outlines major historical metaphysical systems. He then goes on to explore aspects of existence, essence, substance, universals, space, time, causality, mind, freedom, and other topics. This important contribution to metaphysics offers both sustained arguments on all aspects of the subject and important insights into the major metaphysical systems from the history of philosophy. The first edition of Reality appeared in 2001 to great acclaim. For this new edition the author has augmented the work's original arguments and extensively enlarged its scope and engagement with current stances and debates.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Acknowledgments for the Second Edition
• Chapter I: What is Metaphysics?
• Chapter II: Metaphysics and its Critics: Realism, Antirealism, and the Possibility of Metaphysics
• Chapter III: Metaphysical Systems
• Chapter IV: Categories and First Principles
• Chapter V: Existence
• Chapter VI: Essence and Possible Worlds
• Chapter VII: Substance
• Chapter VIII: Universals
• Chapter IX: Space
• Chapter X: Time
• Chapter XI: Causality
• Chapter XII: Purpose
• Chapter XIII: Persons, Personal Identity, and Metaphysical Luck
• Chapter XIV: Mind
• Chapter XV: God
• Chapter XVI: Freedom and Determinism
• Chapter XVII: Immortality
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index