Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction

by Michael J. Loux, Thomas M. Crisp

Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction is for students who have already completed an introductory philosophy course and need a fresh look at the central topics in the core subject of metaphysics. It is essential reading for any student of the subject. This Fourth Edition is revised and updated and includes two new chapters on (1) Parts and Wholes, and (2) Metaphysical Indeterminacy or vagueness. This new edition also keeps the user-friendly format, the chapter overviews summarizing the main topics, concrete examples to clarify difficult concepts, annotated further reading at the end of each chapter, endnotes, and a full bibliography.

Genres: Philosophy

372 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Luke Brennan · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I gave this book 5/5, that does not mean that I liked it or think that it is ultimately a good way to do metaphysics or perhaps philosophy as a whole. Rather I think on its own terms it pursued its objectives well, that indeed it stated the terms on which it would do so, and so no one can then be surprised at how dense and detailed in the kind of philosophy that it works its way though it would be. Yet if one is not at all on board with (in my opinion) an excessive or even slavish deference to our uncompleted natural science, and does not react well to attempts at rigour and clarity which seem anything but that (in trying to turn everything into pseudomathematical symbols, and in having writing as unpleasant to make one's way through as many a nutter continental’s), then it will appear that in some important respects that consequent work in this direction will not seem as valuable as to those who are onboard.

I only speak to my own experience, as much as that may count, that being someone who has found less of what I have located in the analytic tradition being relevant to my own life and of the various problems encountered in it, I consequently found that I needed to go elsewhere for the practical benefits that I sought. As such, I think it is fair for me to be committed to a different core standpoint than what are provided in many of these routledge introductions and so, like for others in reverse situations, detailed work in a tradition that one is outside of will not as a consequence make for especially pleasant reading.

Indeed, and to be a bit sharp, it has been said of the medievals that they endlessly and copiously disputed over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, in that from an outside perspective, that does not share their core premises, it seemed as though they fussed at such length and in so much detail over matters of profound inconsequence. Yet I feel here in this case that a similar thought occurs in perhaps quite a bit of analytic philosophy, that certain core premises and propositions are advanced and then the most mind-bending and convoluted forms of reasoning and writing ensue, such as to leave a reader who does not place themself in that tradition feeling as though treatment for ptsd may be necessary.

To me, reading this book was as miserable and effortful as reading Hegel's phenomenology of Spirit, and yet I think, in my own opinion, perhaps more interesting insights can be extracted, with a lot of work, from that latter text, and less so, for me, from the one the subject of this review.

All such things are relative to one's intellectual standpoint of course, and so there will be many making just the same charge in reverse, and of course tribal sectarianism is most unphilosophical. For in every case one should very definitely read outside of one's established standpoint from time to time, and these routledge introductions are for me particularly handy overviews that have hopefully given me some basic or even passable awareness of how things might be done differently, and so I am happy to rate it 5/5.