Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology, Volume 2

by David Kellogg Lewis

This is part of a three-volume collection of most of David Lewis' papers in philosophy, except for those that previously appeared in his Philosophical Papers (Oxford University Press, 1983 and 1986). They are now offered in a readily accessible form. This second volume is devoted to Lewis' work in metaphysics and epistemology. The purpose of this collection, and the volumes that precede and follow it, is to disseminate more widely the work of an eminent and influential contemporary philosopher. The volume will serve as a useful work of reference for teachers and students of philosophy.

Genres: Philosophy, Metaphysics

464 pages, Hardcover

First published January 13, 1999

About the author

David Kellogg Lewis was a 20th century philosopher. Lewis taught briefly at UCLA and then at Princeton from 1970 until his death. He is also closely associated with Australia, whose philosophical community he visited almost annually for more than thirty years. He has made ground-breaking contributions in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophical logic. He is probably best known for his controversial modal realist stance: that there exist infinitely many concretely existing and causally isolated parallel universes, of which ours is just one, and which play the role of possible worlds in the analysis of necessity and possibility.

-wikipedia

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology really shows off a bit of Lewis' breadth as a philosopher. He touches upon, among other areas, the mind-body problem, consciousness, knowledge, both the physical and metaphysical structures of reality, and even the metaphysics of color. This is lightly marred by a number of filler articles that didn't really need to be there.