Three Comments on Writing the Book of the World

Bibliographic Data

ID23215940
AuthorsTrenton Merricks (University of Virginia, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume73
Issue4
Pages722-736
Publication date2013-10-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnalysis (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-2638 • E-ISSN: 1467-8284
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/analys/ant067
OpenAlexW2084783762
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited5

Theodore Sider’s Writing the Book of the World is systematic, wide-ranging, intelligent, and interesting. It is sure to be influential, and deservedly so. Reading it and thinking about it have been a real pleasure. I am certain that I shall return to it again and again. Sider’s book opens with this: Metaphysics, at bottom, is about the fundamental structure of reality. Not about what’s necessarily true. Not about what properties are essential. Not about conceptual analysis. Not about what there is. Structure. (1)1 Consider the following claims: free actions cannot be causally determined; true propositions concerning future actions do not preclude freedom; the fundamental bearers of truth and falsity are abstract objects; some properties are universals; all properties are qualitative; persisting objects have temporal parts; a physical object can be wholly located in more than one place at the same time; no two physical objects can be entirely in the same place at the same time; composition is unrestricted; every truth has a truthmaker; propositions are sets of possible worlds; possibly, nothing exists; absences are causally efficacious; each human being is essentially not a chimpanzee.

Epistemology · Falsity · Linguistics · Metaphysics · Nothing · Object (grammar) · Philosophy of mind · Pleasure · Possible world · Problem of universals · Property (philosophy) · Reading (process) · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Computer Science · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · Philosophy · Psychology

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