**Overview: Embarking on a Metaphysical Journey** Metaphysics is one of the really old, foundational branches of philosophy, sitting right there with ethics, logic, and epistemology. It's all about trying to understand the fundamental nature of reality. For some, it might sound a bit mystical or even religious, while others might know it through poetry. This book, however, introduces you to how philosophers actually _do_ metaphysics. Instead of starting with a difficult question about what metaphysics _is_ and how we know its truths – which can quickly get complicated – the book takes a different, rather clever approach. It starts by jumping right in and _doing_ some metaphysics, exploring seemingly simple questions about the world around us. The idea is that the best way to understand an activity is often by doing it. So, the book begins with questions like "What is a table?" and gradually introduces you to the core problems and concepts. By the end, you should have a much better sense of the subject, having explored various issues with minimal technical terms. Many of the questions tackled might even sound childish at first glance. What are objects? Do colours and shapes truly exist? What makes one thing cause another? Does time really pass? Do absences or 'nothings' exist?. These might seem simple, but they quickly lead to some of the most fundamental and profound issues humans can ponder, often inspiring a sense of wonder that some feel makes metaphysics the most valuable use of our time. The book covers a variety of key metaphysical topics, including substance, properties, changes, causes, possibilities, time, personal identity, nothingness, and emergence. While philosophers often find their topics deeply interconnected, making a neat sequence hard to follow, the book manages to guide you through these ideas. **Exploring the Metaphysical Landscape: Key Topics** Let's take a peek at some of the major stops on this metaphysical tour: 1. **What are Objects (Particulars and Properties)?** The book starts by asking a seemingly simple question: "What is a table?". When we look around, we see lots of things – tables, chairs, people, dogs. In metaphysics, these are called _particulars_. They seem to exist at one place at a time. A key question arises when we think about what a table _is_. We experience its qualities like brownness, hardness, or having four legs, which are called _properties_. But is the table just a collection or bundle of these properties, or is there something else, something _underneath_ the properties?. - **Substratum View:** One idea is that a particular is like a pin cushion (the _substratum_) that holds the properties (the pins). The substratum is the underlying thing that the properties belong to. But if you mentally strip away all the properties – the colour, shape, size, weight, etc. – what are you left with?. It seems you're left with something invisible, without dimensions or physical features – something that starts to look like _nothing_ at all. This consequence, where the idea leads to something seemingly absurd (a bare, propertyless substratum), might be a reason to reject the idea. Isn't it true that everything that exists _has_ properties?. - **Bundle Theory:** Perhaps, then, a particular is _nothing more than_ the bundle of properties. When we mentally removed the properties and felt we were left with nothing, maybe that just shows there _is_ nothing more to it. This view seems simpler because it only requires one kind of ingredient (properties) instead of two (properties plus a substratum). However, this view faces problems, especially when we think about _change_. If an object (like a table or a cat) is just a collection of properties, and properties are gained or lost (e.g., a brown table is painted white, a cat changes shape), doesn't that mean it's a _different_ collection, and thus a different object?. Particulars change all the time while remaining numerically the same thing. - **Bundle Theory Refined:** One way to respond is to think of an enduring object as a _series_ of bundles of properties, linked by some continuity. The white table is the same as the brown one because it keeps most of its properties (weight, height, position) or changes them gradually. But the bundle theory faces another problem: the possibility of identical twins. What if two distinct objects share _all_ the same properties?. The bundle theory says an object _is_ the bundle, so if the bundles are identical, the objects must be too. This seems counterintuitive; surely two distinct snooker balls can be identical in all their properties. While actual objects might always have slight differences, the philosophical account shouldn't rely on this luck. One possible way out involves relational properties (like spatial position), but this might sneak particulars back into the theory. Another involves the idea of _particularized_ properties or _tropes_, where the 'redness' of one ball is a different instance from the 'redness' of another, even if they are of the same _type_ of property. - **Conclusion (Tentative):** Given these challenges, the book suggests we might be led to conclude that _particularity_ is a fundamental, irreducible feature of reality. A table is a particular that _bears_ properties but isn't simply identical to or reducible to them. 2. **What are Properties (Universals vs. Particulars)?** This leads us to ask about properties themselves. What is a property like 'circularity'? Is it a single thing that can be present in many different places at the same time (like in a coin, a wheel, a screw-top lid)?. Properties like redness, squareness, or being tall are features of particulars. Similarly, _relations_, like 'taller than', can hold between particulars in many instances. - **Plato's Heaven (Transcendent Realism):** Plato thought that properties (and relations) were perfect, unchanging _Forms_ that existed in a separate, heavenly realm. Worldly objects are just imperfect copies of these perfect Forms. The true circularity, for example, is the perfect geometric circle, encountered not in the physical world but through pure reason. However, explaining how worldly objects relate to or resemble these Forms leads to difficulties, potentially involving an infinite regress. - **Nominalism (Anti-Realism):** If Plato's view seems too fanciful, another option is to deny that properties exist as things at all. This view, called nominalism, suggests that terms like 'circularity' are just _names_ or words we use to group together particular objects that resemble each other. Circularity itself has no independent existence. Everything that exists is just a particular. This view might involve the idea of tropes (particularized qualities), where the 'redness' of one object is distinct from the 'redness' of another, and objects are bundles of these tropes. But then, what makes all the 'redness' tropes instances of the _same type_ of quality? Is it just resemblance? This seems to lead back to the same problems. - **Aristotle's Earth (Immanent Realism):** Fortunately, there's a middle ground. Aristotle thought that properties _do_ exist and are real features of the world, but they exist _only_ in their instances – in circular things here on earth. This is called immanent realism. On this view, properties aren't transcendent Forms but are "down to earth". One might have to accept that real properties in the world, like circularity, might be imperfect, unlike the perfect mathematical ideal. This view requires further development, but it avoids the issues of transcendent Forms and the problems of nominalism. 3. **Are Wholes Just Sums of Parts?** The world is full of complex things, like mobile phones or rats, which are made up of many parts. Metaphysics asks whether these complex wholes are simply the sum of their parts arranged in a particular way. This question is important because it connects to deep issues about how different levels of reality relate. - **Simples and Complexity:** Some things are complex, having parts, but must everything ultimately be made up of _simple_ things – things that have no parts at all (like philosophical atoms)?. Historically, things thought to be simple (like chemical atoms) have turned out to be complex. It's hard to _know_ if something is truly simple, as parts might just be too small or hidden to see. Is it possible that complexity goes "all the way down," with parts within parts infinitely? There seems to be no logical contradiction in this idea. Philosophical atomism (the belief in smallest, indivisible units) is more of a philosophical stance than something definitively proven by observation. - **Wholes and Properties:** When is a whole more than just its parts? A pile of stones seems like a mere aggregate; its height is just the arrangement of its parts. The whole has the property of height, and so do the parts, just to a lesser degree. However, things like mobile phones are _integrated_ wholes or _substances_, not just loose aggregates. A phone has amazing capacities (making calls, accessing the internet) that none of its individual parts possess in any degree. A quarter of a phone doesn't make a quarter of a call. - **Reductionism vs. Emergentism:** Can these complex capacities of integrated wholes be entirely explained by their parts and their arrangement?. A _reductionist_ believes that ultimately, all the properties and workings of a whole can be explained by its parts. Even complex things like consciousness in a human being, which seem like a property of the whole organism rather than just bits of meat and bone, might eventually be explained entirely in terms of brain parts and processes, though the details are staggeringly complex. Reductionism often sees the world as an inverted pyramid, with fundamental physics at the bottom explaining everything above it (chemistry, biology, psychology). - **Emergentism and Holism:** In opposition, _emergentism_ claims that wholes can be _more than_ the sum of their parts. This view suggests that genuinely _novel_ phenomena or qualities can arise at higher levels of complexity that are not present in the parts, their sum, or their arrangement. Life itself or consciousness are often cited as potential emergent properties. Even if we knew everything about the brain's physical parts, an emergentist might argue we wouldn't be able to predict or understand what it feels like to experience consciousness or see the colour red. Relatedly, _holism_ suggests that wholes have a priority over parts. For example, in evolution, natural selection acts on properties of the whole organism (like a giraffe's long neck), which then influences the parts (like the genetic makeup). - **The Debate:** It's hard to definitively prove reductionism or emergentism. Our current inability to explain consciousness in physical terms might just be due to our ignorance, not proof of emergence. Metaphysics helps clarify what it would mean for emergentism to be true and explore what it means for something to be 'more than its parts'. This debate is central in fields like philosophy of mind and philosophy of biology. 4. **What is a Change?** So far, we've looked at particulars, properties, and complex objects – the 'things' that exist. But reality also includes _changes_, like someone blushing, a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, or a book falling. These are events or processes involving changes. Describing the world just in terms of things and their properties at a single moment seems static; we need to account for change, which seems just as real as the things that change. - **Change and Numerical Identity:** For a change to occur, there must be something that _persists_ through the change. If a man has hair at one time and is bald later, we say he _changed_ only if it's the _same_ man. This requires the notion of _numerical identity_ – being one and the same thing over time, despite changes in qualities. Aristotle is associated with the idea that change needs a subject that bears the change. - **How Changes Occur:** Changes can involve gaining or losing properties, coming into or going out of existence, or changes _within_ a property (like a bar getting hotter). Philosophers debate whether gaining a property and losing another (like a tomato becoming flat instead of round) is one change or two related events. - **The Problem of Incompatible Properties:** A key challenge is explaining how something can have incompatible properties over time (e.g., being round at one moment and flat at another). - **Temporal Parts:** One theory suggests that what we think of as an enduring object is actually a sequence of distinct _temporal parts_. A temporal part of the tomato is round, and a later temporal part is flat. Each temporal part is changeless, and the enduring object is just a construction out of these parts. However, this view can feel like a denial of change, reducing it simply to the coming and going of these temporal parts. It also requires explaining how these different temporal parts belong to the 'same' thing, which involves relations like succession in time and perhaps causation. - **Wholly Presence:** An alternative, perhaps more Aristotelian view, is that the particular is _wholly present_ at every time it exists. It is the whole tomato, not just a temporal part, that is red at one time and flat at another. 5. **What is a Cause?** Causes are closely related to changes – many, perhaps most, changes are caused. But causes and changes are distinct; there can be uncaused changes (like the universe originating from the Big Bang, according to some accounts) and causes without changes (like magnets holding together). Causation is incredibly important; it's been called the "cement of the universe" because it connects things and makes them matter to each other. Understanding causation is one of philosophy's biggest tasks. - **Hume's Challenge:** A major historical figure here is David Hume, who argued that we never _observe_ the causal connection itself. We see one event (a kick) followed by another (a ball moving), but we don't see any 'push' or 'compulsion' linking them. How, then, do we know causation is real?. - **Humean Accounts (Regularity and Counterfactuals):** Hume suggested that our belief in causation comes from observing _patterns_ or regular successions of events. We believe the kick caused the ball to move because similar kicks have always been followed by similar movements. A popular Humean view is that causation _is_ just this pattern of events – there's nothing more than events following each other in a regular way. Another, related Humean idea involves _counterfactuals_: one event (A) causes another (B) if B followed A, _and if A had not occurred, B would not have occurred either_. The difficulty is knowing what would have happened if A hadn't occurred, especially since it _did_ happen. - **Possible Worlds:** One elaborate metaphysical way to understand the counterfactual idea is using _possible worlds_. Event A causes B in our world if, in the nearest possible world where A does _not_ occur, B also does not occur. This introduces the idea of non-actual possibilities being real in other worlds. - **Scientific Method:** A more down-to-earth approach to counterfactuals is found in scientific experiments, using the method of difference: set up two very similar situations, introduce the suspected cause in one but not the other, and see if the effect occurs only in the first. - **Causal Powers:** An alternative to Humean views is the idea that things have _causal powers_ or _dispositions_ to produce certain effects. Smoking has the power or disposition to cause cancer, even if it doesn't necessitate it in every single case (some smokers don't get cancer). The power is real, but its effect can be prevented by other factors. This view suggests the cause really _does_ produce its effect, unlike the Humean idea that there's only a pattern of events. This remains a big divide among metaphysicians. 6. **How Does Time Pass?** Change and causation seem impossible without time. Time itself is another fundamental concept explored in metaphysics. Is time a "thing" itself, like a river flowing, or is it something else?. - **Presentism:** One major model is _presentism_, the view that only the present moment is real. Past and future events are not real in the same way. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln was future, then present, now past – did the event itself move through time?. This view faces challenges, partly from the problem of what makes statements about the past or future true. - **Relativity and Simultaneity:** Another difficulty for presentism comes from relativity theory in physics, which challenges the idea of absolute simultaneity. What counts as 'now' or the 'present' seems relative to a position or viewpoint, especially for spatially separated events. This can make it hard to define an objective, mind-independent 'present' moment. Many philosophers prefer metaphysics to deal with objective truths, not just subjective viewpoints. 7. **What is a Person?** While tables and cats are particulars, people seem special. They have minds, consciousness, and perhaps souls. What makes a person the _same_ person over time might be different from what makes a physical object the same. - **Psychological Continuity:** John Locke suggested that what makes someone the same person over time is psychological continuity, particularly memory. You are the same person as your past self if you remember being that past self. But memory fades, leading to issues where person A is identical to B, and B is identical to C, but A is not identical to C (like remembering being a young graduate who remembered being a child, while you no longer remember being the child). Psychological continuity might be like the overlapping strands of a rope, not a single strand going from start to finish. - **Substance Dualism:** Some, like Descartes, believed that persons consist of two distinct _substances_: a physical body and a non-physical mind or soul. The mind is essentially a thinking thing and could potentially survive the death of the body. This is a strong metaphysical claim, often associated with religious beliefs. - **Challenges to Dualism:** Dualism faces difficulties. What _is_ a spiritual substance, given that it's not extended in space like a physical substance?. And how could a non-physical mind interact with a physical body? This is the problem of mind-body interaction, which is so hard that some dualists deny interaction happens or suggest a different concept of causation is needed. - **Materialism/Physicalism:** One alternative is to say there's only one kind of substance. Materialists (or physicalists) think everything, including the mind, is ultimately physical. The mind might just be brain processes, though explaining consciousness in physical terms is incredibly complex. This connects back to the debate about reductionism and emergentism – is consciousness reducible to physical processes, or does it emerge from them?. 8. **What is Possible?** We talk about things being possible even if they aren't actual. You _could_ have been late, the Eiffel Tower _could_ have been 350 metres high. What are these possibilities? Do they exist in some way, even if they are not 'actual'?. We're interested in _mere_ possibilities – those that are not actual. - **Possible Worlds Realism:** One prominent theory is that a possibility is something that is _actual_ in _another possible world_. There's a world where Michael Foot was prime minister, and a world where the Eiffel Tower is 350 metres tall. These possible worlds are seen as concrete and real, just not _our_ world. This view, championed by David Lewis, provides a clear way to understand possibility – something is possible if and only if it happens in some possible world. However, this view means reality is packed with an infinite number of worlds, which strikes many as metaphysically extravagant. Some try to adopt the language of possible worlds as an abstract conceptual tool without believing the worlds are real, but this makes it hard to use the concept to _analyze_ what possibility is without being circular. - **Combinatorial Theory:** A more Aristotelian approach sees possibilities as _recombinations_ of the existing elements (particulars and properties) in our actual world. If white dogs and black cats exist, then black dogs and white cats are possible because we can rearrange these existing parts. Imagine a grid with particulars on one side and properties on the other. The ticked boxes are the actual facts; the blank boxes represent mere possibilities – combinations of existing elements that don't happen to be actual. This theory seems simpler than invoking countless other worlds. However, it relies on the 'principle of recombination' (any particular can be matched with any property), and it's not clear why some combinations (like a human being green or jumping to the moon) should count as possible if they aren't physically or biologically possible in our world. It also struggles with possibilities involving things that don't exist in our world (like a fifth child for Kennedy). 9. **Is Nothing Something?** This is one of the most perplexing topics: the existence of nothingness, absences, holes, and lackings. We often talk about absences ("there is no food in the cupboard"). Does this mean absences are part of reality, perhaps even having a degree of existence?. - **Negative Properties:** Do things have negative properties, like being not-blue or not-square?. If so, they'd have infinitely many, which seems odd, but maybe everything has infinite properties anyway. A more serious challenge is that maybe being not-2.0 metres tall is just a truth _entailed_ by being 1.8 metres tall, rather than being a separate property. But explaining this entailment often relies on incompatibilities ("nothing can be both 1.8m and 2.0m"), which seems like another kind of negative. - **Negative Facts:** Bertrand Russell thought that to explain _negative truths_ (like "there is not a hippopotamus in this room"), there must be _negative facts_ in the world. Just as there's a fact that the apple is round, there's a fact that the room _contains no hippopotamus_. This involves allowing negative elements into existence, like a particular _negatively instantiating_ a property. - **Negation as Linguistic:** An alternative view is that negation ("not", "no") is just a feature of language and the way we describe the world, not a feature of the world itself. Saying "I have nothing in my pocket" means there is no thing there, not that a 'nothing' exists in your pocket. For those who think statements are made true by 'truthmakers' in the world, positive assertions commit us to the existence of facts, but denials might not require a negative fact – they are simply denying that a certain positive fact exists. - **The Tangle:** The subject of nothing is a real philosophical tangle. If we could show that absences and nothingnesses are purely features of language and not part of existence, it would simplify our metaphysics greatly, as they cause considerable trouble. 10. **What is Metaphysics?** Having taken this tour, the book finally returns to the question of what metaphysics actually _is_. It's the activity we've been engaging in. While the questions might initially seem simple or even silly, they lead to profound, complicated issues about the nature of reality and what exists. - **Understanding Fundamental Reality:** One answer is that metaphysics aims to understand the _fundamental nature of reality_. However, it does so at a very general and abstract level. While science tells us _what specific things_ exist (electrons, tigers, chemical elements) and their specific properties and laws, metaphysics asks about the _general categories_ – what it is to be a particular, a property, a change, a cause, a law. The choice of examples like tables or circles was somewhat arbitrary; they were just ways to explore the general issues of particulars and properties. - **Metaphysics vs. Science:** A key difference is the _approach_. Science is based on observation and empirical evidence; it looks at the world to test theories. Metaphysics, however, is non-empirical; what we see with our senses is of little help in deciding metaphysical questions. Whether a table is a bundle or a substratum cannot be settled by observation. Metaphysics is "above and beyond physics" in its level of generality and its investigation beyond the observable. - **Challenges and Defense:** Metaphysics has been attacked as meaningless or pointless because it's non-empirical. Empiricists like Hume argued that ideas must originate in experience; if metaphysical terms can't be traced back to observation, they are meaningless. More modern critiques like logical positivism have echoed this. Kant offered a complex response, perhaps suggesting metaphysics describes the structure of our _thinking_ about the world rather than the world itself, though this changes its nature. A defense of metaphysics is that our thinking and reasoning are our guides to how the world _could_ or _should_ be, even if not observable. We can reject metaphysical theories if they lead to contradictions or absurd, counterintuitive consequences, similar to how theoretical scientists might reject theories. While science uses empirical observation to confirm theories, metaphysics relies solely on reasoning, seeking internal coherence and consistency with other theories. - **Choosing Theories:** If multiple metaphysical theories are internally coherent, how do we choose?. This is similar to science, where empirical data might be consistent with multiple theories. We often look for _theoretical virtues_ – how much the theory explains, how well it unifies with other theories, and its simplicity or economy (explaining a lot with few assumptions). The possible worlds theory, for example, explains possibility but relies on assuming the existence of countless worlds. Ideally, metaphysics and science should cohere, with a metaphysics that fits the scientifically described world. - **The Value of Metaphysics:** Is metaphysics useless since it doesn't allow us to manipulate or apply it to the physical world like science?. Even if it is 'useless' in this instrumental sense, it might have _intrinsic value_. The insights it provides about the fundamental nature of reality could be so deep and profound that the understanding itself is incredibly valuable, perhaps even "the most real and important thing there is". Thus, we might pursue health and wealth simply _so that_ we can engage in metaphysics. This whirlwind tour gives you a sense of the profound questions and fascinating debates that make up metaphysics, as presented in Mumford's book. It shows how starting with simple observations can lead to complex philosophical problems about the very fabric of existence. **Further Thoughts and Questions** As you can see, many of these questions don't have settled, easy answers. The book presents different theories – substratum vs. bundle, reductionism vs. emergentism, Humean vs. causal powers, possible worlds vs. combinatorial, negative facts vs. linguistic negation – and highlights their strengths and weaknesses, often leaving the debate open for further philosophical work. Thinking about these topics can lead to even more questions: - If particularity is irreducible, as suggested by the table example, what _is_ it exactly?. - Could there be other ways to think about properties beyond Plato's heaven, Aristotle's earth, or nominalism?. - How could we devise a way to definitively test between reductionism and emergentism, or is it something we can only ever decide based on theoretical virtues?. - If the bundle theory is right, and an object is a series of property bundles, what exactly is the 'continuity' that links them and makes them the same object over time?. - Is the concept of causation solely based on observable patterns, or is there a hidden 'oomph' or power connecting events?. - If absolute simultaneity is challenged by physics, how should we construct a metaphysical account of time that makes sense of change and past/future?. - What is the best account of personal identity that acknowledges both physical change and psychological continuity?. And how does our understanding of persons relate to the mind-body problem?. - Is the concept of other possible worlds a necessary tool for understanding possibility, or is there a more economical way to account for it?. - Can we truly eliminate the need for negative entities or facts from our understanding of reality, or are they a necessary part of what makes truths about absence, lack, or incompatibility true?