Identity Metaphysics: Set Up

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 2 introduces ‘identity metaphysics’: the categorial-monist view that there is only one fundamental metaphysical category. It prepares the way for the arguments of Chapters 4, 5, and 6, according to which two supposedly fundamental metaphysical distinctions are in fact superficial: the distinction between substance and quality (object and property) and the distinction between categorical being and dispositional or power being. It argues that, in philosophy, description is at least as important as argument. It introduces a general notion of the dimensionality of a world, arguing that space–time is just one possible kind of dimensionality. It assumes the truth of stuff monism, according to which there is only one kind of fundamental stuff or substance, and argues that causal interaction should be taken to be a sufficient condition of same substancehood. It briefly discusses the view that ‘radical emergence’ is impossible, and that some form of panpsychism is plausible.