What is Metaphysics?
What is Philosophy?
1. Edition September 2021
176 Pages, Hardcover
Handbook/Reference Book
Short Description
If we didn't possess certain beliefs about such things as time, appearance and reality, and how effect follows cause, we wouldn't be able to get out of bed in the morning, let alone read a book about metaphysics, which is the study of our experience and those ideas, or presuppositions, which allow us to make sense of it.
Drawing on examples from art, science, and daily life, John Heil shows how metaphysics begins in questioning our everyday assumptions about how the world "works" and ends with speculation on the nature of the universe itself. In chapters that cover the major topics in the academic study of metaphysics, from free will and consciousness to time and objectivity, Heil explains how metaphysical questions underpin everything human beings do.
This accessible book will show you how professional philosophers try to categorize and make sense of our world of perception and experience and explains why everyone should take metaphysics seriously.
If we didn't possess certain beliefs about such things as time, appearance and reality, and how effect follows cause, we wouldn't be able to get out of bed in the morning, let alone read a book about metaphysics, which is the study of our experience and those ideas, or presuppositions, which allow us to make sense of it.
Drawing on examples from art, science, and daily life, John Heil shows how metaphysics begins in questioning our everyday assumptions about how the world "works" and ends with speculation on the nature of the universe itself. In chapters that cover the major topics in the academic study of metaphysics, from free will and consciousness to time and objectivity, Heil explains how metaphysical questions underpin everything human beings do.
This accessible book will show you how professional philosophers try to categorize and make sense of our world of perception and experience and explains why everyone should take metaphysics seriously.
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Time goes By - Or Does It?
Chapter 3 Appearance and Reality
Chapter 4 What there Is
Chapter 5 What Else there Is
Chapter 6 One from Many, Many from One
Chapter 7 Aristotle vs Hume
Chapter 8 Is this Chapter Really Necessary?
Chapter 9 Conscious Minds
Chapter 10 Free Will
Chapter 11 Are We there Yet?
Index
Kristie Miller, University of Sydney
"This precious short book has as its aim to demonstrate, by example, the inevitability and pervasiveness of metaphysics. John Heil leads readers through the main metaphysical topics, enabling them to become aware of their own metaphysical preconceptions and to start thinking about those topics in a reflective way. An essential book."
Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra, University of Oxford
