Oxford Studies In Metaphysics

OXFORD STUDIES IN METAPHYSICS Volume 1 Edited by Dean W. Zimmerman CLARENDON PRESS OXFORD 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Sa˜o Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York ß the several contributors 2004 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 0-19-926772-3 ISBN 0-19-9267731 (pbk.) 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Typeset by Kolam Information Services Pvt. Ltd, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd., King’s Lynn, Norfolk PREFACE Oxford Studies in Metaphysics is dedicated to the timely publication of new work in metaphysics, broadly construed. The subject is taken to include not only perennially central topics (e.g. modality, ontology, and mereology; metaphysical theories of causation, laws of nature, persistence through time, and time itself; and realism and anti-realism in the many senses of these terms); but also the rich clusters of metaphysical questions that emerge within other subfields, such as philosophy of mind (e.g. questions about supervenience and materialism, the nature of qualia, mental causation), philosophy of science (e.g. the metaphysical implications of relativity and quantum physics, the ontology of biological species), and philosophy of religion (e.g. theories of universals, causation, or modality that incorporate theological assumptions; examination of the metaphysics of theism, such as the doctrine of divine simplicity or the Molinist’s ‘‘counterfactuals of freedom’’). In addition to independent essays, volumes will often contain critical discussion of a recent book, or a symposium in which participants respond to one another’s criticisms and questions. Future volumes will include essays by winners of the Oxford Studies in Metaphy