Metaphysics: The Fundamentals (Fundamentals of Philosophy) 1st Edition

The authors attempt to give an overview of not one impossibly difficult subject, but *dozens* of impossibly difficult subjects that are all closely interlinked with one another -- while explaining both sides of the contemporary debate for every issue and citing sources appropriately, using widely accepted terminology, without compromising clarity for beginners like me. While there are moments when they seem to go off on a bit of a tangent, or get a little bit too wrapped up in their terms (which is something I'm told analytic philosophers are prone to do), the book is, for the most part, a resounding success, and was an excellent companion to me in my undergraduate Intro to Metaphysics class. I couldn't write this, and neither could you; thank goodness Koons and Pickavance did.Unfortunately, the book persuaded me that books don't exist, so take my review of this non-book with a grain of salt. :)

1st rate resource. Great for a graduate level metaphysics course, or for the undergraduate that really wants to get ahead. Koons and Pickavance have continued this work with a longer and more thorough treatment, The Atlas of Reality: A Comprehensive Guide to Metaphysics, which is just that: comprehensive. Between these two books, you'll find everything you need to keep up with metaphysics on the contemporary scene.

Having read some on the subjects of time and possible worlds, I was surprised by the lucidity of insights provided in this introduction. The authors give a helpful foray into trope theory, and demarcate the parties debating causation and laws of nature. They masterfully manage a complex discussion on composition, keeping the reader oriented and encouraged. My only complaint is that they make some of their points — important, load-bearing points — extremely fast, in a sentence or two. In other places also I wish the book were longer, especially on the relationships between universals and laws of nature. But if you want to canvass the fundamentals, this book is time well-spent.

This manual is very useful for beginners in metaphysics, and is especially clear. Still, it has some major omissions and takes its premisses very seriously. One could expect the impossibility of a complete overview in an introductory book, but the problem to me is that some major themes or authors are not even mentioned, giving a quite one-sided view on the current state of metaphysics, especially on the matter of truthmakers, modality and meta-ontology. It often uses taxonomies which are not mainstream, making it more difficult to understand theorical separations as usually described in most studies and introductory papers. That said, my concerns are minor and for the presentation. It's certainly a good-enough starting point, and it's clear that the author is an expert in the field.