Matters of Metaphysics

This selection of Professor Mellor's work gathers together sixteen major papers on related topics written over the past fifteen years. Together they form a complete modern metaphysics. The book starts with the mind: the subjectivity of the self, consciousness, how like computers we are, and how psychology relates to physics. It then tackles dispositions, natural kinds, physical necessity, objective chances, laws of nature, and the relation of properties to predicates. From this it moves on to causation: what it relates, how it works, how it accomodates chance and defines one definition of time. Finally, the author shows how chance should affect our expectations and decisions, and how it solves the notorious problem of induction.