This volume introduces readers to a selected number of core issues in metaphysics that have been central in the history of philosophy and remain foundational to contemporary debates, that is: substances; properties; modality and essence; causality; determinism and free will. Anna Marmodoro and Erasmus Mayr take a neo-Aristotelian approach both in the selection and presentation of the topics. But Marmodoro and Mayr's discussion is not narrowly partisan-it consistently presents opposing sides of the debate and addresses issues from different philosophical traditions, and encourages readers to draw their own conclusions about them.Metaphysics combines a state-of-the-art presentation of the issues that takes into account the most recent developments in the field, with extensive references to the history of philosophy. The book thus makes topics in contemporary analytical metaphysics easily accessible to readers who have no specific background in contemporary philosophy, but rather in the history of philosophy. At the same time, it will engage readers who do not have any historical background with some key developments within the history of the subject.

AcknowledgementsIntroductionChapter 1. Substance1.1 Introduction1.2 Substance versus properties1.3 Substrate and properties, or bundles of tropes?1.4 Aristotle's hylomorphism1.5 Persistence of the substance1.6 ConclusionsChapter 2. Properties and relations2.1 Introduction2.2. Do properties exist? Realism versus nominalism2.3 Reductionism and Fundamentality2.4 Dispositional properties (aka powers) and categorical properties2.5 Are powers genuine and irreducible properties?2.6 Are pure powers 'enough' to build the world out of?2.7 Relations versus monadic properties2.8 ConclusionsChapter 3. Modality and Essence3.1. Introduction3.2. Aristotle's essentialism3.3. Against essentialism and non-logical necessity: Quine's critique of de re necessity3.4. The revival of de re necessity and essentialism3.4.1 Possible worlds3.4.2 A posteriori necessity3.5. Powers and modality3.6 ConclusionsChapter 4. Causality4.1 Introduction4.2 Some Neo-Humean developments4.3 Aristotle's theory of causation4.4 Are there active and passive powers involved in causation?4.5. Mental Causation4.6 ConclusionChapter 5. Determinism and Free Will5.1 Introduction5.2. A brief history of compatibilism and incompatibilism5.3 The Consequence argument and the fortunes of incompatibilism5.4 Moral responsibility and Free Will5.5 Free will and the 'new dispositionalism'5.6 ConclusionConclusionBibliography