The Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics is a definitive introduction to the core areas of metaphysics. It brings together sixteen internationally respected philosophers that demonstrate how metaphysics is done as they examine topics including causation, temporality, ontology, personal identity, idealism, and realism.

List of Contributors.Preface.1. Physics, Metaphysics, and Method in Newton's Dynamics:Lawrence Sklar.2. Causation: Wesley Salmon.3. What Events Are: Jonathan Bennett.4. Time, Temporality and Paradox, Richard M. Gale.5. A Thomist Metaphysics: John Haldane.6. The Concept of Ontological Catergory: a New Approach: LorenzPuntel.7. Universals and Predication: Bruce Aune.8. Composition as a Fiction: Gideon Rosen and Cian Dorr.9. What Do We Refer To When We Say 'I'? Peter van Inwagen.10. Personal Identity: The Non-Branching Form of 'What Matters':Jennifer E. Whiting.11. Idealism: T.L.S. Sprigge.12. An Idealistic Realism: Presuppositional Realism andJustifcatory Idealism: Nichlas Rescher.13. Overcoming a Dualism of Concepts and Causes: The BasicArgument of 'Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind': RobertBrandom.14. Metaphysical Realism and Logical Nonrealism: PanayotButchvarov.15. The Metaphysics of Possibilia: William Lycan.16. The Actual and the Possible: Alexander Pruss.Index.