Metaphysics and Explanation

This volume offers an unusual variety of topics presented during the fifth annual Oberlin Colloquium in Philosophy. Essays topics include: a dispute of the standard deductivist account of scientific testability; two definitions of "nonsense" that are closely related and correlate to science's concern with truth and philosophy's concern with concepts; contesting the causes of voluntary actions purported in Hart and Honore's Causation and the Law; distinguishing two kinds of metaphysical tasks--taxonomic and evaluative; and discussions of "what a thing is" in terms of its qualities and particulars and the distinction between numerical and conceptual differences, universals and individuation.