Metaphysics, Method and Politics: The Political Philosophy of RG Collingwood

Abstract

n the first two chapters, we examine one of the oldest and most funda- mental of the debates over categories, the debate over the existence and nature of universals. Here, the central question is whether our metaphysical theory must include among its basic categories things which can be common to or shared by numerically different objects. In Chapter One, we examine the views of those (called “metaphysical realists”) who answer the question affirmatively, and in Chapter Two, we consider the accounts provided by those (called “nominalists”) who defend a negative answer to the question. In Chapter Three, we turn to an examination of the nature and structure of familiar concrete particulars. In Chapter Four, we examine debates about the existence and nature of a family of complex entities. In Chapter Five, we discuss the different accounts recent metaphysicians have given of the concept of a possible world and the ways these accounts have figured in their theories of modality. The chapter on causation (Chapter 6) discusses Hume’s attack on the idea of necessary connection and his analysis of causation as constant conjunction; then, the chapter considers more recent thinking about causation, including both work that is critical of the Humean approach and work that attempts to defend a Humean, nonmodal account of causation. The chapter on time (Chapter 7) discusses McTaggart’s argument for the unreality of time and considers the responses to that argument by both so called A-theorists and B- theorists.