Includes bibliographical references and index

Introduction: What is Metaphysics? -- pt. 1. What are the Most General Features of the World? -- What is the Relationship between an Individual and its Characteristics? -- 1. Universals and Resemblances: Chapter 1 of Thinking and Experience / H.H. Price -- 2. Elements of Being / D.C. Williams -- 3. Principle of Individuation: an Excerpt from Human Knowledge, its Scope and Limits / Bertrand Russell -- 4. Distinct Indiscernibles and the Bundle Theory / Dean W. Zimmerman -- What is Time? What is Space? -- 5. Time: an Excerpt from The Nature of Existence / J. McT. E. McTaggart -- 6. McTaggart's Arguments against the Reality of Time: an Excerpt from Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy / C.D. Broad -- 7. Notion of the Present / A.N. Prior -- 8. General Problem of Time and Change: an Excerpt from Scientific Thought / C.D. Broad -- 9. Space-Time World: an Excerpt from Philosophy and Scientific Realism / J.J.C. Smart -- 10. Topis, Soris, Noris: an Excerpt from The Existence of Space and Time / Ian Hinckfuss -- 11. Some Free Thinking about Time / A.N. Prior -- 12. Fourth Dimension: an Excerpt from The Ambidextrous Universe / Martin Gardner -- 13. Incongruent Counterparts and Higher Dimensions / James Van Cleve -- 14. Achilles and the Tortoise / Max Black -- 15. Contemporary Look at Zeno's Paradoxes: an Excerpt from Space, Time, and Motion / Wesley C. Salmon -- 16. Grasping the Infinite / Jose A. Benardete -- 17. Paradoxes of Time Travel / David Lewis -- How do Things Persist through Changes of Parts and Properties? -- 18. Of Confused Subjects which are Equivalent to Two Subjects: an Excerpt from The Port-Royal Logic / Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole -- 19. Identity through Time / Roderick M. Chisholm -- 20. Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis / W.V.O. Quine -- 21. Identity: an Excerpt from Quiddities / W.V.O. Quine -- 22. In Defense of Stages: Postscript B to "Survival and Identity" / David Lewis -- 23. Some Problems about Time / Peter Geach -- 24. Problem of Temporary Intrinsics: an Excerpt from On the Plurality of Worlds / David Lewis -- 25. Temporary Intrinsics and Presentism / Dean W. Zimmerman -- How do Causes Bring about their Effects? -- 26. Constant Conjunction: an Excerpt from a Treatise of Human Nature / David Hume -- 27. Efficient Cause and Active Power: an Excerpt from Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind / Thomas Reid -- 28. Psychological and Physical Causal Laws: an Excerpt from The Analysis of Mind / Bertrand Russell -- 29. Causality: an Excerpt from A Modern Introduction to Logic / L. Susan Stebbing -- 30. Causality and Determination / G.E.M. Anscombe -- pt. 2. What is our Place in the World? -- How is the Appearance of a Thing Related to the Thing that Appears? -- 31. Theory of Sensa: an Excerpt from Scientific Thought / C.D. Broad -- 32. Qualities: an Excerpt from Consciousness and Causality / D.M. Armstrong -- 33. Status of Appearances: an Excerpt from Theory of Knowledge (1st edition) / Roderick M. Chisholm -- What is the Relation between Mind and Body? -- 34. Which Physical Thing Am I? An Excerpt from "Is There a Mind-Body Problem?" / Roderick M. Chisholm -- 35. Personal Identity: a Materialist Account / Sydney Shoemaker -- 36. Divided Minds and the Nature of Persons / Derek Parfit -- 37. Personal Identity: the Dualist Theory / Richard Swinburne -- 38. Puzzle of Conscious Experience / David J. Chalmers -- Is it Possible for Us to Act Freely? -- 39. Free Will as Involving Determination and Inconceivable without It / R.E. Hobart -- 40. Human Freedom and the Self / Roderick M. Chisholm -- 41. Mystery of Metaphysical Freedom / Peter van Inwagen -- 42. Agent as Cause / Timothy O'Connor -- pt. 3. Is there Just One World? -- 43. Speaking of Objects / W.V.O. Quine -- 44. After Metaphysics, What? / Hilary Putnam -- 45. Truth and Convention / Hilary Putnam -- 46. Nonabsolute Existence and Conceptual Relativity: an Excerpt from "Putnam's Pragmatic Realism" / Ernest Sosa -- 47. Addendum to "Nonabsolute Existence and Conceptual Relativity": Objections and Replies / Ernest Sosa -- pt. 4. Why is there a World? -- Is There an Answer? -- 48. Problem of Being: Chapter 3 of Some Problems of Philosophy / William James -- 49. Puzzle of Reality: Why does the Universe Exist? / Derek Parfit -- 50. Response to Derek Parfit / Richard Swinburne -- Does the Answer Involve a Necessary Being? -- 51. Cosmological Argument and the Principle of Sufficient Reason / William L. Rowe -- 52. Ontological Argument: Chapters II-IV of the Proslogion / St. Anselm -- 53. Anselm's Ontological Arguments / Norman Malcolm -- pt. 5. Is Metaphysics Possible? -- 54. Rejection of Metaphysics: Chapter 1 of Philosophy and Logical Syntax / Rudolf Carnap -- 55. Postmodernism, Feminism, and Metaphysics: an Excerpt from Thinking Fragments / Jane Flax -- 56. Metaphysics and Feminist Theory: Excerpts from "Feminist Metaphysics" and "Anti-Essentialism in Feminist Theory" / Charlotte Witt