An Introduction to Metametaphysics

Tuomas E. Tahko is a University Lecturer in Theoretical Philosophy and a Finnish Academy Research Fellow at the University of Helsinki. He is the editor of Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics (Cambridge, 2012) and author of numerous articles in journals, including Mind, The Philosophical Quarterly, Erkenntnis and Thought.

This is the first systematic student introduction to metametaphysics, examining the nature, foundations and methodology of metaphysical inquiry.

1. Why should you care about metametaphysics?; 1.1. Metametaphysics or metaontology?; 1.2. How to read this book; 1.3. Chapter outlines; 1.4. Further reading; 2. Quine vs Carnap: on what there is and what there isn't; 2.1. On what there is; 2.2. Plato's beard; 2.3. Enter Meinong; 2.4. External and internal questions; 2.5. Language pluralism; 3. Quantification and ontological commitment; 3.1. The meaning of the existential quantifier; 3.2. The existential quantifier and ontological commitment; 3.3. Quantifier variance and verbal debates; 3.4. Beyond existence questions; 4. Identifying the alternatives: ontological realism, deflationism, and conventionalism; 4.1. Ontological realism and anti-realism; 4.2. Ontological deflationism; 4.3. Towards extreme conventionalism; 4.4. A case study: Sider's ontological realism; 4.5. Taking stock; 5. Grounding and ontological dependence; 5.1. Ontological dependence: a fine-grained notion; 5.2. Identity-dependence and essential dependence; 5.3. Is grounding ontological dependence?; 5.4. Formal features of ground; 5.5. Grounding, causation, reduction, and modality; 5.6. Grounding and truthmaking; 6. Fundamentality and levels of reality; 6.1. The 'levels' metaphor; 6.2. Mereological fundamentality; 6.3. Further specifications: well-foundedness and dependence; 6.4. Generic ontological fundamentality; 6.5. Fundamentality and physics; 7. The epistemology of metaphysics: a priori or a posteriori?; 7.1. A priori vs a posteriori; 7.2. Modal rationalism and a priori methods; 7.3. The epistemology of essence; 7.4. Modal empiricism and the status of armchair methods; 7.5. Combining a priori and a posteriori methods; 8. Intuitions and thought experiments in metaphysics; 8.1. Specifying 'intuition'; 8.2. Intuitions and experimental philosophy; 8.3. Experience-based intuitions; 8.4. Rational intuition; 8.5. Scientific thought experiments; 8.6. Philosophical thought experiments; 9. Demarcating metaphysics and science: can metaphysics be naturalized?; 9.1. Autonomous metaphysics; 9.2. Fully naturalistic metaphysics; 9.3. The Principle of Naturalistic Closure and the Primacy of Physics; 9.4. Methodological similarities; 9.5. Moderately naturalistic metaphysics; Glossary; Bibliography; Index.