Abstract The recent holistic trends in metaphysics are surveyed here and a tentative typology is offered. The non-linear mode of composition is suggested as the key feature of holism, apart from its familiar non-reductionism and emergentism. It is argued that those holistic views are promising that refrain from extreme relationalism based on the denial of there being self-subsistence particulars; also, those refraining from the postulation of an unarticulated all-embracing whole where both relations and terms are denied to be genuine ontological items. The further suggestion is that a trade-off between the holistic perspective and the limits imposed upon it in the form of built-in confinements may help in making this metaphysics go.

Grounding is typically associated to metaphysical explanation on the basis of the explanatory role's being characteristic of grounding as well. Some even say that all what metaphysical explanation does is tracking the grounding relation. However, recently Maurin has argued that grounding does not "inherit" its properties from metaphysical explanation and, consequently, we should be "separatists". In this paper separatism will be defended from the perspective of metaphysical explanation thus giving a turn to the separatist strategy. In particular, the structural difference between grounding and metaphysical explanation will be pointed out as affecting also the explanatory function. It will be shown how dispositions and essentialist claims play different roles in the two theories. Lastly, it will be claimed that the two theories diverge on accounting for law-like and accidental generalizations. Provided these arguments are sound, there will be good reason to tell metaphysical explanation apart from grounding.

In this paper I show that a novel ontic reading of explanation, intending to capture the de re essential features of individuals, can support the qualitative view of individual essences. It is argued further that the putative harmful consequences of the Leibniz Principle (PII) and its converse for the qualitative view can be avoided, provided that individual essences are not construed in the style of the naïve bundle theory with set-theoretical identity- conditions. Adopting either the more sophisticated two-tier BT or, alternatively, the neo-Aristotelian position of taking essences as natures in the Aristotelian sense, can help to evade these main charges against the qualitative view. The functional parallels with the alternative haecceitistic view of individuation and individual essence will also be considered.

Abstract The relevance of mereology for metaphysics is a perennial theme. In particular, the part-whole relation is applied recently to colocated qua-objects of different sortals: say, a statue and its constituting piece of clay. K. Koslicki (2008. The structure of objects. Oxford: Oxford University Press) claims that only the lump is part of the statue; moreover, its proper part, but not vice versa since the statue has an immaterial part not shared by the lump. She backs her claim by appealing to the weak supplementation principle (WSP). M. Donnelly (2011. “Using mereological principles to support metaphysics.” The philosophical quarterly 61:225–46) is critical with the asymmetry argument. I point out that the asymmetry argument trades on the equivocity of the very notion of “part”. In the Aristotelian-scholastic tradition Koslicki’s neo-Aristotelianism appeals to, “part” shows up with various meanings not all of them admitting the mereological reading of “part” her argument hinges on. With her argument, the absurd consequence ensues that the lump can also be shown to have an immaterial part not shared by the statue. I show that the presumed immaterial parts cannot be proper parts of composites, only their improper parts. Thus they fail to fall under (WSP). My ultimate goal is to disentangle the mereological and the metaphysical threads by showing what goes with what without taking sides either with the mereologist or the traditional metaphysician.

Prior’s hitherto unpublished “Fable of the Four Preachers” illuminates the connection of the metaphysical issues of trans-world identity with moral trans-world continuity. The paper shows Prior’s position with regard to genuine de re temporal possibility of individuals on the basis of chapter VIII of his Papers on Time and Tense . His position is that radical coming-into-being is not a genuine de re temporal possibility of individuals since there is no identifiable individual, before birth, who could be the subject of such possibility. The paper strengthens Prior’s claim by showing how an uncomfortable consequence of this intuitively appealing position can be avoided. As a result, the proper claim would be that the possibility of origin is general or de dicto: it is possible that someone be born to such and parents, but it is not possible of someone that he should be born to these or other parents.

Two arguments are offered here for postulating individual essences of concrete individuals on top of their sortal essences. One is the explanatory gap argument, the other draws on the analogy with the individual essences of events presupposed in single causal explanations. These arguments support qualitative individual essences with explanatory goals as opposed to hybrid impure relational essences accounting for origin and numerical identity. It is highlighted why origin properties as parts of impure relational essences do not yield genuine de re constructions. The distinction between the two types of individual essences is traced back to the ambiguity of the very notion of individuation.

This book supports a version of the trope-bundle view of individual substances matching also with a coherent account of change, individuation and individual essences. In particular, it is argued that qualitative individuation and qualitative individual essences can be tackled within the frames of a trope account. The adoption of a trope BT together with the individuation of tropes via the bearer substance might create the feeling of circularity since tropes and substances seem mutually to individuate each other. The novel solution to the problem developed here consists in showing that the individuation of concrete individual substances is independent, in crucial respects, from the fact that they are construed as bundles of tropes. Apart from metaphysician colleagues, the book is recommended for advanced students in analytic metaphysics.

Eliminativist metaphysicians have recently explored various arguments, including those about over-determination, colocation, the problem of the Many and ontological parsimony, for dispensing with kinds and their token continuants. Further, David Lewis's missing "real temporary intrinsics" has paved the way to treating the sortal and the modal properties yielding the persistence conditions of continuants as unreal because they are extrinsic. In this paper I show, first, that none of the arguments mentioned above are decisive against the disputed entities. Second, I argue that the sortal/modal properties, while extrinsic, are also real, because they are constitutive of kinds. The general point is that modal conceptualism should not be conflated with a cheap version of semanticism. The position advocated here is based on closing the gap between the metaphysical and the epistemic perspectives.