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In this paper I shall “draw” a sketch of a version of Meinongian Presentism. After having briefly presented some data that presentists need to explain and three problems that typically affect presentism (the triviality objection, the problem of the reference of true propositions’ constituents that seem to involve merely past and merely future objects, the truthmaking problem), I shall clarify the bases of my theory. First, I shall reject the actualist presentist assumption, according to which there are no things that do not exist now. Secondly, I shall introduce some notions (e.g., the ones of tensed properties and of temporal existence) that will be useful in order to clarify the contrast between eternalist and non-eternalist metaphysical theories of time. Thirdly, I shall define Meinongian Presentism. Finally, I shall try to demonstrate that this version can deal with the aforementioned problems and with the presentist data in a serious and perspicuous way.

In this essay, I define the notion of the largest proper parts of a mereological whole. I then argue that since there are some entities that have such parts, it follows that classical extensional mereology is false.

Proponents of supervaluationism claim super-truth, i. e., truth on every admissible precisification, is identical to truth or, at least, is a suitable truth proxy. I object that super-truth is neither identical to nor a suitable proxy for truth. I argue that to claim a statement is super-true is simply to maintain that a certain counterfactual holds, and that a claim is true, counterfactually, is no reason to treat it as true. I further argue that, with super-truth undermined, Roy Sorensen’s objection that supervaluationism cannot accommodate vague directly referential terms presents supervaluationism’s defenders with a significant challenge.

S. C. Gibb holds that some mental events enable physical events to take place by acting as ‘double preventers’ which prevent other mental events from effecting change in the physical domain. She argues that this enables a dualist account of psychophysical interaction consistent with the causal relevance of mental events, their distinctness from physical events, the causal closure of the physical and the exclusion of systematic overdetermination. While accepting the causal powers metaphysic, this paper argues that: Closure is maintained only on the assumption of an implausible pre-ordained harmony between preventing and double-preventing mental events. Distinctness is preserved only at the cost of positing brute unexplained powers of mental and physical events to causally interact with each other. Exclusion is systematically violated in a substantial number of everyday cases. The case for Relevance made by the Double Prevention model is accordingly too weak to sustain a dualist approach to mental causation.

It is often claimed that realists about universals must be either “platonists”, holding that universals lack spatio-temporal location, or “aristotelians”, asserting that universals are located where their instances are. What’s more, both camps agree that locatedness or unlocatedness is part of the essential nature of universals; consequently, aristotelians say that universals cannot exist un located, and platonists allege that universals cannot be located. Here I argue that the dispute may be resolved by synthesizing the most attractive features of each position. I claim that universals are located at their instances when instantiated by particulars which themselves possess a spatio-temporal location; however, uninstantiated universals exist without location. This has the consequence that it will often be a contingent matter whether a given universal has a location, if the universal is only contingently instantiated. Nevertheless, I claim, objections to this position may be overcome.

We argue that if one wishes to be a realist, one should adopt a realist ontology involving tropes instead of a Russellian ontology of property universals and objects. Either Russellian realists should adopt relata-specific relational tropes of instantiation instead of facts, or, better, convert to Neo-Aristotelian realism with monadic tropes. Regarding Neo-Aristotelian realism, we have two novel points why it fares better than Russellian realism. (1) Instantiation of property universals by tropes, and characterisation or inherence between tropes and objects, are more transparent ontological notions than relational inherence, which is assumed in Russellian realism with the relational tropes of instantiation. (2) Neo-Aristotelian realism makes better sense about abstract universals, which are a more viable option than concrete universals.

Lady Mary Shepherd’s critique of Hume’s account of causation, his worries about knowledge of matters of fact, and the contention that it is possible for the course of nature to spontaneously change relies primarily on three premises, two of which – that objects are merely bundles of qualities and that the qualities of an object are individuated by the causal powers contributed by those qualities – anticipate contemporary metaphysical views in ways that she should be getting credit for. The remaining premise – that it is impossible for an object to begin to exist uncaused – seems more old fashioned. I argue that Shepherd can do without her old-fashioned premise and that she provides the materials for arguing that her remaining premises demonstrate a stronger anti-Humeanism than is maintained even by the contemporary representatives of those views, even though she may have to concede more to Humeanism than she would like.

The standard philosophical analysis of counterfactual conditionals – the Lewis-Stalnaker analysis – analyzes the truth-conditions of counterfactuals in terms of nearby possible worlds. This paper demonstrates that this analysis is false. Section 1 shows that it is a serious epistemic and metaphysical possibility that our “world” is a massive computer simulation, and that if the Lewis-Stalnaker analysis of counterfactuals is correct, then it should extend seamlessly to the case that our world is a computer simulation, in the form of a possible-simulation semantics . Section 2 then shows that a Lewis-Stalnaker-style possible-simulation semantics clearly fails as an analysis of the truth-conditions of counterfactuals in two types of simulated worlds: Humean Simulations and Necessitarian simulations. Section 3 then considers and answers several objections. Finally, Section 4 draws several skeptical lessons about counterfactuals.