The Elements and Patterns of Being

The Harvard philosopher Donald C. Williams (1899-1983) was a key figure in the history of analytic philosophy. He played a crucial role in reviving metaphysics at a time when other philosophers ridiculed, criticized, and committed it to the flames. He constructed an explanatorily powerful and parsimonious ontology and cosmology founded on logic, science, and common sense. His most influential articles were on the metaphysics of properties ('The Elements of Being') and the metaphysics of time ('The Sea Fight Tomorrow', 'The Myth of Passage'). His ontology of abstract particulars or tropes and his four-dimensional manifold theory of time remain leading hypotheses in metaphysics. Because of his novel contributions and his defense of metaphysics he made a lasting impact on philosophers of the next generation who in turn believed in the substance of metaphysical inquiry. A. R. J. Fisher brings together Williams's seminal articles in metaphysics along with previously unpublished essays that shed new light on his philosophical outlook and complete his metaphysical vision. This volume, with its comprehensive Introduction, is set to be the definitive source for Williams's work, both for historians of analytic philosophy and for contemporary metaphysicians.

Auteur

Donald Cary Williams (1899-1983) was professor of philosophy at UCLA from 1930 to 1939 and then at Harvard until his retirement in 1967. He was the author of The Grounds of Induction (Harvard 1947) and many essays, some of which were collected in Principles of Empirical Realism (C. C. Thomas 1966). A.R.J. Fisher is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. He was the Bader Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy at Queen's University (2015-16) and a Newton International Fellow of the British Academy (2014-15). Before that he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Dalhousie University (2012-13) and received his PhD from Syracuse University in 2012. He specialises in Metaphysics and the History of Analytic Philosophy. He has published numerous articles in such journals as the British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Journal of the American Philosophical Association, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Studies, Synthese, and The Monist.