Metaphysics and Explanation

This volume offers an unusual variety of topics presented during the fifth annual Oberlin Colloquium in Philosophy. Essays topics include: a dispute of the standard deductivist account of scientific testability; two definitions of \u201cnonsense\u201d that are closely related and correlate to science's concern with truth and philosophy's concern with concepts; contesting the causes of voluntary actions purported in Hart and Honor\u00e9's Causation and the Law; distinguishing two kinds of metaphysical tasks-—taxonomic and evaluative; and discussions of \u201cwhat a thing is\u201d in terms of its qualities and particulars and the distinction between numerical and conceptual differences, universals and individuation.