by
J. R.
LUCAS
Fellow of Merton College, Oxford
2006
c J.R. Lucas
Typeset by J.R. Lucas using TEX
to
Bernard Williams
and
all who argued with me
Contents
Falliblity and Reality
To view a chapter, click on chapter number within red border
Chapter 1
x1.1 Wrong?
x1.2 Is Metaphysics Possible?
x1.3 Is Metaphysics Necessary?
x1.4 The Natural History of Reason
x1.5 Pro and Con
x1.6 Argument and Agreement
x1.7 Authority and Autonomy
Chapter 2 Development of Normative Reason 25
x2.1 Noncontradiction
x2.2 `Not' and `And'
x2.3 Godelian Arguments
x2.4 Mathematical Dialogues
x2.5 All, Any, Every and Each
x2.6 Induction
x2.7 Practical Reason
x2.8 Empathy and Other Minds
x2.9 Reason
Chapter 3 A Critique of Critical Reasoning 73
x3.1 Scepticism
x3.2 Knowledge and Doubt
x3.3 Autonomy
x3.4 Inductive Scepticism
x3.5 Predictions Vindicated
x3.6 A Gruesome Universe?
x3.7 Degrees of Similarity
x3.8 Natural Kinds
x3.9 Limits of Critical Reasoning
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Cause and Explanation
100
x4.1 Explanation
x4.2 Why?
x4.3 BeCauses
x4.4 Hume on the Meaning of Cause
x4.5 The Concept of Causal Cause
x4.6 Causal Necessity
x4.7 The Epistemology of Causal Laws
x4.8 Discovering Causal Connexions
x4.9 Causal Reductionism
Chapter 5 Projectivism and Probability
130
x5.1 Projectivism
x5.2 Degrees of Belief
x5.3 The Marriage of Arithmetic with Boole
x5.4 Assigning Probabilities
x5.5 : : : and Statistics
x5.6 The Limits of Ignorance
x5.7 Unprojected Reality
Chapter 6 The Tree in the Lonely Quad
147
x6.1 Phenomenalism and Solipsism
x6.2 How Do You Know?
x6.3 The Argument from Illusion
x6.4 The Argument from the Senses
x6.5 The Argument from Facts
x6.6 Rebuttals
x6.7 Arguments against Phenomenalism
x6.8 Reality Recovered
x6.9 The Analogy of Feeling
x6.10 Criteria
x6.11 The Argument from Deception
x6.12 Myself and Others
x6.13 Understanding People
x6.14 Conclusion
Chapter 4
vi
Existence and Universals
178
x7.1 Universals
x7.2 Existence
x7.3 Platonism
x7.4 Mathematical Platonism
x7.5 Nominalism
x7.6 Conceptualism
x7.7 Natural Kinds
x7.8 Modifying Logic
x7.9 Umbrian Universals
x7.10 Aristotelian Actuality
Chapter 8 Appearance and Unreality
219
x8.1 `Real'
x8.2 Antirealisms
x8.3 Appearances
x8.4 Plato against Appearance
x8.5 Empiricism
x8.6 The Cave
x8.7 Beyond
Chapter 9 The Search for the Ultimate
246
x9.1 The Ontological Argument
x9.2 \Existence Is Not a Predicate"
x9.3 The Search for the Superlative
x9.4 The Logic of the Mostest
x9.5 Togetherness and Res Extensa
x9.6 Corpuscularianism
x9.7 The Plenum and the Void: Arena and Explanation
x9.8 Penultimate Imperfections
Chapter 10
Points of View
279
x10.1 Locality
x10.2 Causal Cones
x10.3 Minkowski Spacetime
x10.4 Windowed Monads
x10.5 Covariance
x10.6 Perspectives
x10.7 McTaggart and Mellor
x10.8 Tense and Temporality
Chapter 7
vii
Quantum Mechanics
Chapter 11
307
11.1 Unhistory
11.2 The Inner Cave
11.3 Discreteness and Continuity
11.4 From von Neumann to Kochen-Specker
11.5 From EPR via JSB to GHZ
11.6 Non-locality
11.7 The \Measurement Problem"
11.8 Knowing and Being
11.9 The Uncertainty Principle
11.10 Nullary Qualities
11.11 Indiscernability and Haecceitas
11.12 Quantum Realism
11.13 Quantum Philosophy
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Chapter 12
12.1
12.2
12.3
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12.6
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Chapter 13
13.1
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13.6
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Time
347
Time and Change
Leibniz and Relationism
Spacetime
Time and Electromagnetism
Tense and Modality
Augustine, Instants and Intervals
The Topology of Time
The Metric of Time
Tense and Reality
Reductionism
Pervasive Pressure
Laplace
Isolation and Chaos
Indeterminism
Supervenience
Haecceity
Levels of Explanation
The Virtues of Irrelevance
Pluralist Monism
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Chapter 14
14.1
14.2
14.3
14.4
14.5
14.6
14.7
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Chapter 15
15.1
15.2
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Persons
Minds and Bodies
Consciousness
A Mind of One's Own
Fusion and Fission
In Praise of Bodies
The Subjective View
Secondary Qualities
Conjugating Viewpoints
Inconclusions
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455
The Restoration of Reason
The Pressure of Reason on Reality
Personal Reason and Reality
Recalcitrance and Actuality
Metaphysical Argument
Questioning Quest
ix