Oxford Studies in Metaphysics

Offprint from OXFORD STUDIES IN ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Record linkage in studies of cerebrovascular disease in Oxford, England.

Record Linkage in Studies of Cerebrovascular Disease in Oxford, England • Data collected by record linkage are used as a basis for an analysis of the burden of cerebrovascular diseases in a population of 340,000 in central England. Comparison with studies which use other methods in the United States and England indicate that for all cerebrovascular diseases together, and for subarachnoid hemorr...

By Peter Godfrey - Smith Theories and Models in Metaphysics METAPHYSICS

METAPHYSICS Peter Godfrey-Smith is professor of philosophy at Harvard University. He works primarily in the philosophy of biology and the philosophy of mind. He also has a more general interest in the philosophy of science, and makes excursions into metaphysics and epistemology. He has published two books so far: Complexity and the Function of Mind in Nature (1996) and Theory and Reality (2003)...

Laws in Metaphysics

Humean metaphysics versus a metaphysics of powers

The paper considers the opposition between Humean metaphysics and the metaphysics of powers, focusing on laws, probabilities and causation. It argues that within Humean metaphysics, everything is a matter of contingency. Consequently, there is no deep metaphysical difference between a deterministic world and a world in which only probabilistic laws hold. This position is contrasted with the fou...