This paper defends the view that Newtonian forces are real symmetrical and noncausal relations. In the first part, I argue that Newtonian forces are real; in the second part, that they are relations; in the third part, that they are symmetrical relations; in the fourth part, that they are not causal relations, (but causal relata) by which I mean that they are not species of causation. The overa...

In Chapter 2 of Beyond Physicalism, I suggest that mystical experience, if a source of genuine metaphysical insight, can shed light on a variety of extraordinary phenomena, including psi and near-death experience, as well as the mystery that is ordinary consciousness. It is striking that mystics are often left with the conviction that they came into contact with deeper realities during their ex...

James Ladyman and Donald Ross’s broadside against traditional analytic metaphysics embodies the most admirable characteristics of a good slap across the face: it is forceful, frank, and delivered in response to sufficient provocation. Ladyman and Ross are quite right to point out that much of analytic metaphysics, when it seeks to take the findings of the empirical sciences into account at all,...

In Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (2007) and an earlier article in this journal, "Defending Abortion Philosophically"(2006), Francis Beckwith argues that fetuses are, from conception, prima facie wrong to kill. His arguments are based on what he calls a "metaphysics of the human person" known as "The Substance View." I argue that Beckwith's metaphysics does not s...

Questions about time have long been among the most discussed and most perplexing questions in metaphysics. What is the nature of time? Is change a necessary feature of time? Is the passage of time from past to future an illusion? As long as these questions have been asked, they have been at the center of major debates not only within philosophy but also at its boundaries. Disputes about topics ...