The Elements and Patterns of Being Essays in Metaphysics

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 A. R. J. Fisher brings together Williams's seminal articles in metaphysics along with previously unpublished essays that shed new light on his philosophical outlook and complete his metaphysical vision.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.

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 Ground 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 received his PhD from Syracuse University in 2012. He specializes in Metaphysics and the History of Analytic Philosophy.