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Work #1558 · Late period

Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology

Lewis's 1999 collection — metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind

David Lewis · 1999 · English · Philosophical essay collection (Cambridge series)

Tradition: Analytic metaphysics / modal realism / Humean supervenience

Lewis's 1999 collection — Humean supervenience, knowledge by acquaintance, properties as universals

Published by Cambridge University Press in 1999, 'Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology' is Volume Two of David Lewis's Collected Papers and collects key essays from across his career, with brief introductions by Lewis to each section. Major papers include: 'New Work for a Theory of Universals' (1983, the canonical late-Lewisian statement of his version of structural-property theory and the principal source for the 'sparse universals' position); 'Putnam's Paradox' (1984, on model-theoretic challenges to realism); 'A Subjectivist's Guide to Objective Chance' (1980, the Principal Principle paper that founded modern philosophy of probability); 'Causation as Influence' (1999/2000, the late-Lewisian revision of his classical 1973 counterfactual analysis of causation); 'Naming the Colours' (1997, on Frank Jackson's knowledge argument); 'Elusive Knowledge' (1996, the contextualist epistemology paper); 'Humean Supervenience Debugged' (1994, the central late statement of Lewis's metaphysical-naturalist programme: 'all there is to the world is a vast mosaic of local matters of particular fact' standing in spatiotemporal-distance relations); and 'Reduction of Mind' (1994). The volume is the principal reference for Lewis's metaphysical-epistemological positions outside the great single-volume works (Counterfactuals, On the Plurality of Worlds, Parts of Classes).

Author

Editions cited

  • Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology (Cambridge University Press, 1999)
  • Volume II of Lewis's Collected Papers (vol. I: Papers in Philosophical Logic; vol. III: Papers in Ethics and Social Philosophy, 2000)
  • Individual papers all originally published in journals or anthologies before 1999
  • Critical commentary: John Bigelow (ed.), Hume and Humean Supervenience (1998); Daniel Nolan, David Lewis (Acumen, 2005)
Compare this work

School Embodiments

Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism · 30%
Empiricism · 18%
Naturalism · 14%
Realism · 10%
Structuralism · 10%
Analytic Philosophy · 8%
Modal Realism · 8%
Analytic Metaphysics / Logical Atomism 30%

Canonical Lewisian analytic-metaphysics essays.

"Humean supervenience: all there is to the world is a vast mosaic of local matters of particular fact." (Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology, introduction)
Empiricism 18%

Defining late-Lewisian Humean-supervenience programme.

"Humean Supervenience Debugged." (Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology, included)
Naturalism 14%

Naturalistic background.

"Reduction to a respectable naturalistic base." (Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology, on properties)
Realism 10%

Realism about properties, causation, chance.

"Universals are real abstract entities." (New Work for a Theory of Universals)
Structuralism 10%

Structural-property theory.

"Properties as structural primitives." (Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology)
Analytic Philosophy 8%

Analytic-philosophical tradition.

Modal Realism 8%

Modal-realist tradition.

Internal Tensions

Principal reference volume for Lewis's metaphysics and epistemology. The Humean-supervenience thesis ('all there is to the world is a vast mosaic of local matters of particular fact') has been continuously productive and contested; the New Work paper on sparse universals shaped subsequent debates over natural properties; the Principal Principle paper founded modern philosophy of objective chance.

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I. Time

1999. Lewis was 58, two years before his October 2001 death from diabetes complications.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Grain: Continuous Freedom: Deterministic Traversability: Linear Direction: Uni-directional Dimensionality: One
✦

II. Space

Princeton — Lewis's institutional base from 1970 until his death.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Curvature: Flat Dimensionality: Three Locality: Local
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III. Matter

Single volume of essays (~450 pages). The papers span 1980-1999.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Conserved Dimensionality: Three Locality: Local
◎

IV. Observer

Late Lewis. The observer-philosopher is positioned at the close of a long career, organising his decisive metaphysical-epistemological work for the first time in a single accessible collection.

Attributes
Time Instance: Single Space Instance: Single Knowledge Extent: Mediated Knowledge Retainment: Partial Physicality: Embodied Agency: Active Number: Plural Metaphysical Agency: Impersonal
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V. Energy

Synthesising energies. Lewis added brief introductions to each section explaining his retrospective view of how the papers fit together.

Attributes
Extent: Infinite Ontological Status: Substantival Conservation: Conserved Dispersibility: Irreversible
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VI. Information

Cambridge Collected Papers, vol. 2. Contains the principal late-Lewisian statements on universals, chance, causation, knowledge, and Humean supervenience.

Attributes
Ontological Status: Substantival Cosmic Conservation: Conserved Personal Conservation: Non-conserved Granularity: Continuous

Personas that cite this work

David Lewis Saul Kripke Robert Stalnaker David J. Chalmers

Personas with the nearest attribute fingerprint

Historical figures whose own classification on the same six-dimensional grid lands closest to this work's. Computed by attribute-agreement on coordinates both address.

100%
Thales of Miletus
29/29
97%
David Lewis
33/34
97%
Peter Singer
33/34
97%
Anaximander of Miletus
29/30
94%
Derek Parfit
32/34
94%
Hilary Putnam
32/34

Computed school proximity

The work's attribute fingerprint scored against all schools using the same quiz scorer. Useful as a sanity check on the hand-curated embodiments above.

78%
Mechanism
23/26
76%
Deism
24/26
76%
Philosophy of Science
24/26
76%
Analytic Philosophy
24/26
74%
Modal Realism
23/26
73%
Legalism (Fa-jia)
23/26
73%
Materialism (Philosophical)
22/26
73%
Effective Altruism
23/26

How Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology resolves each dilemma

34 resolved positions across 4 dimensions, including 6 distinctive where the majority of schools go the other way · 23 unaligned.

Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.

Time · 9 dilemmas · 5 distinctive

Persistence, the future, and the direction of becoming.

Distinctive · only 9% of schools agree (18/202)
Do you really choose?
If the brain is a physical system and physical systems are governed by laws, then every choice is also a chain of causes — which raises the question of what was really left to choose.
Choice is real within a determined order — agency and determinism aren’t opposites.
On this view, the future is determined and you are genuinely choosing. Those aren't contradictory because the determination runs through you rather than around you: your reasoning, deliberation, and assent are the way the determined outcome gets settled. Choice is what it feels like from …
Roads not taken The future is open and you are a genuine origin of it. (69%) · Choice is structural illusion — every event is fixed by the prior state. (10%) · Even if the universe is undetermined, you are not the chooser. (6%)
Distinctive · only 9% of schools agree (18/202)
Are addicts responsible for their addiction?
Addiction looks from one angle like the textbook case of agency failing — a person doing what they don't, in any meaningful sense, want to do. From another angle it looks like agency at work in hard conditions. Which it is depends on what agency is.
The addict is genuinely responsible within a determined order.
On this view, the addict is acting within a determined order but is genuinely acting — making decisions, endorsing or resisting urges, seeking or refusing help. Responsibility attaches not because some uncaused choice happened, but because the addict is the kind of agent through which …
Roads not taken The addict could have chosen otherwise — that's why recovery is real. (69%) · The addict's behaviour is the outcome of causes; 'responsibility' is a useful fiction, not a metaphysical fact. (10%) · Even if the universe is undetermined, the addict isn't the chooser. (6%)
Distinctive · only 9% of schools agree (18/202)
Should we hold AI systems responsible for what they do?
When an autonomous AI takes an action that harms someone, the question of who or what is responsible — the developer, the operator, the model itself — turns on whether the model is the kind of thing that can be a responsible agent.
The AI can be a genuine agent within determined conditions — and therefore genuinely responsible.
On this view, what makes a being responsible is not indeterminism but the kind of process the being is. An AI that deliberates, considers consequences, can be given reasons, and modifies its behaviour on reflection is doing what responsible agency is, even if its underlying …
Roads not taken An AI without a free will is not the kind of thing that can be responsible. (69%) · An AI's behaviour is fully determined by training and input; 'responsibility' applies if at all to its makers. (10%) · Neither AIs nor anyone else are the locus of free agency; the question is the wrong one. (6%)
Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree (31/202)
Is the universe running out of usable energy?
The heat death of the universe — entropy maxed out, no further work possible — is among the more sobering implications of mainstream physics. Whether it is structurally inescapable depends on what kind of finitude the cosmos has.
Both time and matter are unbounded; 'running out' is misframed.
On this view, the cosmos has neither a temporal horizon nor a material exhaustion point. The framing of running out presupposes bounds that the cosmos doesn't have. Energy gradients perpetuate; new configurations emerge; the categories that make heat-death scary don't apply at the cosmic scale.
Roads not taken Time is unbounded but matter is finite; usable energy can fail without time failing. (47%) · Time both has and lacks bounds depending on the level you ask at; finitude is conventional. (26%) · The cosmos has bounds; heat death is a real horizon. (12%)
Distinctive · only 15% of schools agree (31/202)
Are natural resources fundamentally finite, or only practically so?
Whether we can grow our way out of resource constraints — or whether the cosmos sets limits the economy ultimately must obey — depends on what kind of finitude matter has.
Resources are practically inexhaustible on cosmic scales; terrestrial limits are engineering.
On this view, matter and time are both unbounded at the largest scales. Terrestrial resource limits are real engineering and political constraints but not metaphysical ones; the cosmos can in principle support whatever expansion intelligence is capable of.
Roads not taken Time goes on but matter is bounded; we are eventually constrained even with infinite time. (47%) · The finitude question is level-dependent; resource ethics happens at the level that constrains us. (26%) · Resources are finite in the strict sense; living well requires accepting the limit. (12%)
4 mainstream positions
Could we owe future generations more than is materially possible to provide? Both time and matter are unbounded; we cannot in principle owe more than is possible. 15% How much weight do future people deserve? Future people are as real as you are — and their interests count for as much. 47% Is regret rational? The past is as real as the present; regret is a real attitude toward a real thing. 47% Do we owe extinct species something we cannot give them? Extinct species are as real as we are; they have standing. 47%
Matter · 7 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is the world created from nothing? Yes — matter was created and is conserved as a real substance. 55% Is the physical world fully real? Yes — the physical world is fully real, mind-independent, persisting. 55% Does matter have intrinsic moral standing? Matter is morally considerable insofar as it is created or conserved good. 55% What is money? Money is a real institution with intrinsic features. 54% What is a nation? A nation is a real moral community with intrinsic character. 54% What makes someone male or female? Sex is a real biological kind with given content. 54% Should we edit the human germline? Human nature is a real biological kind given by reproductive biology or by creation; editing the germline transgresses what is given. 54%
Observer · 37 dilemmas, all mainstream
Could causation work backwards? Causation runs one way — the arrow of time is real and structural. 68% Is the asymmetry between memory and anticipation a real feature of time, or just of us? The asymmetry is real because time itself has a real direction. 68% Is the arrow of time a real feature of the cosmos, or only of how we describe it? The arrow is real and structural; the asymmetry isn't an artifact of description. 68% Is environmental damage ever truly permanent? Damage is real and permanent on the relevant timescales. There is no recovery; there is only limitation. 66% Can a civilization recover from collapse? Civilizational complexity is hard to build and easy to lose; recovery is at best partial. 66% Does the second law of thermodynamics mean something morally? Entropy is what time is. The moral weight, if any, is the weight of working against the current. 66% When does a person begin? A person exists from conception — when a new being comes into existence. 54% What is marriage? Marriage has a given form — it’s a kind of thing we recognize, not make. 54% What is our place in nature? Active in a real nature — we cultivate, steward, transform. 48% Should we colonize space? Cultivating worlds beyond Earth is the next form of stewardship. 48% Is genetic engineering of food stewardship or domination? Genetic modification is cultivation by other means. 48% Should we trust expert testimony when we can't verify it? Trust expertise whose conclusions a competent mind can in principle reproduce. 32% Is religious revelation a real source of knowledge? Revelation is evaluable by reason — and not above it. 32% Does an LLM 'know' the things it correctly produces? An LLM can produce correct outputs but not reason to them; useful, not knowing. 32% Are coincidences ever more than coincidence? — — Are the dead morally present to the living? — — Are there indivisible units of experience? — — Can prayer for someone far away affect them? — — Could a fetal brain organoid in a petri dish be conscious? — — Could an AI have a mind that matters? — — Do animals have moral standing comparable to humans? — — Does environmental harm in another country bind me morally? — — Does history have a direction or meaning? — — Does meditation reveal something genuinely timeless? — — Does prayer change God's mind? — — How is knowledge of reality produced? — — If a teleporter copied and destroyed you, would you have survived? — — Is divine omniscience compatible with human freedom? — — Is memory stored or reconstructed? — — Is reality fundamentally digital? — — Is salvation, liberation, or fulfillment individual or communal? — — Is the late-stage dementia patient still the person their spouse married? — — Is truth universal, tradition-bound, situated, or constructed? — — What happens to "you" when you die? — — What kind of religious-theological authority does the tradition recognize? — — What makes someone the same person over time? — — Who is the moral primary — the individual, the community, the cosmos, the class, or the species? — —
Information · 4 dilemmas, all mainstream
Is anything truly lost when someone forgets? Information is lost when a mind forgets; matter and energy continue, but the pattern is gone. 51% Does deleting your data online destroy something real? Information is genuinely lost when the substrate that hosted it goes; deletion really destroys. 51% Could the dead, in principle, be brought back? The information dissipates with the substrate; restoration is in principle impossible. 51% Is forgiveness ontologically possible? The offense is locally constituted by its substrate; when the substrate dissolves, the offense genuinely passes away. 51%
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