metaphysics

Most metaphysicians take it for granted that existence comes first and constitutive character comes later. Something must exist before it can be anything. This paper argues that this assumption is not only false but structurally impossible. Three independent lines of argument—one from the ur‑fact that all being is determinate, one from the structure of creaturely gift, and one from the constituti…

Plotinus called it the One. Parmenides called it Being. Śaṅkara called it nirguna Brahman. Heidegger called it das Nichts. Maimonides and the Kabbalistic tradition called it Ein Sof. Pseudo-Dionysius called it the divine darkness beyond all attribution. This appendix argues that these traditions converge on a single structural condition — the absence of internal distinction — encountered under th…

_Philosophica: International Journal for the History of Philosophy_ 23 (46):135-147. 2015The problem concerning the ‘individuation conditions of musical works’ is pressing and actual in the metaphysical discussion, in the philosophy of music. In this essay we address two entirely different perspectives: ‘timbric sonicism’, as formulated by Julian Dodd and ‘instrumentalism’, as sketched by Stephen…

_Beytulhikme An International Journal of Philosophy_ 16 (16: Sup 1):45-55. 2026This article examines David Lewis's gunk ontology as an alternative to ontological approaches such as mereological atomism and mereological nihilism, which are significant in contemporary metaphysics. The concept of gunk, based on the principle of infinite divisibility, rejects the existence of indivisible atoms and pr…

_Synthese_ 207 (5):201. 2026For decades, metaontological debates have been structured around paradigmatic examples: Sherlock Holmes for fictional objects and the number 7 for abstract objects. These examples, while useful, are philosophically “safe” and historically entrenched. However, 21st-century technology creates entities that defy these clean categorizations. In this paper, I argue that the…

This paper investigates the concept of the “final layer of reality” at the intersection of contemporary physics and metaphysics. While everyday experience suggests a stable and intuitive structure of reality, modern physics challenges this view by revealing that matter, space, and time are not fundamentally as they appear. Building on insights from theoretical physics and metaphysical analysis, t…

The stable property cluster view of natural kinds leaves the metaphysical structure of natural kinds open. The positive corollary of this feature is freedom from explaining the nature of problematic entities and that it affords natural kind status and flexibility. However, some worries are raised against this feature; the metaphysical structure of natural kinds is required for explaining their ep…

Metaphysics is one of the oldest and most fundamental branches of philosophy. At its core, it asks the deepest questions we can ask about reality itself. What exists? What does it mean to exist? What is the nature of being, time, space, causation, and possibility? These questions go beyond what we can observe directly and invite us to think about the basic structure of the world and our place wit…