What does reality encompass? Is it exclusively physical, or does it include mental and 'abstract' aspects? What are the elements of being, reality's raw materials? John Heil offers stimulating answers to these questions framed in terms of a comprehensive metaphysics of substances and properties inspired by Descartes, Locke, and their successors.

John Heil is Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St Louis and Honorary Research Associate at Monash University. He works primarily on topics in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind and is author of From an Ontological Point of View (Oxford, 2003), Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge, 2012), The Nature of True Minds (Cambridge, 1992), and Perception and Cognition (California, 1983).

• Preface


• 1: Introduction


• 2: Substance


• 3: Substance Stressed


• 4: Properties


• 5: Universals


• 6: Causing


• 7: Relations


• 8: Truthmaking


• 9: Reduction, Kinds, and Essences


• 10: Mind and Mentality


• 11: Conscious Experience


• 12: Conscious Thought


• 13: The Ontological Turn


• References


• Index