The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics : Making Sense of Things

This book charts the evolution of metaphysics since Descartes, providing an unusually wide-ranging history that includes both analytic and non-analytic schools of thought. It also provides a compelling case for why metaphysics matters and how it can help us to cope with continually changing demands on our humanity by making sense of things in ways that are radically new.

This book is concerned with the history of metaphysics since Descartes. Taking as its definition of metaphysics 'the most general attempt to make sense of things', it charts the evolution of this enterprise through various competing conceptions of its possibility, scope, and limits. The book is divided into three parts, dealing respectively with the early modern period, the late modern period in the analytic tradition, and the late modern period in non-analytic traditions. In its unusually wide range, A. W. Moore's study refutes the tired old cliche that there is some unbridgeable gulf between analytic philosophy and philosophy of other kinds. It also advances its own distinctive and compelling conception of what metaphysics is and why it matters. Moore explores how metaphysics can help us to cope with continually changing demands on our humanity by making sense of things in ways that are radically new.