In More Kinds of Being E.J. Lowe, one of the world's most distinguished contemporary metaphysicians, thoroughly reworks and expands upon the philosophical concepts first put forth in his acclaimed book Kinds of Being (1989).

Preface* vii

Acknowledgements xi

1 Introduction 1

The Varieties of 'Is' 3

Individuals, Kinds, and Realism 4

Semantics, Metaphysics, and Necessity 6

New Developments* 8

2 Sortal Terms and Criteria of Identity 12

3 Individuals, Sorts, and Instantiation 29

4 Number, Unity, and Individuality* 42

5 The Absoluteness of Identity: A Defence 57

Appendix: Some Formal Principles and Arguments 72

6 Identity and Constitution 77

7 Parts and Wholes 92

8 Persons and Their Bodies 104

Matter and Organisms 104

Organisms and Persons 113

Is There a Criterion of Personal Identity? 125

9 Sortal Terms and Natural Laws 141

10 Plural Quantification and Sortal Reference* 164

11 Laws, Dispositions, and Sortal Logic 179

Appendix: An Axiomatic System of Sortal Logic 194

12 What Sorts of Things Are There?* 198

The Syntax and Semantics of Complex Sortal Terms 198

On the Identity of Sorts 212

Bibliography* 217

Index 223

In More Kinds of Being E. J. Lowe, one of the world's most distinguished contemporary metaphysicians, thoroughly reworks and expands upon the philosophical concepts first put forth in his acclaimed book Kinds of Being(1989). Taking into account significant developments in his metaphysical thinking over the past 20 years, Lowe delves deeper into the fundamental ontological categories into which all existing entities fall. While this new volume strengthens and extends many of his original arguments, Lowe's focus remains on the category of kinds or sorts and their individual instances - the latter being persisting objects, which exist at every level of the spatial scale from galaxies to atoms and include, as an especially important case, persons such as ourselves. He proceeds to show that while an object of one sort is occasionally constituted by, but not identical with, an object of another sort, persons appear not to be constituted by anything, making them special among the beings that populate the universe. Lowe also reveals why the category of kinds or sorts plays a crucial role in our understanding of scientific laws and of the dispositional properties or powers of things - a role which requires us to rethink the very foundations of modern logic in order to accommodate the logical relations between law-statements and disposition-statements.

Combining an Aristotelian spirit with startling originality, More Kinds of Being presents a thought-provoking and important new contribution to the field of contemporary analytical metaphysics.

Preface Acknowledgements 1. Introduction 2. Sortal Terms and Criteria of Identity 3. Individuals, Sorts, and Instantiation 4. Number, Unity, and Individuality 5. The Absoluteness of Identity: A Defence 6. Identity and Constitution 7. Parts and Wholes 8. Persons and Their Bodies 9. Sortal Terms and Natural Laws 10. Plural Quantification and Sortal Reference 11. Laws, Dispositions, and Sortal Logic 12. What Sorts of Things Are There? Bibliography Index