Beyond Experience: Metaphysical Theories and Philosophical Constraints

Evan Simpson is a philosophy professor at McMaster University in
Hamilton.

Swartz here succeeds in making complex metaphysical issues available to
a wide audience without sacrificing a claim to specialists’ attention
to problems of space and time, properties and relations, and the nature
of thinking things. The first third of the book is devoted to
methodological concerns about the nature of theories, the analysis and
development of concepts, and the relationship between scientific
theories and metaphysical presuppositions that cannot be scientifically
verified. Understanding, he argues, is often better seen as a product of
creation rather than discovery. The development of each of art,
philosophy, and science can be ascribed to creative genius.

Against this background, Swartz discusses theories of space (defending
a relational against a “container” theory) and time (stressing its
analogies with space). Whether or not he is right in thinking that most
people employ metaphysical theories in their daily lives, he provides
convincing arguments for some surprising propositions. He shows, for
example, that when essential concepts are clarified it is clear that an
object can be at two different places at the same time and that things
can move back and forth in time.

Swartz then turns to the analysis of properties and relations and to
questions such as “how can two or more things have all their
properties in common?” and “how can things maintain their identity
through time?” The relational account of space is central to resolving
the first of these “problems of individuation.” Examination of the
second shows how the concept of “identity through time” reflects the
deep creativity of human understanding: it is shaped by the work of
generations of people who have reflected on ascriptions of
responsibility and liability, inheritance and ownership, concepts that
are crucial to any understanding of personal identity, the topic of the
final chapter. About this Swartz warns against the presumption that
there is some single viable theory to be found.

On the evidence of this book, with its careful connections among
topics, clear prose, good examples, useful glossary, and suggestions for
further reading, Swartz must give an excellent course in metaphysics at
Simon Fraser. Were I to have a similar assignment, I would seriously
consider using his book as the text.