Welcome to the Metaphysical Issue!
This is how I like to consider it, given that its three major parts are each devoted to as many important topics within current metaphysical research.
The first part consists of the Special Issue on Epistemology of Metaphysics, edited by Lorenzo Azzano, Massimiliano Carrara, and Vittorio Morato. Starting from the conviction that, without a properly developed epistemology, the prospects for a fully mature analytic metaphysics would not be complete, the editors clarify in their “Introduction” that epistemology may be the best way to prevent metaphysics—notoriously a highly abstract reflection—from becoming too distant from both scientific and everyday practice. Indeed, questions such as “How are we supposed to know whether metaphysical statements are true?”, “Are they similar to mathematical or physical truths?”, “Are they known a posteriori or a priori?”, and the like, can pave useful ways to keep metaphysics from straying too far.
The second part of the present issue is a discussion of Jessica Wilson’s Metaphysical Emergence, a book that is noteworthy in more than one respect. The book clarifies once and for all the correct uses that the term “emergence” should be put to and, as one of the discussants (Karen Bennett) emphasises, one of its many virtues is “its engagement with, and reliance upon, classic older work in the metaphysics of mind [such as that] by people like Terence Horgan, Jaegwon Kim, Andrew Melnyk, Sydney Shoemaker, and Stephen Yablo”. And Wilson’s book makes a significant addition to the classics.
In the Précis provided by Wilson, the reader will find one of the most crystal-clear expositions of a central metaphysical question and, both in the eight discussion papers and in Wilson’s replies, a lively example of a master philosophical discussion.
The third part of this issue is a discussion between Harold Noonan and Alfonso Muñoz-Corcuera of an article by Eric Olson that was published in this journal in 2019 devoted to the consequences for personal identity that Derek Parfit drew from the possibility of fission. Olson had criticized these consequences, stressing that they follow only if we make a specific assumption: Noonan here disagrees with this conclusion, and Muñoz-Corcuera disagrees in turn with Noonan, thus giving rise to a lively exchange at one remove from the original debate.
The present number also includes five articles that have already appeared in ‘early view’ (by Sofia Bonicalzi and Mario De Caro, Daniele Cassaghi, Giulia Lasagni, Karsten R. Stueber, and Steven Umbrello and Maurizio Balistreri). They have already made and will continue to make significant contributions to discussion in their respective fields.
The number is then rounded off by the section of Book Reviews. We are proud to offer readers three thoughtful reviews of as many interesting new books.
Finally, the editors of the Special Issue on the Epistemology of Metaphysics would like to thank Tobia Fogarin for his help in formatting the papers. For my part, I would like to thank all the colleagues who have acted as external referees, the members of the Editorial Board, the editors of the Book Reviews, the assistant editors, and the team of librarians from the University of Sassari. All of them have been very generous with their work, advice, and suggestions.
As usual, the articles appearing in Argumenta are freely accessible and freely downloadable, therefore it only remains to wish you:
Buona lettura!
Massimo Dell’Utri
Editor-in-Chief