Scientific properties, andhowtools in metaphysics matter (talk)

My plan is to talk about scientic properties: their relationship to the laws of nature, and their quantitative nature. But I want to do this with an eye to a more general issue: how metaphysical inquiry is sensitive to one’s chosen “metaphysical tools”. 1. Tools in metaphysics By “tools in metaphysics ” I mean the core concepts used to articulate meta-physical problems. Take the debate over identity over time. • 50s and 60s: tools were concepts of meaning and analysis: what are we saying when we re-identify objects over time? (Strawson’s Individuals.) • 70s–90s: tools were modal. What conditions governing personal iden-tity hold of metaphysical necessity? Would it be possible to survive the loss of all of one’s memories? (Likewise mind-body problem: rst, analysis of mental concepts; then, does the physical necessitate the mental?) Recently there has been a shift to new tools: Lewis on natural properties; Fine and others on essence and ground, and various concepts of fundamental-ity.1 People are starting to reconstrue metaphysics as asking after the ground