The Fragmentation of Being

The Fragmentation of Being offers answers to some of the most fundamental questions in ontology. There are many kinds of beings but are there also many kinds of being? The world contains a variety of objects, each of which, let us provisionally assume, exists, but do some objects exist in different ways? Do some objects enjoy more being or existence than other objects? Are there different ways in which one object might enjoy more being than another? Most contemporary metaphysicians would answer "no" to each of these questions. So widespread is this consensus that the questions this book addressed are rarely even raised let alone explicitly answered. But Kris McDaniel carefully examines a wide range of reasons for answering each of these questions with a "yes". In doing so, he connects these questions with many important metaphysical topics, including substance and accident, time and persistence, the nature of ontological categories, possibility and necessity, presence and absence, persons and value, ground and consequence, and essence and accident. In addition to discussing contemporary problems and theories, McDaniel also discusses the ontological views of many important figures in the history of philosophy, including Aquinas, Aristotle, Descartes, Heidegger, Husserl, Kant, Leibniz, Meinong, and many more.

1 - Ways of Being
2 - A Return to the Analogy of Being
3 - Ways of Being and Time
4 - Categories of Being
5 - Being and Almost Nothingness
6 - Persons and Value
7 - Degrees of Being
8 - Being and Ground
9 - Being and Essence

Kris McDaniel is Professor of Philosophy at Syracuse University, New York. He has published on a wide variety of topics in metaphysics (such as modality, composition, metaontology, and persistence over time), as well as topics in the history of philosophy (such as Kant, Heidegger, and British Idealism), and in ethics.