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Summary: Metaphysics as Being Qua Being
Review: This review will add to the reviews written prior and build upon their comments, thus clarifying Loux's work; so, read them as well. Loux's work is, as mentioned, one that demonstrates his scholarship in the field and as ability to make difficult issues simple or more accessible to those who do not have formal training. Since the content of the book has been thoroughly covered elsewhere (c.f. Scott Ryan and Saikat Guha), I will address the way his book was written because it is useful to know in deciding what to buy.Loux thinks of doing metaphysics more like those in the Aristotelian tradition than the continental rationalists of the 17th century. Metaphysics is "the idea of a science that studies being qua being" (11). That is, this approach to metaphysics will be a generalized version of categorizing and identifying kinds, things, what exists, and so on: that which makes experience intelligible (and possible). Other metaphysics works, for instance, Peter van Inwagen's book, covers the issue from a different approach. For instance, action theory (free will), "why is there anything?", the mind-body problem, and so on: that is not covered here. Also, this book does not deal with all of the historical arguments. That is, he does not outline what every thinker at one time thought to be the deciding argument. Though Loux refers to older thinkers from time to time, he focuses on "what are the central arguments today?" You will often be able to see which positions are considered, in his view, to be the better ones. But he is often fair and says the jury is still out on a particular question (i.e. what are events?... who's view is best: Chisholm's 1970's account, Jaewong Kim's, or Donald Davidson's?). For an introduction, I highly recommend this.
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