This is a paper which I wrote with my former colleague at Durham, Donnchadh O’Conaill. I’ve mentioned it here before, but I thought I’d advertise it again since it’s now available in print! The paper is a chapter in a Palgrave-Macmillan volume edited by Philip Goff. The volume is in the Philosophers in Depth series and it’s called Spinoza on Monism. You can get the volume from Amazon.co.uk, among other places.

Philip Goff: Spinoza on Monism

Our paper, called ‘On the Common Sense Argument for Monism’, is mainly a reply to Schaffer’s recent paper in defence of priority monism, which is also reprinted in this volume. We mainly take issue with one particular argument, the common sense argument, which Russell originally put forward in favour of pluralism, but which Schaffer turns on its head. We argue that the common sense argument for pluralism stands its ground. You can download the penultimate version of our paper here.

The list of contributors is impressive, including E. J. Lowe, John Heil, Jonathan Schaffer, and so on. The first part concerns monism in contemporary metaphysics, which is what our paper is about, and the second part is more historical, and more closely related to Spinoza. Here is the full list of contents:

PART I: MONISM IN CONTEMPORARY METAPHYSICS
Monism: The Priority of the Whole; J.Schaffer
Existence Monism Trumps Priority Monism; T.Horgan & M.Potr?
Why the World has Parts: Reply to Horgan and Potr?; J.Schaffer
Against Monism; E.J.Lowe
There Is More Than One Thing; P.Goff
The World as We Know It; R.Healey
On the Common Sense Argument for Monism; D.O’Conaill & T.E.Tahko
Substances Stressed; J.Heil

PART II: MONISM IN SPINOZA
Spinoza on Composition and Priority; G.Guigon
Why Spinoza Is Not an Eleatic Monist (Or Why Diversity Exists); Y.T.Melamed
Spinoza’s Monism and the Reality Of The Finite; S.Nadler
Spinoza’s Monism? What Monism?; M.Laerke
Spinoza’s Demonstration of Monism: A New Line of Defense; M.Kulstad
Explanatory Completeness and Spinoza’s Monism; R.N.Goldstein

Philip has done a nice job with the volume, and I look forward to holding a copy in my hand and reading the papers! Get yours now!