Schaffer, Jonathan

"Wholes are more than aggregates; they have causal powers of their own."

"Identity conditions tell us what it takes for something to remain itself."

"Necessity and contingency are real features of the world, not mere epistemological categories."

"Being is not a genus; it does not classify things but grounds all classification."

"The relation between abstract and concrete is not mysterious but intelligible."

"Grounding is more fundamental than causation; it explains all relations of dependence."

"Identity is relative to sortal concepts, yet the underlying facts are absolute."

"Composition without loss means parts retain their integrity in wholes."

"Metaphysics is rigorous thinking about what fundamentally exists and why."

"The world is not a brute fact; it exhibits intelligible structure and order."

"Being something is prior to being a certain way; essence precedes properties."

"The laws of thought reflect the structure of reality, not merely our minds."

"Objects persist through time because they satisfy persistent identity conditions."

"Parthood is not conventional; natural joints in nature determine real parts."

"Causation grounds the distinction between objects and mere aggregates."

"Existence is not mysterious; it is simply being, the most fundamental category."

"The mind mirrors nature through reason; this is the basis of all knowledge."

"Unity without uniformity is possible; difference can coexist with coherence."

"What exists is determinate; vagueness is epistemic, not metaphysical."

"Being is fundamental; nonbeing is parasitic on being, not the reverse."

"Metaphysics seeks not arbitrary systems but truth about the actual world."