For many years essentialism was considered beyond the pale in philosophy, a relic of discredited Aristotelianism. This is no longer so. Kripke and Putnam have made belief in essential natures respectable once more. Harré and Madden have argued against Hume's theory of causation and developed an alternative theory based on the assumption that there are genuine causal powers in nature. Dretske, Tooley, Armstrong, Swoyer, and Carroll have all developed strong alternatives to Hume's theory of the laws of nature. And Shoemaker has developed a thoroughly non-Humean theory of properties. The "new essentialism" has evolved from these beginnings and can now reasonably claim to be a metaphysic for a modern scientific understanding of the world - one that challenges the conception of the world as comprising passive entities whose interactions are to be explained by appeal to contingent laws of nature externally imposed.

Brian Ellis is professorial fellow in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at University of Melbourne and emeritus professor of philosophy at La Trobe University. His books include The Philosophy of Nature: A Guide to the New Essentialism.

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"An engaging, non-technical introduction to fundamental issues in metaphysics and the philosophy of science. Ellis has done us all a service in rendering accessible topics that have a direct bearing on the way we see ourselves and our relation to the cosmos but have too often been discussed in a way only trained philosophers could appreciate." John Heil, Davidson College, North Carolina