Identity, Intrinsicality, and Laws of Nature

My dissertation consists of three papers in metaphysics. The papers concern identity, intrinsicality, and laws of nature. I focus on the role of explanation in solving issues that arise with respect to these topics. The first chapter offers an explanation of object identity and distinctness. It is tempting to try to distinguish objects on the basis of their possessing different qualitative features, where qualitative features are ones that do not involve identity. Yet, this criterion for object identity faces counterexamples: distinct objects can share all of their qualitative features. In order to distinguish objects, I argue that we need to look not only at which properties and relations objects instantiate but also how they instantiate these properties and relations. I suggest that objects are identical when they stand in certain qualitative relations in virtue of their existence. An object that has a feature in virtue of its existence has that feature existentially. The proposal is that objects are identical when they stand in specific relations existentially. Objects are distinct if they do not stand in the same kinds of relations to one another in virtue of their existence; distinct objects stand in those relations non-existentially.;In the second chapter, I turn to the notion of intrinsicality. An object has a property intrinsically when that object has it "in virtue of how it is in itself." But how should we spell this out? There has been recent debate as to whether we should understand intrinsicality by appeal to modal resources or finer-grained "hyperintensional" resources instead. One hyperintensional resource that looks apt here is that of ground. This paper argues that we should develop a hyperintensional account of intrinsicality, but, surprisingly, grounding-based accounts of intrinsicality are unsuccessful. I defend a different hyperintensional approach that relies on the notion of a metaphysical analysis.;In the third chapter, I discuss the metaphysics of natural laws. Humeans and Anti-Humeans agree that laws of nature should scientifically explain particular matters of fact. One objection to Humean accounts of laws contends that Humean laws cannot explain particular matters of fact because their explanations are harmfully circular. This paper distinguishes between metaphysical and semantic characterizations of the circularity and argues for a new semantic version of the circularity objection. The new formulation suggests that Humean explanations are harmfully circular because the content of the sentences being explained is part of the content of the sentences doing the explaining. I describe the nature of partial content and demonstrate how this account of partial content renders Humean explanations ineffective while sparing Anti-Humean explanations from the same fate.