1 What is this thing called metaphysics? 2 nd edition Brian Garrett London and New York: Routledge, 2011. 166 pp. $83.08 hbk. ISBN: 978-0-415-61721-5. This second incarnation of What is this thing called Metaphysics? is an excellently written work that covers eleven topics in metaphysics—God (Chapter One), human nature (Chapter Two), the nature of existence (Chapter Three), modality and possible worlds (Chapter Four), material constitution and persistence (Chapter Five), objects and properties (Chapter Six), causation (Chapter Seven), the metaphysics of time (Chapters Eight and Nine), free will (Chapter Ten), facts (Chapter Eleven), and the nature of truth (Chapter Twelve). It promises to be a no- nonsense, user-friendly introduction to the often-treacherous territory of metaphysics. It is ‘user- friendly’ in that it does not demand too much from the reader. It does not assume familiarity with the topics discussed. Nor does it presuppose the reader’s philosophical knowhow—i.e., his or her knowledge of how to actually engage in philosophical discussions. Furthermore, though short and at times technical, each chapter is full of aids, like concept boxes, philosopher profiles, glossed words and study questions, that will help the reader as he or she treks along each topic. I also said that it is a ‘no-nonsense’ introduction. By this I mean that each chapter is written with much dialectical wit and philosophical sophistication, which are features of a work of a real philosophy practitioner. Being an introduction, most positions, arguments and counterarguments on the different topics discussed might be familiar to people already working on them. Though this is the case, some novelty is still apparent: be it in terms of giving new twists to ‘old’ arguments, or else in terms of offering new substantive insights and ideas about the topics themselves. In his introduction to the book, Garrett makes a distinction between the ‘ambitious’ and ‘modest’ conceptions of metaphysics (p. xvii). On the ambitious conception, metaphysics investigates the “most general and ubiquitous features of reality,” and it is the metaphysician’s job “to uncover the most fundamental principles that apply to everything that is real. ” On the modest conception, metaphysics investigates “the massive central core of human thinking which has no history, ” and it is the task of the metaphysician is to “delineate our most basic or fundamental concepts and chart the various inter-connections between them.” He attributes the former view to the ancient and medieval thinkers, and the latter to the philosopher P. F. Strawson. He then tells us that the more ambitious conception informs the discussions in the book. There is a noticeable dialectical structure in each chapter of the book. Each chapter starts out with a clear statement of the particular problem at hand. After which, there is a discussion of the (familiar and not-so-familiar) answers to the problem, which are then motivated either by an argument, by a thought experiment, or by sheer appeals to commonsense. After motivating these answers comes the fun part: the analysis and critique of the arguments given for or against a particular claim. Garrett does this with extreme sophistication and wit without sacrificing the primary goal of each chapter—i.e., arriving at a reasonable judgment about the main problem. He does this by first presenting the bare argument for a particular claim. He then checks whether premises truly support the argument’s main conclusion, and of course, whether the premises are really true in the first place. Again, all of this is done in the attempt to come up with a reasonable judgment about the topic at hand by adjudicating among the rival views presented.