Abstract

Ever since David Lewis argued for the indispensibility of natural properties, they have become a staple of mainstream metaphysics. This dissertation is a critical examination of natural properties. What roles can natural properties play in metaphysics, and what structure do natural properties have? In the first half of the dissertation, I argue that natural properties cannot do all the work they are advertised to do. In the second half of the dissertation, I look at questions relating to the structure of natural properties. I argue that the metric structure of fundamental quantitative properties cannot be reduced to mereological structure, and I argue that the simplistic picture of natural properties as monadic must be abandoned in light of theories of fundamental physics.