Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- 1 The Elimination of Metaphysics -- 1.1 Empiricist Anti-Metaphysics -- The Humean Background -- Carnap on the Elimination of Metaphysics -- Verificationism -- A Modal Argument Against Metaphysics -- 1.2 Wittgenstein, Metaphysics and Essentialism -- Essentialism in the Tractatus -- Wittgenstein and Metaphysics -- Essentialism and the Philosophical Investigations -- 2 Modal Primitivism -- 2.1 Primitivism, Eliminativism and Reductionism -- The Distinction Between Eliminativism and Reductionism -- The Dispensability Claim -- 2.2 Modal Epistemology -- The Problem of Knowledge -- Outline of an Approach to Modal Epistemology -- 2.3 A Defence of Modal Primitivism -- Modal Eliminativism -- Modal Reductionism -- 2.4 Conclusion -- 3 Modal Realism -- 3.1 Anti-Realism I: Against Projectivism -- 3.2 Realism -- Metaphysical Necessity as Distinct from Logical Necessity -- Irreducible Modality De Re and the Case for Realism -- 3.3 Anti-Realism II: Against Anti-Realist Conceptualism -- 4 Modality and Anti-Metaphysics -- 4.1 De Re and De Dicto -- 4.2 Empiricism, Verifiability, Modality -- Verification in Principle -- A Note on van Fraassen -- 4.3 Logical Possibility as Typically De Dicto -- Hacking on Logical Possibility -- Rigid Designation and Logical Possibility -- Digression: Univocity and Strength -- Kripke, Metaphysical Necessity, Possible Worlds -- 4.4 Logical Possibility: Its Nature and Value -- Strictly and Broadly Logical Possibility -- Logical Possibility: Elimination, Revision, Conservation -- 4.5 Closing Remark: Empiricism and Essentialism -- Bibliography -- Name Index -- Subject Index