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Psychological Altruism (PA) is the view that everyone, ultimately, acts altruistically all the time. I defend PA by showing strong prima facie support, and show how a reinterpretive strategy against supposed counterexamples is successful. I go on to show how PA can be argued for in ways which exactly mirror the arguments for an opposing view, Psychological Egoism. This shows that the case for PA is at least as plausible as PE. Since the case for PA is not plausible, neither is that for PE.

Roderick Chisholm changed his mind about ordinary objects. Circa 1973Circa -1976, his analysis of them required the positing of two kinds of entities-part-changing ens successiva and non-part-changing, non-scatterable primary objects. Th is view has been well noted and frequently discussed (e.g., recently in Gallois 1998 and Sider 2001). Less often treated is his later view of ordinary objects (1986)(1987)(1988)(1989), where the two kinds of posited entities change, from ens successiva to modes, and, while retaining primary objects, he now allows them to survive spatial scatter. Also (to my knowledge) not discussed is why he changed his mind. Th is paper is mostly intended to fi ll in these gaps, but I also give some additional reasons to prefer Chisholm's later view. Also, I discuss how mereological essentialism can be further defended by how it informs a theory of propertyinherence which steers between the excesses of the bare particularists and bundle theorists.

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The Abrahamic traditions regard God as the world’s author. But what kind of author? A novelist? A playwright? Perhaps a composer of classical music? I will argue that it is best to regard God as like an improvisational play director or the leader of a jazz ensemble. Each determines the broad melodic contours or coarse-grained plot beforehand, while allowing their musicians or actors, and chance, to fill in the more fine-grained details. This analogy allows us to regard God as the ultimate author of this world, while allowing us to be, while less than co-authors, more than mere enactors of a pre-written piece. These metaphors are particularly well-suited to illustrate and flesh out an Open Theistic view of things.