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Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology: Volume 2 (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)

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David Lewis was both a brilliant and (by contemporary analytic philosophy's standards) very accessible philosopher. This is a collection of some of his strongest and most accessible work, and amounts to a sustained defense of the thesis that we can give a complete account of reality in terms of the local properties of 'point sized' things. This might seem a rather thin view of 'what there is'. But even if you disagree, the ingenuity of Lewis' arguments is impressive. And contemplating Lewis' work provides an opportunity for intellectual growth by forcing one to determine where his arguments go wrong (if in fact they do). Providing the opportunity for such growth tends to be the aim of most analytic philosophy, rather than providing 'cool' or 'sexy' (i.e. wooly-headed) world-views.
In terms of presentation of the material, "Putnam's Paradox" comes as the 2nd article, ("New Work", comes first) and I thought it really should come first as it sets the stage for what follows. The paradox, as Lewis sees it, threatens to render our ability to talk sensibly about the world incoherent. Lewis' account of semantics and reality in the following articles is highly developed way to escape this consequence.
Lewis' recent death was a big loss for those who cherish analytic philosophy; he will be missed