The role of metaphysics in relation to other disciplines, whether philosophical or not and including the natural sciences, is thus a foundational role. Lack of clarity in the concepts of metaphysics implies lack of clarity in other disciplines - both theoretical and practical disciplines - employing those concepts or employing concepts that depend on those of metaphysics.

Those who take knowledge to be a whole zoo of sub-disciplines will react to my giving metaphysics a privileged position in that zoo or to my thinking of knowledge as a tree, with more and less fundamental parts.

Metaphysics is the study of the most general nature and basic structure of reality, and therefore the concepts of metaphysics, concepts like time, space, identity, resemblance, substance, property, fact, event, composition, possibility, etc., are the most fundamental concepts. Thus metaphysics is the most fundamental theoretical discipline.

Those who think that metaphysics is just misunderstood grammar will react to my giving metaphysics some place or another in the system of knowledge.

The problem of how to characterise the properties that would trivialise the principle is one of the hardest problems concerning the principle of identity of indiscernibles and one the problems to which least attention has been paid of.

The difference between resemblance nominalism and class nominalism is that the former, but not the latter, brings in resemblance to account for the truthmakers of the propositions in question.

There are different interpretations of the problem of universals. I understand it as the problem of giving the truthmakers of propositions to the effect that a certain particular is such and such, e.g. propositions like 'this rose is red'. Others have interpreted it as a problem about the ontological commitments of such propositions or a problem about what those propositions mean.