Material Beings

by Peter van Inwagen

"There is much to bee learned from this book.... Material Beings is a refreshing example of straight-on, full-speed metaphysics. Van Inwagen goes where his arguments lead him—and they lead him to some remarkable places indeed."
— Philosophy and Phenomenological Research According to Peter van Inwagen, visible inanimate objects do not, strictly speaking, exist. In defending this controversial thesis, he offers fresh insights on such topics as personal identity, commonsense belief, existence over time, the phenomenon of vagueness, and the relation between metaphysics and ordinary language.

Genres: Philosophy, Metaphysics, Nonfiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Peter van Inwagen is an American analytic philosopher and the John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. earned his PhD from the University of Rochester under the direction of Richard Taylor and Keith Lehrer.

Today, Van Inwagen is one of the leading figures in contemporary metaphysics, philosophy of religion, and philosophy of action. He has taught previously at Syracuse University and was the president of the Society of Christian Philosophers from 2010 to 2013. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005 and was President of the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association in 2008-2009. Van Inwagen has also received an honorary doctorate from the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland.

Reviews

[Richard Newton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now one probably has to have some interest in philosophy and metaphysics to share my view that this is an enjoyable read! But assuming that if you are looking at reviews of this book you do, then this is a truly excellent book. It is well argued and well written. In many ways, although it describes what may be considered as a radical view, I think it is an argument with its feet firmly on the ground. You do not have to agree with what Van Inwagen says to learn a lot from this book - both in terms of what he argues, but also the way in which he relates his argument. (Many other philosophers could benefit from his clarity of presentation!)

It is easy to take the sound bites "Van Inwagen thinks chairs and other everyday objects do not exist" and conclude that Van Inwagen is off in a fantasy land, but nothing could be further from the truth. If you have read no metaphysics before, then I can assure you this is no odder than many other metaphysical explanations of reality, and for me is actually closer to "common sense" than some alternatives.

[Jason Wilkening · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are no reviews there are just letters arranged review wise.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

My three-star rating is a weighted average between 1) five stars for originality and classic status and 2) two stars for being wrong about almost everything.

Most readers would probably object to van Inwagen's radical (at least outside philosophical circles) contention that ordinary objects such as tables and chairs don't exist. I don't: I am an extreme mereological nihilist. Nothing ever composes anything whatsoever. I am also a total eliminativist about objects: reality does not consist of objects; in fact, it has no objects at all. This does not mean that the world is equivalent to a dream or mirage, or to a blank void. Rather, the physical objects around us have a sort of conventional existence, but the best ultimate ontology explains them away, with the help of some highly counterintuitive quantum mechanics. I admit that the science is over my head, but from what I can understand the arguments are persuasive. I am also a non-physicalist with leanings toward idealism, and so Markus Müller's idealism-friendly interpretation seems particularly worth looking at.

Hence, van Inwagen is probably right that ordinary objects don't exist (though I'll soon read Amie Thomasson's work in defense of their existence), but he is wrong that we exist, wrong that the best account of humans is that they are wholly physical organisms, and probably wrong that the particles of Standard-Model physics are mereological simples. His interpretations of brain-transplant thought experiments are ingenious but also probably wrong, and are defended by strained analogies rather than argued for rigorously.

He also fails to respond adequately to the Problem of the Many: given that physical organisms have vague boundaries, how can we pick out the unique organism John in a principled way that rules out John + 1 (my body plus an extra elementary particle in the vicinity), John – 1 (my body minus an innocuous elementary particle on its surface), and so on? If physical collocation is possible, then why are there not many Johns here instead of just one? Even supposing collocation to be impossible, how can we pick out which of the John-candidates is myself? Van Inwagen attempts to deal with this problem by having recourse to fuzzy sets: John is equivalent to a fuzzy set of mereological simples, and thus there is a built-in margin of error as to precisely which simples are contained within John. Unfortunately, as Terence Horgan points out in his review of the book, there are also a vast number of candidate fuzzy sets! Van Inwagen's proposed solution merely pushes the problem back.

In his reply to Horgan and two other reviewers, van Inwagen states that it was a significant goal of his to stimulate thought and discussion about the ontology of ordinary objects rather than necessarily presenting THE correct ontology (although of course he tried to do that too). By this standard, Material Beings is a signal success.

[Ben Holloway · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have heard the expression, "there is no table; there is just simples arranged table-wise" then it behooves you to hear it from the horse's mouth. The horse, by the way, is an organism, but that saddle you put on it does not strictly exist. That, by the way, is a fairly good summary of the thesis. Van Inwagen's talent lies in being able to carry a metaphysical story all the way without any sense of embarrassment (even when the story confronts issues of vagueness) and also in bringing one to the brink of equal amounts of odium and mirth through analogies such as "the frozen cat" and "the severed head." This book will force you to think about yourself in an offbeat manner and even if you disagree with the conclusions the next time you mention simples arranged table-wise, you will do it with a chuckle.

[Amy Do · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I skipped chapters 4, 5, 7, 19 and most of 18, I enjoyed the book and its unusual thesis. The structure of the book is very helpful for understanding the various problems and arguments. I don't have philosophy training so some parts are harder to understand than others, but there is a lot of intuition at work. Readers with training in classical logic will get more out of this book.

[Corey Woodfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent detailing of an ontology that seems to me to be wholly plausible and acceptable, and which avoids many of the paradoxes which many other common ontologies fall victim to, while still allowing for the existence of (some) composite objects.

[Dane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed these simples arranged book-wise

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why I Read Metaphysics

I have been putting off reading Material Beings for an eternity. I'd often seen it poked fun at in contemporary metaphysics for its ridiculous premise: that the only "real" objects are 1) living beings and 2) atoms. van Inwagen, to me, always felt like a target that philosophers like to pick on. But as time has gone on it's become more clear that, while his premise is odd and biomorphic, Beings is a revolutionary, core work in modern metaphysics. As far as I know, it's where the term "atoms arranged x-wise" spawned, and has been the genesis of much debate in the field of ontology.

And after reading it, it's apparent that there's a very good reason for its status. van Inwagen himself acknowledges the apparent absurdity of his thesis, and in fact tackles that argument against it early on. But despite its strange nature, he goes to great lengths to give it a proper defense from almost every angle he can imagine. Most of his thesis rests on the problematic nature of composition. For a bunch of things to compose a bigger thing is not as simple as we may conveniently conceptualize. He unpacks all the ways in which we can do so but attempts to poke holes in all of them. And his work is convincing. Those new to the philosophy of unity will likely be moved by it. Because of composition's problematic nature, van Inwagen argues, it's easier to accept Democritean atoms (whatever science considers fundamental matter at the time), as among the only objects to be "real." The only exception to this is any object that possesses life, which he broadly defines as "self-maintaining events." This, in my opinion, is the weakest part of his thesis. While he gives a broad idea of why we should make an exceptions for objects we can consider alive, he does little to differentiate why we shouldn't accept other objects with similar complex structures and processes, such as the sun.

I left this book pretty unconvinced by van Inwagen's argument (despite feeling that he did a wonderful job working with it). Why I loved it so much is that it reminded me of why I became interested in metaphysics in the first place. First, van Inwagen is a fantastic writer. Among the best in the field. He is able to write clearly and engagingly without sacrificing too much technical nuance. Some of my favorite philosophers (David Lewis and Ted Sider are two that come to mind) seriously lack in this area. And I think the field as a whole has an accessibility problem partially because of this. van Inwagen is a breath of fresh air. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, is that I feel van Inwagen is among the best at using interesting, mind-blowing thought experiments to convey many of his points. From brain transplants between friends to determining the exact boundary of an empire that's had its supply lines cut off, his ideas are fun and accessible in even a way that Joe Rogan could keep up. It brings me back to earlier days of talking "stoner" philosophy and thinking about the wild ideas that got me interested in metaphysics in the first place.

All in all, this is a key read if you are into the field. It's one of the most cited texts, and I think it stands as an example of how to "do" metaphysics in a way that's both valid and fun.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nov. 21, 2008: A very interesting and refined metaphysical theory. PvI is very thorough and honest. He leaves no stone unturned.