Metaphysics

by Peter van Inwagen and Van Peter

Book Overview

This essential core text introduces readers to metaphysics. In thoughtful and engaging prose, Peter van Inwagen examines three profound questions: What are the most general features of the world? Why... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813306353
• ISBN13: 9780813306353
• Release Date: February 1993
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Ultimate Reality for Beginners

Metaphysics is not really a book for the casual reader. What it is is an introduction into the study of the nature of ultimate reality, for that is what metaphysics is. The nature of ultimate reality is something that most people take for granted. After all what reality is should be obvious to anyone. All you have to do is to open your eyes and look and there it is. If there is anything hidden, science will reveal it. And therein lies the problem for the world is simply not constructed in such a way that science can discover all its aspects by empirical experiment. The world has its objective truths and these are open to the scientific method. But the world also has its subjective truths and these are not solvable by scientific experiment. And it is here that philosophy comes into its own for where science fails the only avenue left open is pure speculative thought. Temper this speculation with logic and the result is philosophy. Where your tools consist of deductive reasoning, logic and the dialectic your answers will never have the certainty of a mathematical equation, but they can illuminate the truth nonetheless. This is not a book of facts in the same sense as a history book. In a history book one encounters names, places and dates and is expected to learn them by heart. There is plenty of information given in Metaphysics, to be sure, but it is incidental to the task of teaching metaphysics. Metaphysics, and philosophy overall, does not work like that. Philosophy is a discipline of reason. And just as experiments in science are used to advance its knowledge reason is used in philosophy to advance its knowledge. Thousands of years of reasonable argument has produced no creed or dogma or anything that can be called a final answer and it is for this reason that many scientists dismiss metaphysics as irrelevant. The only way that this can be true, however, is if the materialists are right. If reality has any subjective element in it at all then philosophy has its place. And the only groups that can search reality for any of its subjective aspects are philosophers. The book takes the four most common questions in philosophy, what are the general features of the world and why does it exist, and what is the nature and place of man in that world and uses it as a framework that supports the entire work. A realist the author defends his ideas with great verve while remaining reasonable and respectful of the views of others. In the course of his discussion he manages to bring in most of the common topics of metaphysics, including God and necessary existence, rationality, objectivity, the mind- body problem, ontology, cosmology, teleology and the problem of freedom will. If you are new to metaphysical discourse think of this book as metaphysics 101, a good solid general place to start. Engaging, thoughtful, provocative and sometimes witty here is a guide through the many twisting paths that are metaphysics. This book was written for the general reade

Ultimate Reality for Beginners

Metaphysics is not really a book for the casual reader. What it is is an introduction into the study of the nature of ultimate reality, for that is what metaphysics is. The nature of ultimate reality is something that most people take for granted. After all what reality is should be obvious to anyone. All you have to do is to open your eyes and look and there it is. If there is anything hidden, science will reveal it. And therein lies the problem for the world is simply not constructed in such a way that science can discover all its aspects by empirical experiment. The world has its objective truths and these are open to the scientific method. But the world also has its subjective truths and these are not solvable by scientific experiment. And it is here that philosophy comes into its own for where science fails the only avenue left open is pure speculative thought. Temper this speculation with logic and the result is philosophy. Where your tools consist of deductive reasoning, logic and the dialectic your answers will never have the certainty of a mathematical equation, but they can illuminate the truth nonetheless. This is not a book of facts in the same sense as a history book. In a history book one encounters names, places and dates and is expected to learn them by heart. There is plenty of information given in Metaphysics, to be sure, but it is incidental to the task of teaching metaphysics. Metaphysics, and philosophy overall, does not work like that. Philosophy is a discipline of reason. And just as experiments in science are used to advance its knowledge reason is used in philosophy to advance its knowledge. Thousands of years of reasonable argument has produced no creed or dogma or anything that can be called a final answer and it is for this reason that many scientists dismiss metaphysics as irrelevant. The only way that this can be true, however, is if the materialists are right. If reality has any subjective element in it at all then philosophy has its place. And the only groups that can search reality for any of its subjective aspects are philosophers. The book takes the four most common questions in philosophy, what are the general features of the world and why does it exist, and what is the nature and place of man in that world and uses it as a framework that supports the entire work. A realist the author defends his ideas with great verve while remaining reasonable and respectful of the views of others. In the course of his discussion he manages to bring in most of the common topics of metaphysics, including God and necessary existence, rationality, objectivity, the mind- body problem, ontology, cosmology, teleology and the problem of freedom will. If you are new to metaphysical discourse think of this book as metaphysics 101, a good solid general place to start. Engaging, thoughtful, provocative and sometimes witty here is a guide through the many twisting paths that are metaphysics. This book was written for t

breadth and depth from one of the finest

Peter van Inwagen writes here for the "hopefully non-mythical, general interested reader." This book is thus a guide to some broad topics in metaphysics written for someone with no philosophical background, but that is willing and able to think deeply. Of particular value is the introduction, wherein van Inwagen gives a characteristically cobweb-clearing explanation of just what metaphysics *is* (to a philosopher). The topics (see the Table of Contents) cover pretty much the whole swath of metaphysics, and metaphysics is so wide- and far-reaching itself that each topic would be take several graduate courses to fully explore, just from a contemporary perspective. There is great breadth here, but also significant depth for the issues covered. Basically, for each topic van Inwagen introduces a main idea, then follows an argument to a conclusion (the one that he favors, naturally enough). But one also gets a strong sense of what other issues subside within, or are otherwise connected with, a topic. This book also serves as a terrific example of the author's general acumen for philosophical writing, in being able to navigate very clearly, lucidly, thoroughly, AND concisely through a chosen topic. I just worry about this book's audience and whether it will reach a very large one. The thing is, it's written for an intelligent generalist and thus in the right tone for an introductory philosophy class, but also manifests perhaps more philosophical depth than your average non-philosophy-major undergraduate is prepared to tackle. I'd be very interested to know how often this ends up as a class text, though. It's also on just one topic, so for a general intro to phil. class it would have to be one book out of, say, three (the other two being in ethics and epistemology, naturally). The quality of this book, though, is such that that's how I'd be inclined to teach an intro class, if only to get as many facilely antirealist college students as possible to read the chapter on Objectivity.

Flexible answers, rigid questions

As the previous reviewer says, this is a clear and competent overview of academic metaphysics. It will help a reader understand the terms of philosophical debate. But if you are looking for insight into the great questions of existence, you may be disappointed.The author appears to sympathize with scholastic theism. (An example of such arguments is: every being in the world we know depends for its existence on something else; this chain of dependent beings imples the existence of an Independent Being, God.) These arguments were a medieval attempt to prove God's existence from reason and thus to harmonize philosophy and theology. Most of modern philosophy is a critique of even the possibility of such arguments -- with the sad result that great questions themselves were marginalized in favor of studies in method.Van Inwagen is a sophisticated exponent of these arguments, taking into account difficulties. He isn't foisting simplistic answers on the reader.The problem, for me, is his lack of sympathy for new ways of asking the questions. He has apparently boundless faith in strict Aristotelian either-or logic and clear definitions as an engine to solve ultimate problems. He is out of sympathy with non-Western cultures and their ways of thinking; he draws sharp boundaries between "rational" humans and the rest of nature; and he seems to view recent non-linear, holistic findings in the sciences as a dangerous fad.

An Excellent Introduction to the Subject

I've now read van Inwagen's "Metaphysics" three times, cover to cover, and have more or less internalized the book. It is one of the best introductions to the subject, bar none; indeed, this is the book that first made me realize what metaphysics *is*. This book is suitable for the general reader, even if he has no previous background in philosophy, provided he is willing to think hard. It is equally suited to the beginning student of metaphysics. Van inwagen characterizes metaphysics, accurately in my opinion, as the study of ultimate reality. The metaphysician, in other words, is the inquirer who seeks to say exactly how the world really is. As such, the metaphysician cannot be content with anything less than the strict, literal, and precise truth about all things. The metaphysician's subject can be organized succinctly around three questions:(1) What is the world really like? What are its most general features, and how is it organized? (2) Why is there a world at all? Why does the world have the general features and organization that it has? (3) What is our place in the world? How, if at all, do we fit into the scheme of things?(These are paraphrases of questions that van Inwagen puts to the reader in the introduction of his book.)The book can be seen as an introduction to metaphysical inquiry, by way of actual examples of how metaphysicians have attempted to answer these questions, and more specific questions that fall under them. Thus, van Inwagen examines, among other things, individuality (monism, nihilism, pluralism, Spinoza's & Bradley's arguments for monism), externality (Berkeley's subjective idealism), objectivity (Realism and anti-Realism), the cosmological, ontological, and teleological arguments, in several different forms, mind-body dualism and physicalism, free will vs. determinism, composition and persistence through time, and personal identity. In the course of this inquiry, van Inwagen makes no effort to maintain a fine neutrality; he forthrightly states his own opinions and argues for them, examines and criticizes opposing views and arguments, and offers his conclusions. On some matters, he finds no solutions, but only enduring mysteries. The book concludes with a meditation on mystery, and a suggestion that metaphysical problems may be beyond human power to solve (or resolve), and that it is no surprise if that is in fact the case. I happen to disagree with these sentiments, at least to a degree, and I certainly disagree with many of van Inwagen's conclusions. But that's the point. Learning metaphysics isn't learning a set of established facts, it is learning how to form something resembling an intelligent opinion on matters metaphysical. If, by the end of this book, you have learned enough to *disagree* with van Inwagen intelligently, the book has done its job. It certainly did for me.