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Trenton Merricks

Trenton Merricks is an American metaphysician at the University of Virginia. In Objects and Persons he defended eliminativism about inanimate composite objects: there are…

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active 1990s – present · United States (University of Virginia)

Traditions: Analytic

Trenton Merricks is an American metaphysician at the University of Virginia. In Objects and Persons he defended eliminativism about inanimate composite objects: there are no statues, baseballs or chairs, only simples arranged statue-wise or chair-wise, because such objects would causally overdetermine what their parts already do. He makes an exception for persons and human organisms, whose conscious mental properties give them non-redundant causal powers. He has also written on truth, propositions and the relation between truth and ontology.

Key ideas

  • Inanimate composite objects such as statues and baseballs do not exist.
  • If such objects existed, their effects would be overdetermined by their parts acting in concert.
  • Human persons do exist, because their conscious mental properties are not redundant.
  • Truth does not require that every truth be grounded in what exists.

Major works

  • Objects and Persons (2001)
  • Truth and Ontology (2007)
  • Propositions (2015)

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In the Coordinates

The questions of philosophy where Trenton Merricks takes a place, from The Coordinates of Thought.