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Peter van Inwagen · 1990 · Medium (150–350 pages)

4.0 from 3 reviews · 34 views

Existence & beingAnalytic
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What it is

Van Inwagen poses what he calls the Special Composition Question: when do several things together make up a further thing? He examines and rejects answers on which composition requires contact or fastening, the view that it always happens, and the view that it never happens, which he rules out partly because he takes thinkers like himself to exist. His own answer is that some things compose something only when their activity constitutes a life. The result is a sparse ontology of simple particles and living organisms, with no tables, chairs or rocks strictly speaking. He argues that this is less hostile to common sense than it sounds, since talk of a chair can be recast as talk of particles arranged chairwise, and ordinary speakers are not being convicted of error. Later chapters take up vagueness, the persistence of organisms through time, and what the view implies for human beings.

Why read it

It is the classic statement of one of the most argued-over positions in contemporary metaphysics, and it shows how far a single question can be pursued with care.

Where to start

Read the opening sections that set up the Special Composition Question and the chapter giving his own answer, before tackling the defence against objections.

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Reviews

  1. Hicham Ouazzani

    Someone in a thread told me that according to this book the doors I make do not exist, so I had to read it. I followed perhaps two thirds. He is clever and patient, and he is not saying my work is imaginary, only that the door is many small things arranged doorwise. I still think the joiner's idea of a whole, a thing made for a purpose, deserves more than he gives it. Three stars from a craftsman, maybe five from a logician.

  2. Abdulrahman Al-Qahtani

    The kalām theologians held that bodies are just atoms that God aggregates moment to moment, so I came to this with a family resemblance in mind. Van Inwagen's simples arranged chairwise are close to that, except that he lets living things count as real wholes. I found the argument against the view that nothing composes anything weaker than the rest, but the book is careful and honest about costs.

  3. Tomasz Wójcik

    Precise, stubborn, and very well argued. What I value is that each rival answer to the composition question is stated sharply enough to be refuted, and you can check whether the refutation works. I am not persuaded that life is the right criterion, mostly because 'life' is vague in ways he has to work hard to accommodate, but it is the model for how to do this kind of metaphysics.