Material Beings / / Peter Van Inwagen.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Archive Pre-2000
• VerfasserIn: Van Inwagen, Peter,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [1990]; ©1995
• Year of Publication: 1990
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (288 p.) :; 9 halftones
• Other title: Frontmatter --; Contents --; Preface --; 1. Introduction --; 2. The Special Composition Question --; 3. Contact, a Representative Answer to the Special Composition Question --; 4. The General Composition Question --; 5. What We Shall Not Presuppose --; 6. Answers to the Special Composition Question According to Which Composition Occurs When Some Type of Physical Bonding Occurs --; 7. Answers to the Special Composition Question According to Which Composition Occurs When Combinations of Various Types of Physical Bonding Occur --; 8. Extreme Answers to the Special Composition Question: Nihilism and Universalism --; 9. The Proposed Answer --; 10. Why the Proposed Answer to the Special Composition Question, Radical Though It Is, Does Not Contradict Our Ordinary Beliefs --; 11. The Topic of the Previous Section Continued: Paraphrase --; 12. Unity and Thinking --; 13. Artifacts --; 14. The Identities of Material Objects --; 15. Brain Transplants --; 16. Two Problerns about Personal Identity: Memory and Commissurotomy --; 17. The Problem of the Many and the Vagueness of Composition --; 18. The Vagueness of Identity --; 19. The Vagueness of Existence --; Notes --; Index
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9781501713033; 9783110536171
• DOI: 10.7591/9781501713033
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Peter Van Inwagen.

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.