Riddles of Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics

Citation

Conee, E., & Sider, T. (2014). Riddles of Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics (New ed.). Oxford University Press.

Chapter Summary

The new edition of 2014 has an introduction and twelve chapters, about 250 pages in all, with a short list of further reading at the end of each chapter and an index of terms and abbreviations. Each author wrote six chapters, and the introduction names the author of each. The publisher stresses the lively, informal style and the open-minded, non-dogmatic approach. The authors explain that the chapters are short and can be used independently of one another, that the most accessible ones come first, and that they deal selectively with their topics so as to take a serious look at them without exhausting them, or the reader. They suggest that an introductory philosophy course might use two or three chapters, a metaphysics course any or all of them. The preface to the new edition explains that two closing chapters on the nature of metaphysics were added: "What is Metaphysics?" by Conee and "Metametaphysics" by Sider.

Chapter 1: Personal Identity

What makes you the same person as the baby in your childhood photographs? The chapter considers the soul theory, then Locke's story of a prince and a cobbler whose memories and character are swapped, as a case for a psychological account. It also tests the spatiotemporal continuity of the body against cases such as a brain divided between two bodies, which raise a duplication problem for both kinds of theory.

Chapter 2: Fatalism

Is everything fated to be exactly as it is? The chapter examines arguments for fatalism from the truth of predictions, including the response that denies the law of excluded middle for statements about the future, and asks whether the past existence of true predictions settles what will happen. Further reading points to discussions of God's foreknowledge and human freedom.

Chapter 3: Time

Sider asks whether time flows, and how fast, and examines the analogy between time and space. Using time-travel stories such as Back to the Future and The Terminator, he argues that consistent time-travel stories can be told and that there is no conceptual impossibility in backward causation and time travel.

Chapter 4: God

The chapter discusses arguments about God's existence, with particular attention to ontological arguments, which claim to establish God's existence by reasoning alone, and to the concept of a maximally perfect being.

Chapter 5: Why Not Nothing?

The question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" seems to allow no answer that takes anything for granted. The chapter explores "necessitarian" answers that would show that some being exists necessarily, finds that an ontological argument for a necessary being fails at its first step, and considers the proposal that good possibilities tend to be actual.

Chapter 6: Free Will and Determinism

Sider sets out the conflict between free will and the scientific search for causes. He considers hard determinism, libertarian views that appeal to quantum indeterminacy or to agent causation, which he argues adds nothing to freedom if it simply follows the probabilities, and compatibilism, the view that the conflict rests on a misunderstanding of what freedom means.

Chapter 7: Constitution

A sculptor makes a statue from a piece of clay: are the statue and the clay one object or two? The chapter examines the puzzle of constitution and solutions to it, including a four-dimensional view on which the statue and the clay are related through their temporal parts.

Chapter 8: Universals

A universal is what similar things have in common. The chapter sets out the universalist view, the doubts that lead many philosophers to reject it, and alternatives such as nominalism and trope theory, on which each thing has its own particular shape or colour.

Chapter 9: Possibility and Necessity

What are absolute possibilities? The chapter introduces possible worlds, discusses David Lewis's realism about them and asks whether possibility and necessity can be demystified without his worlds, for instance by conventionalism, the view that what is necessary is true by definition.

Chapter 10: The Metaphysics of Ethics

Conee asks what moral judgements are about. He considers moral realism, the view that moral evaluations attribute real properties to actions and people, and the alternatives that deny there are moral facts.

Chapters 11–12: What is Metaphysics?; Metametaphysics

The two new chapters ask what, after ten chapters on different issues, unifies the subject. Conee looks for a unifying feature of the subject, which the introduction describes as remarkably difficult to identify, and Sider's chapter turns to questions about metaphysics itself. Both give, in the preface's words, "friendly critical attention" to the leading answers.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–3: Personal Identity; Fatalism; Time

• Psychological and bodily continuity: rival accounts of what makes a person the same over time.
• Duplication problem: cases where one person seems to continue as two, which threaten theories of personal identity.
• Fatalism: the view that everything is fated, here argued from the prior truth of predictions.
• Backward causation: effects that precede their causes, as in time-travel stories.

Chapters 4–6: God; Why Not Nothing?; Free Will and Determinism

• Ontological argument: an attempt to prove God's existence from the concept of a maximally perfect being alone.
• Necessary being: something that exists in every possible situation, sought as an answer to why there is something rather than nothing.
• Hard determinism, libertarianism and compatibilism: the three main positions on free will and causal determination.
• Agent causation: a supposed kind of causation exercised by persons, not governed by mechanistic laws.

Chapters 7–9: Constitution; Universals; Possibility and Necessity

• Constitution: the relation between an object such as a statue and the matter it is made of.
• Universals and tropes: shared features of similar things versus particular instances of a feature in each thing.
• Possible worlds: complete ways things might have been, used to explain possibility and necessity.

Chapters 10–12: The Metaphysics of Ethics; What is Metaphysics?; Metametaphysics

• Moral realism: the view that there are real moral facts and properties.
• Metametaphysics: the study of the nature, methods and significance of metaphysical questions.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Puzzles as the way in. Each chapter starts from a question that a beginner can feel the force of, and the examples (the prince and the cobbler, Back to the Future, the statue and the clay) are memorable.
• Flexible structure. Short, independent chapters, ordered from most to least accessible, make the book easy to fit to different courses, as the introduction itself suggests.
• Wide range of topics. Besides core metaphysics, it covers fatalism, God, the question of why there is anything at all and the metaphysics of ethics, and the new edition adds two chapters on the nature of metaphysics itself.
• Argument, not just survey. The authors evaluate the views they present, for example arguing that time travel is conceptually possible and that some forms of agent causation add nothing to freedom, which shows students what taking a position looks like.

Limitations

• Selective by design. The authors say the chapters treat their issues selectively; readers will need other texts for the full range of positions in each debate.
• Uneven difficulty. The later chapters, especially on possibility and necessity and the two closing chapters on metaphysics itself, are more abstract than the opening ones, which the authors acknowledge by putting the most accessible chapters first.
• Light apparatus. There are brief further-reading lists but, judging from the contents, no summaries, study questions or glossary, so the book works best alongside a course.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is one of two lighter first books in the course's metaphysics list. Stephen Mumford's Metaphysics: A Very Short Introduction is shorter and organised around ten simple questions about ordinary things; Conee and Sider go into more detail and cover topics Mumford does not, such as fatalism, God, free will and the metaphysics of ethics. Either can be read first, but students who start with Mumford will find Riddles a natural deepening.

Michael Loux and Thomas Crisp's Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction is a more systematic textbook and the next step for students who want fuller coverage of universals, possibility and persistence. Peter van Inwagen's Metaphysics also argues for definite positions on large questions. Chapter 9 of Riddles is the best preparation in the course for David Lewis's On the Plurality of Worlds and for Saul Kripke's Naming and Necessity.

How to Use This Book

No prior metaphysics or logic is needed. Begin with the introduction, which summarises each chapter and helps you choose. For a first metaphysics course, Chapters 1, 3, 6, 7, 8 and 9 cover the core topics; Chapters 2, 4 and 5 suit courses that include fatalism or philosophy of religion; Chapter 10 links to ethics courses; and Chapters 11 and 12 are best read at the end, when you have enough examples to test claims about what metaphysics is.

Each chapter reads well in one sitting. As you go, write out each main argument as numbered premises and decide which premise you would reject; the authors' informal style makes it easy to miss how carefully the arguments are built. Use the further-reading list at the end of each chapter to find the classic primary texts, such as the readings on personal identity collected in John Perry's anthology.