Conee Earl Brink - Riddles of Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics: New Edition

You have a choice before you. Will you continue reading this book? Take your time, make up your mindOK, time's up. What is your decision?

If you have reached this sentence, your decision must have been yes. Now, think back to your decision. Was it a free decision? Could you have put the book down? Or did you have to keep reading?

Of course you could have put the book down; of course your decision was free. We human beings have free will.

Not so fast. We human beings are made of matter, tiny particles studied by the sciences. And the sciences, especially physics, discover laws of nature that specify where these particles must move. Given the forces that were acting on the particles, your body had to move the way it did, and so you had to continue to read. How then was your decision free?

This is the problem of free will. It is a tough problem. We all believe that we have free will, and yet scientific laws govern the matter making up our bodies, determining what we will do next. So do we have free will? discusses this problem in depth, and suggests a certain answer. But it is not so important to us that you agree with our answer. What we really hope is that you come to appreciate the importance of such problems and develop reasoned opinions of your own.

Grappling with the problem of free will, as with most other metaphysical issues, requires no specialized knowledge. The conflict between free will and science lies in what we already know. What philosophy teaches us is how to reflect on what we already know in a particularly careful and thoughtful way. It is truly astonishing what problems emerge from this kind of reflection!

The problem of free will is just one example of a metaphysical problem. Broadly and vaguely speaking, metaphysics addresses fundamental questions about the nature of reality. What are the basic ingredients of reality? What is their ultimate nature? Could reality have been different? And where do human beings fit into reality? Indeed, why does reality contain anything at all?

Philosophers at colleges and universities teach and write about metaphysics. They pursue deep questions about life, meaning, and the world. Bookstores also have large sections called Metaphysics or Metaphysical Studies, containing books on deep questions about life, meaning, and the world. But these books are rarely written by academic philosophers. Why is that?

The main reason is that what most philosophers write is too technical and specialized. That's a shame. Philosophy is exciting and important, and understandable by anyone. There may also be another reason. Academic philosophers try to be as rational as they can in their writings. They criticize one another's ideas ruthlessly in pursuit of the truth. This makes for controversies rather than soothing certainties, which some people don't like. But that's also a shame. The controversies are fun and enlightening. Philosophy is an intellectual quest, governed by rigorous standards designed to help us figure out what is really true.

This book is for anyone interested in finding out about metaphysics. We don't take for granted any background in philosophy. The book is understandable without supplemental readings or instruction by a teacher.

As a textbook, it is flexible. The chapters are short and can be used independently of one another. The most accessible chapters come first; beyond that, the ordering has no great significance. In an introductory philosophy course, a section about metaphysics might use two or three chapters. A metaphysics course might use any or all of the chapters.

It's by a couple of professors of philosophy. We each wrote six chapters. Though we collaborated on them all, we did not try to make the book read as if it were the work of one author. We hope that stylistic differences make for a pleasant and stimulating variation in tone.

The first ten chapters take up major topics in metaphysics; the last two chapters discuss the nature of metaphysics. The chapters deal selectively with their issues. The goal is to take a serious look at these topics, without exhausting themor the reader! A brief list of suggested further readings appears at the end of each chapter.