Lynne Rudder Baker, The Metaphysics of Everyday Life: An Essay in Practical Realism (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2007), xv + 253 Pps., $85.00, and Theodore Sider, John Hawthorne, and Dean W. Zimmerman, eds. Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008), ix + 404 Pps., $39.95.
Metaphysics can be perceived as a branch of philosophy that investigates various principles of reality that transcend and go beyond those of any particular science. Metaphysics deals with the reality of ordinary things, human persons, causation, time, abstract entities, and ontology, and the study of it allows one to gain understanding the shared world that animate and inanimate objects encounter and interact with on a daily basis. Its study, if neglected in the recent past, is making a strong comeback in many of today’s academic works, as evidenced by the two titles to be cursorily examined in this review.
In The Metaphysics of Everyday Life, Baker (Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts), presents and defends a unique account of the material world, which she refers to as the Constitution View. This view construes various ‘everyday’ things in the material world as irreducible parts of reality, as opposed to picturing the same as nonexistent or reducible to smaller component parts. She contends throughout that although ‘everyday’ things are indeed composed of smaller particles, they are not identical to, or reducible to, the aggregation of microphysical particle properties. As a result, there is a true ontological distinction between such things in the material world as people, bacteria, automobiles, and animals. Throughout, Baker defends a metaphysics that gives ontological weight to the objects of everyday life. Her aim is to offer a metaphysical theory that acknowledges the genuine reality of what our everyday (and hence, scientific) concepts are concepts of.
On topics such as nonreductive causation, ontological novelty, ontological levels, and emergence, Baker presents her Constitution View of metaphysics that is in line with a practical realist stance toward the topics. After all, the ultimate test of any metaphysical theory is pragmatic. In the introductory chapter, Baker begins by noting that manifest things are irreducibly real, which means that ordinary things are not eliminatively reducible to anything else, and thus posits that there is a veritable ontology of ‘medium-sized’ objects (5). Her position has bountiful application to the study of common sense philosophy, for if ordinary objects are irreducibly real, then one can take rather straightforwardly any explanation or description of one’s experience as accurately reflective of reality. This is tremendously important, for science is based upon trusting one’s perception of and experience of reality. She asserts that we have overwhelmingly greater reason to believe in the irreducible reality of ordinary objects than to believe any theory that advocates the contrary.
In three parts, Baker presents in this text an ontological account of everyday objects, a discussion of the basic features of the everyday world, and the technical apparatus that underlies her account as presented in parts one and two. In the course of her argument, she critically assesses Jaewon Kim’s reductive view of causation, and proffers her own view of common sense causation, which is clearly anti-Humean in several ways. For example, experience is not merely of successive events, but of genuine causation instead. Also, causal occurrences do not depend upon regularities that permeate spatiality and temporality, but are capable of being singularly instantiated instead. Moreover, she asserts that to have causal powers is what makes a thing ‘real’ (97-99). She avers that her Constitution View of metaphysics provides an account of levels of reality in which there is no single hierarchy, but multiple branches instead. She posits that if one adds to her view of ontological levels the hypothesis that higher-level primary kinds come into being over time, then a robust conceptioning of genuine emergence results. In so doing, she explicitly supports what P. Clayton (Mind & Emergence, 2004) refers to as ‘ontological emergence’ wherein novel properties emerge from the elements of the bearer’s substrate (note that this is in contradistinction to ‘epistemic emergence’ wherein the resulting property is differently organized, yet ultimately reducible to its substrate).
Theodore Sider (Professor of Philosophy, New York University), John Hawthorne (Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at University of Oxford), and Dean W. Zimmerman (Associate Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University), in their Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics, cover many of the same topics as Baker. While the book contains chapters covering nine troubling and puzzling areas of metaphysics (abstract entities, causation, modality, personal identity, time, persistence, free will, mereology, and metaontology), the goal of each chapter is to find generalizations about abstract patterns (necessity: chapters 1-3, time: 4-6, and ontology: 7-9). So then, this title contains eighteen essays by distinguished scholars within contemporary philosophy that attempt to depict the current state of this ancient discipline. These essays likewise touch upon the recurring theme in metaphysics regarding the relationship between a scientific outlook and ordinary beliefs.
For example, whereas Baker argues that the scientific picture of reality needs to be revised if it conflicts with one’s ordinary beliefs, one will find J.J.C. Smart arguing within this text that the inverse is true: our ordinary beliefs must be revised in light of science (note that Zimmerman argues in concurrence with Baker on this issue). Further, Jonathon Schaffer argues, in fine reductionist style, that there is nothing more to any law of nature beyond the regularity of its expression. However, John W. Carrol counters and postulates that reductionists miss a crucial aspect of the existence of laws of nature: that they also contain a necessity (one could imagine that Baker would agree with him here). While (hyper)science often tends to promote a deterministic outlook, as all things are seemingly ‘chosen’ by the laws of nature, Robert Kane asserts that there is good reason for one not to think of laws of nature are not as restrictive as former conceptions thought them to be. On the other hand, Kadri Vihvelin attempts to argue the standard view, and thus attempts to fit human freedom into a scientifically determined world.
So what should one trust when doing metaphysics: science or ordinary beliefs? Perhaps the answer is not either/or, but both/and. Indeed, in dialogue with these two texts, perhaps it is apropos to state that metaphysics is informed, but not exhausted, by science, and common sense is the epistemic starting point for metaphysics. In reading these two texts, one can deduce that the study of metaphysics, long left for dead by the prevailing reductionistic paradigm of the modern era, has received new life in the postmodern era. Indeed, in light of these texts, one may infer that its study is vibrant. Without hesitation, I recommend both of these titles for patrons who possess keen interest in common sense philosophy, philosophy of science, and realism.
Bradford McCall
Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA.