Peter Van Inwagen

Mar 24, 2025 | jimpalmerauthor.substack.com | Peter Van Inwagen |Jim Palmer |Richard Dawkins

Within Christian culture, “atheism” is a dirty word. To be an atheist is to deny the existence of God. Likewise, in atheistic culture, “agnosticism” can be viewed as a weak position and viewed as a cop-out. But I discovered this week that there are countless people who have quietly become atheists and agnostics in their post-religion journey. I posted a question on my Facebook page inquiring about this:Deconstructionology with Jim Palmer is a reader-supported publication.

Oct 11, 2023 | britannica.com | Peter Van Inwagen

problem of universals, in metaphysics, the question of whether there are universals—“general” things of which particular things are instances or examples or cases—and, if so, what exactly they are and how human knowledge of them is possible. A believer in universals might hold, for example, that, in addition to particular horses, the world contains the species Equus caballus, a general thing of which every horse is an instance (and of which only horses are instances).

Oct 9, 2023 | britannica.com | Peter Van Inwagen

Psychophysical dualism According to psychophysical dualism, the physical properties of human beings are properties of their bodies and the mental properties of human beings are properties of their minds or souls—a person’s mind or soul being an immaterial substance wholly distinct from the physical substance that is that person’s body.

Jun 29, 2023 | academic.oup.com | Peter Van Inwagen

Peter van Inwagen has been for decades one of the leading ontologists in the world, and reading Being makes it easy to see a reason why this is so. He insists on absolute clarity in what he says, or as close to this as he is able to achieve, and he has firm views on what is required to do this. It has to be said, though, that his accounts of these views often involve intricate arguments.