Peter van Inwagen (; born September 21, 1942) is an
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
analytic
Generally speaking, analytic (from el, ἀναλυτικός, ''analytikos'') refers to the "having the ability to analyze" or "division into elements or principles".
Analytic or analytical can also have the following meanings:
Chemistry
* ...
philosopher
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
and the John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main c ...
. He is also a Research Professor of Philosophy at
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist Jam ...
each spring. He previously taught at
Syracuse University and earned his PhD from the
University of Rochester
The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees.
The University of ...
in 1969 under the direction of
Richard Taylor. Van Inwagen is one of the leading figures in contemporary
metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
,
philosophy of religion
Philosophy of religion is "the philosophical examination of the central themes and concepts involved in religious traditions". Philosophical discussions on such topics date from ancient times, and appear in the earliest known texts concerning p ...
, and
philosophy of action. He was the president of the
Society of Christian Philosophers from 2010 to 2013.
Career
Van Inwagen's 1983
monograph ''An Essay on Free Will'' played an important role in rehabilitating
libertarianism with respect to
free will
Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.
Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to ac ...
in mainstream
analytical philosophy. In the book, he introduces the term
incompatibilism about free will and
determinism, to stand in contrast to
compatibilism—the view that free will is compatible with determinism.
Van Inwagen's central argument (the ''
consequence argument'') for this view is that "If determinism is true, then our acts are the consequences of the laws of nature and events in the remote past. But it is not up to us what went on before we were born, and neither is it up to us what the laws of nature are. Therefore, the consequences of those things (including our present acts) are not up to us."
Van Inwagen also added what he called the ''Mind Argument'' (after the philosophical journal ''
Mind'', where such arguments often appeared). "The ''Mind'' argument proceeds by identifying indeterminism with
chance and by arguing that an act that occurs by chance, if an event that occurs by chance can be called an act, cannot be under the control of its alleged agent and hence cannot have been performed freely. Proponents of
his argumentconclude, therefore, that free will is not only compatible with determinism but entails determinism."
The ''Consequence Argument'' and the ''Mind Argument'' are the two horns in the classic dilemma and standard argument ''against'' free will. If determinism is true, our actions are not free. If indeterminism is true, our actions are random and our
will cannot be
morally responsible for them.
Van Inwagen concludes that "Free Will Remains a Mystery." In an article written in the third person called "Van Inwagen on Free Will," he describes the problem with his incompatibilist free will if random ''chance directly causes our actions''. He imagines the universe reverting a thousand times to ''exactly the same circumstances'' it was in at some earlier time and observing all the "replays." If the agent's actions are random, she sometimes "would have agent-caused the crucial brain event and sometimes (in seventy percent of the replays, let us say) she would not have... I conclude that even if an episode of agent causation is among the causal antecedents of every voluntary human action, these episodes do nothing to undermine the prima facie impossibility of an undetermined free act."
In a paper submitted to ''
The Journal of Ethics'', "How to Think about the Problem of Free Will", Van Inwagen worries that the concept "free will" may be incoherent. He writes, "There are seemingly unanswerable arguments that (if they are indeed unanswerable) demonstrate that free will is incompatible with determinism. And there are seemingly unanswerable arguments that ... demonstrate that free will is incompatible with indeterminism. But if free will is incompatible both with determinism and indeterminism, the concept 'free will' is incoherent, and the thing free will does not exist."
In his book ''Material Beings'', Van Inwagen argues that all material objects are either elementary particles or living organisms. Every composite material object is made up of elementary particles, and the only such composite objects are living organisms. A consequence of this view is that everyday objects such as tables, chairs, cars, buildings, and clouds do not exist. While there seem to be such things, this is only because there are elementary particles arranged in specific ways. For example, where it seems that there is a chair, Van Inwagen says that there are only ''elementary particles arranged chairwise.'' These particles do not compose an object, any more than a swarm of bees composes an object. Like a swarm of bees, the particles we call a chair maintain a more or less stable arrangement for a while, which gives the impression of a single object. An individual bee, by contrast, has parts that are unified in the right way to constitute a single object (namely, a bee).
Van Inwagen gave the 2003
Gifford Lectures; they are published in his ''The Problem of Evil''.
[(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)] There Van Inwagen argues that the
problem of evil
The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God.The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,The Problem of Evil, Michael TooleyThe Internet Encyc ...
is a philosophical argument and, like most philosophical arguments, fails.
In recent years, Van Inwagen has shown an interest in the
afterlife
The afterlife (also referred to as life after death) is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's identity or their stream of consciousness continues to live after the death of their physical body. The surviving es ...
debate, particularly in relation to
resurrection of the body. In his article "I Look for the Resurrection of the Dead and the Life of the World to Come", he concludes that Christians must account for some sort of physical continuity in their account of existence of the same person after death. In particular, Van Inwagen notes, this is a problem for the
Christian materialist, one who believes that human beings are physical substances.
Awards and honors
He was elected to the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
in 2005,
and was President of the Central Division of the
American Philosophical Association in 2008/09. He was the President of the
Society of Christian Philosophers from 2010 to 2013.
He has delivered lectures including:
* The F.D. Maurice Lectures, three lectures delivered at the University of London in March 1999
* The Wilde Lectures on Natural Religion, eight lectures delivered at Oxford University in Trinity Term, 2000
* The Stewart Lectures: three lectures delivered at Princeton University, October 2002
* The
Gifford Lectures, eight lectures delivered at the
University of St. Andrews, May 2003
* The Jellema Lectures: two lectures delivered at
Calvin College, March 2004
* The Münster Lectures in Philosophy, including a student colloquium at the University of Münster, November 2015
In May 2011 it was announced that he is to receive an
honorary doctorate
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...
from the
University of St Andrews,
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...
.
Books
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Personal life
Van Inwagen lives in
Granger, Indiana, with his wife Elisabeth. Van Inwagen converted to
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...
in 1980.
See also
*
American philosophy
*
List of American philosophers
This is a list of American philosophers; of philosophers who are either from, or spent many productive years of their lives in the United States.
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Mereological nihilism
Notes
References
Works cited
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Sources
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External links
Official Pageat the University of Notre Dame
''The Problem of Evil'' Oxford University Press, 2006. (Gifford Lectures 2002)
Papersby van Inwagen
Van Inwagen(Brief professional overview)
"Metaphysics"(Entry in the
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''SEP'') combines an online encyclopedia of philosophy with peer-reviewed publication of original papers in philosophy, freely accessible to Internet users. It is maintained by Stanford University. E ...
)
Interviewsfrom the PBS program
Closer to Truth
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Inwagen, Peter Van
1942 births
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