Philosophy Compass 5/7 (2010): 591–601, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00303.
The Controversy over the Existence of Ordinary Objects
Amie L. Thomasson*
University of Miami
Abstract
The basic philosophical controversy regarding ordinary objects is: Do tables and chairs, sticks and
stones, exist? This paper aims to do two things: first, to explain why how this can be a contro-
versy at all, and second, to explain why this controversy has arisen so late in the history of philo-
sophy. Section 1 begins by discussing why the ‘obvious’ sensory evidence in favor of ordinary
objects is not taken to be decisive. It goes on to review the standard arguments against the exis-
tence of ordinary objects – including those based on problems with causal redundancy, parsimony,
co-location, sorites arguments, and the special composition question. Section 2 goes on to address
what it is about the contemporary approach to metaphysics that invites and sustains this kind of
controversy, and helps make evident why debates about ordinary objects lead so readily to debates
in metametaphysics about the nature of metaphysics itself.
The basic philosophical controversy regarding ordinary objects is: Do tables and chairs,
sticks and stones, exist?
The basic mystery, at least to those outside the melee, is: How this can be a contro-
versy?
But although questioning the existence of ordinary objects may seem crazy to outsid-
ers, it has become commonplace in recent metaphysics.1 There is not space to resolve the
controversy here; instead, I aim to unravel the mystery. For understanding how this con-
troversy could arise and what’s at stake in resolving it can reveal a lot about what’s going
on in contemporary metaphysics.
Thus I will focus on two underlying questions. First, how could this be a controversy
– why is the ‘obvious’ evidence in favor of ordinary objects not taken to be decisive, and
what arguments are given for denying the existence of ordinary objects?
Second, why has this sort of controversy arisen now, although it played little role
earlier in the history of philosophy?2 What is it about the contemporary approach to
metaphysics that invites and sustains this kind of controversy? I return to this issue in
Section 2 in hopes of making clear why debates about the existence of ordinary
objects lead us so readily into debates about the very nature of metaphysics – and
thus are of interest even to those who think the answer to our original question is
obvious.
1. Why is there a Controversy about the Existence of Ordinary Objects?
You might feel that it’s just obvious that there are ordinary objects – after all (it seems),
we see them, hear them, and you may be sitting on one right now. Why isn’t this taken
as decisive enough evidence to keep any controversy at bay?
This isn’t taken to be decisive because there is another candidate for what we are see-
ing, hearing, or sitting on:3 whatever the more basic physical entities are (fundamental
ª 2010 The Author
Journal Compilation ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
592 Controversy over Ordinary Objects
particles, fields, etc.).4 This line of thought was raised in memorable form by Sir Arthur
Eddington, who drew a distinction between ‘two tables’:
I have settled down to the task of writing these lectures and have drawn up my chairs to my
two tables. Two tables! Yes; there are duplicates of every object about me – two tables, two
chairs, two pens. (1928 ⁄ 1958, xi)
The first is the commonsense table – it ‘has extension; it is comparatively permanent; it is
coloured; above all it is substantial’ (1928 ⁄ 1958, xi). The second is the ‘scientific table’ –
which is,
… mostly emptiness. Sparsely scattered in that emptiness are numerous electric charges rushing
about with great speed; but their combined bulk amounts to less than a billionth of the bulk of
the table itself … . (1928 ⁄ 1958, xii)
Despite their differences – the first, but not the second, is colored, solid, substantial, etc.
– both of Eddington’s ‘tables’ do the same work:
Notwithstanding its strange construction [the scientific table] turns out to be an entirely efficient
table. It supports my writing paper as satisfactorily as table No. 1… If I lean upon this table I
shall not go through … . (1928 ⁄ 1958, xii)
Similarly, we might say, the effects of the relevant fundamental particles on (the particles
making up) our perceptual organs can explain all that we seem to see and hear, whereas
the bonding relations among them can make it clear how I may remain supported in a
sitting position, etc. Given the ability of the underlying scientific entities to explain all
we experience, experience alone is often said not to be sufficient evidence that there are
tables or other ordinary objects.
In fact, the entities in what Wilfrid Sellars calls the ‘scientific image’ (1963 ⁄ 1991) seem
able to account for any causal effects we might naturally have attributed to ordinary objects
– perceptual or otherwise, and this leads to a first line of argument against the existence of
ordinary objects. As Peter van Inwagen writes: ‘all the activities apparently carried out by
shelves and stars and other artifacts and natural bodies can be understood as disguised
cooperative activities [of simples properly arranged]’ (1990, 122). Those who accept the
so-called ‘Eleatic principle’ hold that we should only accept the existence of entities which
have causal powers – or (as it is sometimes put) which make a causal difference (Armstrong
1978, vol. 2, 5). If all the causal powers normally attributed to tables, chairs and the like
may be better accounted for in terms of the causal activities of subatomic particles, then, it
is sometimes said, such ordinary objects are ‘causally redundant’; if we already accept the
existence of the scientific entities, we should deny the existence of ordinary objects.
Merricks (2001) makes a causal redundancy argument against ordinary objects in even
stronger form. He argues that for any inanimate ordinary object such as a baseball, the
atoms composing the baseball have the best claim to cause any effect we might have
attributed to the baseball (like shattering a window) – and that the baseball itself (if there
is one) is causally irrelevant to the work of those atoms. So, assuming we’d deny that the
shattering was overdetermined, we must conclude that the baseball itself does not cause
the shattering – or any other observed effect. But it is part of the very idea of ordinary
objects that they are causally efficacious:
… if there were baseballs, they would break windows, they would injure batters, they would
cause visual sensations (and so be seen), and they would cause tactile sensations (and so be
felt)… But given the Overdetermination Argument … if there were such objects, they would
not have causal powers. (2001, 81)
ª 2010 The Author Philosophy Compass 5/7 (2010): 591–601, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00303.x
Journal Compilation ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Controversy over Ordinary Objects 593
Given that apparent inconsistency, Merricks concludes that we must deny the existence
of ordinary inanimate objects. (For replies to causal redundancy arguments against ordin-
ary objects, see Sider (2003), Lowe (2005, 527–9), and Thomasson (2007, 9–27)).
One might, of course, wonder how an ordinary object like a table could be considered
a causal rival of the fundamental particles in the vicinity – after all, one might suggest,
isn’t the table the same as the fundamental particles, properly bonded and arranged? If they
are identical, then there can be no more causal rivalry between them than between Venus
and the Morning Star.
But there are many barriers to identifying ordinary objects with the fundamental physical
entities in the relevant region. A first barrier to identification comes from the observation
that one can’t be identical to many: it doesn’t make sense to think that a single statue, say,
could be identical to many particles. This problem is avoided if we suggest not that the
statue is identical to the particles, but rather that the statue is identical to the relevant collection
of particles (properly arranged) – so that we have a one–one rather than a one–many identi-
fication. But there are also problems for the view that an ordinary object could be identical
to a collection of fundamental particles (properly arranged). For the two seem to have rather
different properties (cf. Wiggins 1997, 4; Fine 2003; Heil 2005, 496). First, they seem to
have very different modal properties (the statue but not the piece is essentially a statue
(Baker 1997)), and persistence conditions: the statue, we want to say, could survive minor
changes in the particles that compose it; the collection of particles could not. Conversely,
the collection of particles could survive rearrangement (say, scattering) in ways that the sta-
tue could not. Similarly, they may have different historical properties, as the statue may
have just come into existence last week, while the collection of particles goes much further
back; or different properties of many other kinds, e.g. the statue but may be defective or
Romanesque while the clay isn’t (Fine 2003, 206–8). But Leibniz’s law prohibits us from
identifying objects that have different properties (cf. Heil 2003, 180–3; Fine 2003, 200).
But if we cannot identify an ordinary object with a collection of particles, we encoun-
ter new problems, leading to other arguments against ordinary objects. Not only does the
ordinary object seem to lose its claim to make any causal contribution of its own, it
begins to seem entirely superfluous. Everything a table was supposed to ‘do’ can be better
accounted for in terms of the objects of physics, and physics has better epistemic creden-
tials than the ‘common sense’ that favors ordinary objects. As John Heil summarizes this
line of thought (without endorsing it), ‘The swarm [of particles] has impressive creden-
tials: it is recognized in physics. Our best science tells us that the swarm exists, behaves in
particular ways, and falls under strict laws of nature. The table’s standing is less impressive’
(2005, 497). Given the redundancy of accepting both, and the better claim of scientific
objects, some have raised arguments from parsimony against ordinary objects, urging that
we simply eliminate the redundant ordinary objects from our ontology – as accepting
both those and the objects of physics would ‘imply – as far as causal explanations are con-
cerned – a needless multiplication of physical objects’ (Merricks 2001, 40).5 (For replies to
arguments based on parsimony, see Thomasson 2007, 151–75.)
Moreover, eliminativists often say, we don’t merely gain a more parsimonious view by
rejecting ordinary objects, we also avoid a host of other troubles. As Peter van Inwagen
puts it, ‘If there are no artifacts, then there are no philosophical problems about artifacts’
(1990, 111). Co-location, for example, is one problem that leads to arguments against
ordinary objects (including not just artifacts but organisms and persons): if we accept that
there is, for example, a table there, and that there is a collection of particles, and that the
two are not identical, we are committed to the idea that there may be two distinct objects
composed of the same parts and occupying the same place at the same time. It is some-
ª 2010 The Author Philosophy Compass 5/7 (2010): 591–601, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00303.x
Journal Compilation ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
594 Controversy over Ordinary Objects
times suggested that co-location is implausible in itself: how (critics ask) could there be
two physical objects in the same place at the same time; is it really plausible to think that
there is a table over and above, or in addition to the collection of particles composing it?6
But co-location also raises deeper puzzles. If we suppose that the collection of particles
and the table are in the same place, at the same time, and (at some level of decomposi-
tion) have all of the same parts, how could they differ in their properties, in their history,
or in their persistence conditions? Eric Olson argues that supposed differences between
the co-located objects should be empirically detectable, but are not:
By definition, materially coinciding objects are made up entirely of exactly similar particles,
related in precisely the same way, in identical surroundings… That would seem to make the
objects so similar that not even God could tell them apart. How then could they have the
qualitative differences that constitutionalists say they have? By virtue of what, for instance,
could they belong to different kinds? What could give them different identity-conditions?
(2001, 339)
Elsewhere the worry is expressed in terms of the grounding problem: given all that the
collection of particles and the table have in common, what could possibly explain why they
have different modal, historical, sortal, or other qualities?7 (For responses to the ground-
ing problem, see Johnston 1997, 53–59; Bennett 2004; Lowe 2005, 521–2; Thomasson
2007, 81–6; Einheuser, forthcoming.)
Beyond the problems of co-location lie other alleged problems with accepting the exis-
tence of ordinary objects. One set of problems is revealed by sorites-style arguments
(most famously pressed by Peter Unger (1979)), which purport to find a contradiction in
the concept of ordinary objects, again using that as an argument that we should deny the
existence of any such things. The arguments generally proceed first by suggesting that the
following are parts of our standard concept of a table:
1. A table is made of many but a finite number of particles.
2. Removing a single particle from a table does not turn a table into a non-table.
But by repeating (2) an enormous number of times, of course, we could find ourselves in
a situation in which we are forced to conclude that (after a long process of removing one
particle then another) a single particle – or perhaps even none at all – is a table,
contradicting (1). Given this apparent conflict within what he considers our ordinary
concepts (whether of tables or other ordinary objects), Unger argues that we must deny
the existence of ordinary objects. The obvious response to sorites arguments against
ordinary objects is to reject (2) above, treating it either as false or as lacking truth-value.8
But (2) gains its plausibility from the vagueness inherent in our ordinary concepts, which
does make it seem that it would be wrong to think that there is any sharp dividing line
between what does and does not count as a table.
Even if we can avoid the charge of inconsistency, vagueness leads to other difficulties.
For it seems that the objects, if any, that correspond to our concepts must themselves be
vague. For suppose we only accepted the existence of objects with precise boundaries.
There are many different precise collections of particles in the vicinity of the table (differ-
ing only in the possession of one or a few particles), and treating any single one of them
as the table would seem hopelessly arbitrary. On the other hand, treating all of them as
tables results in what Unger (1980) calls the ‘problem of the many’ – an unfortunate pro-
liferation of ordinary objects. Thus, some have argued that if we accept that there are
tables and other ordinary objects, we should hold that these are vague objects (Johnston
ª 2010 The Author Philosophy Compass 5/7 (2010): 591–601, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00303.x
Journal Compilation ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Controversy over Ordinary Objects 595
1987; Thomasson 2007). But many reject the idea that there might be vague objects in
the world (Russell 1923 ⁄ 1997; Evans 1978; Lewis 1986, 212; Horgan 1994, 1998;
Horgan and Potrč 2000): the world, it is often said, must be fully precise – only our
concepts or language can be vague. Thus the thought that ordinary objects, if there are
any, would have to be vague objects presents another potential barrier to accepting the
existence of ordinary objects.
One final problem has been raised for those who would accept the existence of ordin-
ary objects, and to a large extent it was this controversy that sparked recent interest in
the question of whether ordinary objects exist. That is the problem of how to best
answer the Special Composition Question. The Special Composition Question, as Peter
van Inwagen (1990, 30–1) expresses it, is the question of when a plurality of objects add
up to, or compose, some further object. The challenge is to propose some uniform prin-
ciple of composition that tells us under what conditions a number of (smaller) objects
compose some larger one. And numerous answers have been suggested – from the nihil-
ist’s answer that composition never occurs (Dorr 2005), to the universalist answer that for
any two objects there is a further object they compose (Lewis 1986, 212). Intermediate
answers have also been defended, among them van Inwagen’s own organicist answer that,
given some xs, there is a y that they compose ‘if and only if the activity of the xs consti-
tutes a life’ (1990, 90). The demand to answer the special composition question has often
been wielded in arguments against the existence of ordinary objects because it seems that
no uniform answer gives us an ontology of ordinary objects. The nihilist and organicist
of course both reject ordinary objects. The universalist will accept something composed
of any two objects, but (as mentioned before) it’s not clear that the resulting mereological
sums – say, collections of particles – may be identified with our ordinary tables and
chairs, as the two may have different modal, sortal, historical or other properties. More-
over, the universalist response seems to get us lots of extraordinary objects (such as the
mereological sum of my nose and the Eiffel Tower) as well, so it could hardly be said to
provide a common sense ontology overall even if it did affirm the existence of ordinary
objects. (For responses to arguments against ordinary objects based on the special compo-
sition question, see Sanford 1993; Lowe 2005, 516; Thomasson 2007, 126–36).
Of course ordinary objects have their defenders as well (Hirsch (2002a,b), Lowe
(2005), Heil (2003, 2005), Thomasson (2007), Korman (2009, forthcoming)).9 In addition
to answering the particular arguments raised before, some adopt quite general strategies in
arguing against eliminativism. Most famously, G.E. Moore (1959, 226) argued that our
commonsense belief in ordinary objects is much more certain than any philosophical
arguments to the contrary can be. Daniel Korman (2009) argues that no eliminativist suc-
cessfully addresses the challenge of explaining why the folk find it reasonable to believe
in ordinary objects, if they don’t really exist. Others (Hirsch 2002a,b; Thomasson 2007,
2008, 2009a) offer a general defense of ordinary objects on metametaphysical grounds –
that is, on grounds of general views about the nature and methods of metaphysics.
I return to discuss this strategy below.
2. Why has the Controversy Arisen Now?
Now that we have a fair idea of the reasons given for doubting or denying the existence
of ordinary objects, let us return to the second puzzling question raised at the outset:
Why has this controversy arisen now (in the last few decades), rather than in earlier stages
of the history of philosophy?
ª 2010 The Author Philosophy Compass 5/7 (2010): 591–601, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00303.x
Journal Compilation ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
596 Controversy over Ordinary Objects
One tempting thought (prompted by Eddington’s talk of ‘two tables’) is that the
current controversy arose with the advance of modern physics, and the discovery that
where we normally think there is a table, at the ‘most fundamental level’ there are only
widely scattered particles in fields of force.
But this can’t be the real or main reason the controversy has arisen now. For none of
the philosophical problems raised for positing ordinary objects rely on knowledge of atomic
theory or any part of modern physics. Instead, all of them can equally well be raised just
given the knowledge that ordinary objects such as tables are divisible, made up of smaller
parts (that can compete with them for causal relevance, that are collectively co-located
with the table, that may be removed gradually …). But this is an everyday sort of
knowledge already available to the Ancients and to anyone who works or observes con-
structing, refinishing, damaging or destroying tables and the like.
Why then has the controversy become prominent at such a late stage in the history of
philosophy? Although the arguments against the existence of ordinary objects do not rely on
any particular piece of scientific knowledge, many of them do rely on a certain scientistic
approach to metaphysics: the view that metaphysics is of a piece with (and indeed part of
the same total theoretic enterprise as) natural science. This sort of scientistic approach to
metaphysics has become dominant since the 1950s, especially under the influence of Quine.
As Quine puts it ‘Ontological questions … are on a par with questions of natural sci-
ence’ (1953 ⁄ 2001, 45). Quine takes metaphysics to be involved in a process of construct-
ing an explanatory theory according to scientific principles:
Our acceptance of an ontology is, I think, similar in principle to our acceptance of a scientific
theory, say a system of physics: we adopt, at least insofar as we are reasonable, the simplest con-
ceptual scheme into which the disordered fragments of raw experience can be fitted and
arranged. Our ontology is determined once we have fixed upon the over-all conceptual scheme
which is to accommodate science in the broadest sense … . (1953 ⁄ 2001, 16–17)
Lying behind many of the arguments against ordinary objects is the assumption that meta-
physics is engaged in explanatory theory construction following the same principles as
those governing the natural sciences – or (perhaps better) engaged in one and the same
enterprise of constructing the best ‘total theory’. Straightforward causal redundancy argu-
ments rely on accepting the Eleatic Principle: that we should only accept the existence of
those entities that ‘make a causal difference’.10 This may be a reasonable principle for
deciding whether or not we should accept the existence of neutrons as well as protons
and electrons – theoretical particles posited to explain experimental data. But whether or
not it carries over to the question of whether we should ‘posit’ tables ‘as well as’ the
particles that make them up is less clear (Thomasson 2007, 20–4; 2008, 70–4).
Arguments that parsimony gives us reason to reject ordinary objects similarly rely on
the idea that metaphysics, like (or with) the natural sciences, seeks a ‘total theory’ that
best exhibits theoretical virtues such as parsimony, simplicity, explanatory power, etc.
Those who argue against ordinary objects by way of demanding a single, uniform, answer
to the Special Composition Question often make a similar presupposition: that what we
are looking for is a simplest ‘explanation’ of the principles of composition (analogous to
looking for a simplest theory of magnetic attraction). Thus, for example, Horgan and
Potrč argue that satisfying the ‘principle of nonarbitrariness of composition’ is more
important than preserving the ‘posits of common sense’ on grounds that:
An adequate metaphysical theory, like an adequate scientific theory, should be systematic and
general, and should keep to a minimum the unexplained facts that it posits … Even though
ª 2010 The Author Philosophy Compass 5/7 (2010): 591–601, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00303.x
Journal Compilation ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Controversy over Ordinary Objects 597
explanation presumably must bottom out somewhere, it should bottom out with the kinds of
‘unexplained explainers’ we expect to find in physics – viz., highly general, highly systematic,
theoretical laws. (2000, 259)
Even arguments against ordinary objects that are based on the grounding problem rely on
the assumption that metaphysics, like science, is in the business of developing an explana-
tory theory. For the demand is to say what could explain the apparent differences in modal,
historical, and sortal properties of the table versus the collection of particles. Thus, the
pressure of the grounding problem is most acutely felt if we think of metaphysics as
owing bottom–up, empirically based explanations of sortal and modal differences, much as
scientists might seek to explain the differences between sugar and oil’s water solubility in
terms of fundamental chemical differences between them.
To those brought up on post-Quinean metaphysics this may seem an obvious or even
inevitable way of viewing the task of metaphysics. But looked at in the broader context
of the history of metaphysics, it certainly is not. In the hundred years or so preceding
Quine, philosophers as diverse as Mill, Husserl, Ayer, Carnap, Moore, Ryle, and
Wittgenstein had struggled to say what it is that philosophy as such, and metaphysics
more particularly, could or should be doing. The predominant answer, given in various
forms, was that philosophy is concerned with meanings, not matters of fact – giving it a
complementary role to that of the experimental sciences. Of course controversies
abounded about what exactly meanings are and how we are to study them – those are
details that needn’t concern us here. What is of interest is that those who understood
philosophy on this model did not question the existence of ordinary objects – in part
because, if the role of philosophy lies mainly in analyzing meanings, it is not properly
concerned with ‘factual’ matters of existence. But perhaps also because, if one analyzes
the meanings of ordinary terms like ‘table’, it seems that (barring potential contradictions
– to which I will turn next) the conditions ordinary speakers would require for there to
be tables are surely fulfilled, leaving little room for controversy.
It was Quine who rejected this whole line of thought about philosophy’s role, in
denying that there is a (philosophically significant) distinction between analytic and syn-
thetic statements, between questions of meaning and matters of fact. On his influential
view, philosophy is not separate from science; instead, both are engaged in a unified
project of theory-construction, with competing theories to be weighed up in terms of
familiar theoretic virtues such as empirical adequacy, simplicity, and explanatory power.
This is not the place to engage in a history of 20th-century philosophy, nor to try to
resolve the debate between a Quinean scientistic approach to metaphysics and those other
approaches that saw the role of philosophy more along the lines of analysis of meanings,
concepts, or language – taking this as separate from empirical enquiries. Instead, the point
here is only to show, first, why arguments against the existence of ordinary objects came
into prominence so recently, and second, why debates about the existence of ordinary
objects so readily turn into debates in metametaphysics.
Thus, for example, some have questioned whether or not the Eleatic Principle is suit-
able for deciding metaphysical questions about whether tables, rocks, and the like exist,
even if it is a suitable criterion for certain empirical existence questions (Thomasson 2008).
Others have questioned whether the eliminativist’s demand for a unified principle of
composition that could explain why composition occurs in some cases but not others is
an appropriate demand at all (Sanford 1993; Lowe 2005; Thomasson 2007). Debates
about the existence of ordinary objects have also spurred deeper debates about whether
ª 2010 The Author Philosophy Compass 5/7 (2010): 591–601, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00303.x
Journal Compilation ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
598 Controversy over Ordinary Objects
or not parsimony is an appropriate criterion for deciding among ontologies (Thomasson
2007, 151–75).
More broadly still, debates about ordinary objects have led back to metametaphysical
questions about whether such ontological debates are genuine or pseudo-disputes. Quine
was most directly rejecting Carnap’s deflationary approach to metaphysics, according to
which existence questions could either be asked internally (within a linguistic framework)
– in which case they are answerable easily by either logical ⁄ analytical or empirical means,
or externally – in which case they can only be properly understood as pragmatic questions
about whether to adopt a given linguistic framework.11 Inspired by this approach,
Putnam (1987, 13–21) argued that metaphysical disputes about what ‘objects’ exist are
pseudo-disputes, as the very notions of ‘object’ and ‘existence’ vary in the different
linguistic frameworks of the disputants. Hirsch (2002a,b) calls this idea ‘quantifier vari-
ance’: the view that the quantified expressions employing phrases such as ‘there are’, as
used by competing metaphysicians, may vary in their truth conditions. He uses this in
defense of ordinary objects by arguing that in plain English, there is only one use of the
quantifier – one on which claims that tables and the like exist are clearly true.12 Thomas-
son (2007, 2009b), in Carnapian vein, argues that many ontological questions driving the
arguments of eliminativists are ill-formed and unanswerable, and that once they are prop-
erly formed, questions about the existence of ordinary objects are easily resolvable in the
positive.13
It would be an exaggeration, however, to suggest that all arguments against ordinary
objects tacitly rely on a scientistic approach to metaphysics. Those who reject ordinary
objects based on alleging to discover inconsistencies in our ordinary concepts don’t rely in
any obvious way on presupposing a scientistic approach to metaphysics, only on the prin-
ciple that nothing can answer to a contradictory concept. Others appeal to what appear
to be basic metaphysical problems such as ontic vagueness and co-location, rather than to
considerations of constructing the best ‘total theory’ according to principles like parsi-
mony, simplicity, avoiding causal redundancy … .
But these arguments, too, quickly lead back to metametaphysical considerations. How
should we respond to claims to find an inconsistency in an ordinary concept? We have
some reason to be suspicious of claims to find inconsistencies in our ordinary concepts.
For the very fact that these ordinary terms survive in our language suggests that they are
at least by and large well-functioning, and interpretive constraints like the principle of
charity give us reason to resist interpretations that attribute widespread inconsistencies to
our thought, especially where it concerns features of our everyday practical life (Thomas-
son 2009a, 11–12). Moreover, even if there really is an inconsistency in a concept, should
we really take that to show that the relevant entities don’t exist? There are, for example,
demonstrable inconsistencies in the official rules of baseball (Cohen 1990). But we don’t
normally take that to show that there really are no base hits, home runs, no-hitters, or
errors, despite the fact that (given the inconsistency) there can be nothing that exactly
matches all the constraints of the rules (cf. Thomasson 2009a, 11–12).
Similar metametaphysical issues arise for arguments from vagueness and co-location: do
the puzzles surrounding vagueness or co-location really reflect deep metaphysical prob-
lems (so deep that we must deny the existence of the relevant entities), or do they reflect
mere verbal difficulties? The problems of vagueness are often held to be mere reflections
of the imprecision in our ordinary concepts and terms – a matter of semantic vagueness
(Lowe 2005, 531), or at least what Mark Sainsbury (1994) calls an ‘anodyne’ sort of
vagueness not requiring us to posit a worrying form of metaphysical vagueness ‘in the
world itself’ (Thomasson 2007, 104–7). Similarly, some have suggested that the apparent
ª 2010 The Author Philosophy Compass 5/7 (2010): 591–601, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00303.x
Journal Compilation ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Controversy over Ordinary Objects 599
problems with co-location are pseudo-problems made to look bad by trading on different
uses of the term ‘object’ or ‘thing’ (Thomasson 2007, 75–8), or by misrepresenting our
counting practices – not deep problems that require some ‘metaphysical explanation’ of
how ‘two things’ could be in the same place at the same time.
Even if we treat the relevant vagueness or co-location as a genuine metaphysical prob-
lem, the question remains whether we should seek a solution (as, e.g., Baker does with
her Constitution Theory, 2007, 127–35 and 165–7), or rather treat the problems as
grounds for denying the existence of ordinary objects. The thought that we do better to
eliminate the objects than to attempt to solve the puzzles often comes from the tacit
influence of a scientistic approach. For it is from that point of view that one thinks of
metaphysics as engaged in seeking the simplest, most parsimonious theory (where
simplicity and parsimony are both to be gained by avoiding the problematic objects),
rather than as starting from a descriptive factual observation that tables and the like exist,
and considering the challenge as making sense of how that is possible by showing how
the persistent puzzles may be solved or dissolved.
The fact that the controversies over the existence of ordinary objects drag us so readily
into deep metametaphysical quandaries may be disappointing to those who hoped for a
clean solution. But on the other hand, it demonstrates just why issues about the existence
of ordinary objects are interesting and important to contemporary philosophy – and
should be treated that way even by those who think it’s just obvious that there are (or
that there aren’t) ordinary objects.
Short Biography
Amie L. Thomasson is professor of philosophy at the University of Miami. Her areas of
specialization are in metaphysics, phenomenology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of
language, and philosophy of art. She is the author of Ordinary Objects (Oxford 2007) and
Fiction and Metaphysics (Cambridge 1999), as well as of numerous articles and book chap-
ters. She is also co-editor (with David W. Smith) of Phenomenology and Philosophy of Mind
(Oxford 2005).
Notes
* Correspondence: Amie L. Thomasson, University of Miami, Department of Philosophy, P. O. Box 248054,
Coral Gables, FL 33124-4670 USA. Email: [email protected].
1
See, for example, Unger (1979), van Inwagen (1990), Merricks (2001), Hawthorne and Cortens (1995), Dorr
(2005), and Horgan and Potrč (2000), for recent denials of the existence of at least some ordinary objects.
2
E.J. Lowe notes, ‘Until fairly recently in the history of philosophy … the only way in which [the existence of
ordinary objects] would have been called into question was in the context of the debate between realism and ideal-
ism’ (2005, 510). Even in those earlier debates, those on the idealist side typically would have rejected the notion
that they were denying the existence of ordinary objects (e.g., Berkeley instead saw himself as offering an alternative
view of what ordinary objects are: not material objects but collections of ideas).
3
Another line of response to the apparent perceptual evidence in favor of ordinary objects is developed in Mer-
ricks (2001, 8–12).
4
For simplicity I’ll speak of ‘fundamental particles’ or collections of these next, but nothing in the eliminativist
view hinges on any particular answer to what the entities in the basic picture of physics turn out to be, or even
whether there are any ultimate simples or not.
5
The point Merricks is discussing here is of co-location of a statue and lump, but it is clear that he would think
the same considerations apply to collections of particles and tables (if – in each case – there were any).
6
As David Lewis famously puts it: ‘It reeks of double counting to say that here we have a dishpan, and we also
have a dishpan-shaped bit of plastic that is just where the dishpan is … This multiplication of entities is absurd on
ª 2010 The Author Philosophy Compass 5/7 (2010): 591–601, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00303.x
Journal Compilation ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
600 Controversy over Ordinary Objects
its face’ (1986, 252). Others who reject co-location include: van Inwagen (1990) and Gibbard (1975). Defenders of
co-location include: Sosa (1987 ⁄ 1997), Johnston (1997) , Doepke (1997), Thomson (1997), Baker (1997), and
Wiggins (2001).
7
For discussion of the grounding problem, see Heller (1990), Burke (1992), Zimmerman (1995), Olson (1996,
2001), Johnston (1997, 53–4), and Bennett (2004).
8
One may, for example, develop a plausible response to Sorites arguments using a supervaluational treatment of
vagueness (Lewis 1986) or an indeterminist approach (Tye 1994).
9
Crawford Elder (2004) defends a more limited ontology of ordinary objects by arguing that at least certain kinds
of common sense objects are members of kinds with real, mind-independent, discoverable natures – and so should
be considered as real parts of our world as members of biological and chemical kinds.
10
Indeed it relies on a particular interpretation of this principle as requiring not just that the entities posited have
causal powers, but that they have causal powers ‘over and above’ those of any ‘other’ entities accepted.
11
For a good overview of the Quine ⁄ Carnap debate and its influence on contemporary debates in metametaphys-
ics, see the Introduction and range of articles in Chalmers et al. (2009).
12
For critical discussion of quantifier variance, see van Inwagen (1998, 187–8) and Sider (2009).
13
But, see Korman (forthcoming) for arguments that one may resist some eliminativist arguments without adopting
a deflationary metaontology.
Works Cited
Armstrong, D.M. Universals and Scientific Realism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
Baker, Lynne Rudder. ‘Why Constitution is not Identity.’ Journal of Philosophy 94 (1997): 599–621.
——. The Metaphysics of Everyday Life: An Essay in Practical Realism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Bennett, Karen. ‘Spatio-Temporal Coincidence and the Grounding Problem.’ Philosophical Studies 118 (2004):
339–71.
Burke, Michael. ‘Copper Statues and Pieces of Copper: A Challenge to the Standard Account.’ Analysis LII.1
(1992): 12–17.
Chalmers, David J., David Manley, and Ryan Wasserman, eds. Metametaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2009.
Cohen, Ted. ‘There are no Ties at First Base.’ The Yale Review 79.2 (1990): 314–322.
Doepke, Frederick C. ‘Spatially Coinciding Objects.’ Material Constitution: A Reader. Ed. Michael Rea. Lanham,
MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997: 10–24.
Dorr, Cian. ‘What we Disagree about when we Disagree about Ontology.’ Fictionalism in Metaphysics. Ed. Mark Eli
Kalderon. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005: 234–286.
Eddington, A.S. The Nature of the Physical World. New York: Macmillan, 1928 ⁄ 1958.
Einheuser, Iris. ‘Toward a Conceptualist Solution of the Grounding Problem.’ Nous (forthcoming).
Elder, Crawford. Real Natures and Familiar Objects. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004.
Evans, Gareth. ‘Can there be Vague Objects?’ Analysis 38 (1978): 208.
Fine, Kit. ‘The Non-Identity of a Material Thing and its Matter.’ Mind 112 (2003): 195–234.
Gibbard, Allan. ‘Contingent Identity.’ Journal of Philosophical Logic 4 (1975): 187–221.
Hawthorne, John and Andrew Cortens. ‘Towards Ontological Nihilism.’ Philosophical Studies 79 (1995): 143–65.
Heil, John. From an Ontological Point of View. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
——. ‘Real Tables.’ Monist 88 ⁄ 4 (2005): 493–509.
Heller, Mark. The Ontology of Physical Objects: Four-Dimensional Hunks of Matter. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1990.
Hirsch, Eli. ‘Against Revisionary Ontology.’ Philosophical Topics 30.1 (2002a): 103–27.
——. ‘Quantifier Variance and Realism.’ Philosophical Issues 12: Realism and Relativism. Eds. Ernest Sosa and Enrique
Villanueva. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2002b: 51–73.
Horgan, Terence. ‘Transvaluationism: A Dionysian Approach to Vagueness.’ Southern Journal of Philosophy 23(Supp)
(1994): 97–132.
——. ‘The Transvaluationist Conception of Vagueness.’ Monist 81.2 (1998): 313–30.
—— and Matjaž Potrč. ‘Blobjectivism and Indirect Correspondence.’ Facta Philosophica 2 (2000): 249–70.
van Inwagen, Peter. Material Beings. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990.
——. ‘Metaontology.’ Erkenntnis 48 (1998): 233–50.
Johnston, Mark. ‘Is there a Problem about Persistence?’ Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 61(Supp) (1987):
107–35.
——. ‘Constitution is Not identity.’ Material Constitution: A Reader. Ed. Michael Rea. Lanham, MD: Rowman and
Littlefield, 1997: 44–62.
Korman, Daniel Z. ‘Eliminativism and the Challenge from Folk Belief.’ Nous 43 (2009): 242–64.
——. ‘Strange Kinds, Familiar Kinds, and the Challenge of Arbitrariness.’ Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 5 (2010):
119–144.
ª 2010 The Author Philosophy Compass 5/7 (2010): 591–601, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00303.x
Journal Compilation ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Controversy over Ordinary Objects 601
Lewis, David. On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1986.
Lowe, E.J. ‘How are Ordinary Objects Possible?’ Monist 88 ⁄ 4 (2005): 510–33.
Merricks, Trenton. Objects and Persons. Oxford, UK: Clarendon (Oxford University Press), 2001.
Moore, G.E. ‘Four Forms of Scepticism.’ Philosophical Papers. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1959: 196–226.
Olson, Eric T. ‘Composition and Coincidence.’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 77 (1996): 374–403.
——. ‘Material Coincidence and the Indiscernibility Problem.’ Philosophical Quarterly, 51.204 (2001): 337–55.
Putnam, Hilary. The Many Faces of Realism. LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1987.
Quine, W.V.O. From a Logical Point of View. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953 ⁄ 2001.
Rea, Michael, ed. Material Constitution: A Reader. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997.
Russell, Bertrand. ‘Vagueness.’ Vagueness: A Reader. Eds. Rosanna Keefe and Peter Smith. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1923 ⁄ 1997: 61–68.
Sainsbury, Mark. ‘Why the World cannot be Vague.’ Southern Journal of Philosophy 33(Suppl) (1994): 63–81.
Sanford, David. ‘The Problem of the Many, Many Composition Questions, and Naı̈ve Mereology.’ Noûs 27.2
(1993): 219–28.
Sellars, Wilfrid. Science, Perception and Reality. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview, 1963 ⁄ 1991.
Sider, Theodore. ‘What’s so Bad about Overdetermination?’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research LXVII.3
(2003): 719–26.
——. ‘Ontological Realism.’ Metametaphysics. David J. Chalmers, David Manley and Ryan Wasserman, eds. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2009. 384–423.
Sosa, Ernest. ‘Subjects Among Other Things.’ Material Constitution: A Reader. Ed. Michael Rea. Lanham, MD:
Rowman and Littlefield, 1987 ⁄ 1997: 63–89.
Thomasson, Amie L. Ordinary Objects. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
——. ‘Existence Questions.’ Philosophical Studies 141 (2008): 63–78.
——. ‘The Easy Approach to Ontology.’ Axiomathes 19 (2009a): 1–15.
——. ‘Answerable and Unanswerable Questions.’. Metametaphysics. David J. Chalmers, David Manley and Ryan
Wasserman, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009b. 444–71.
Thomson, Judith Jarvis. ‘Parthood and Identity across Time.’ Material Constitution. Ed. Michael Rea. Lanham, MD:
Rowman and Littlefield, 1997: 25–43.
Tye, Michael. ‘Sorites Paradoxes and the Semantics of Vagueness.’ Philosophical Perspectives 8 (1994): 189–206.
Unger, Peter. ‘There are no Ordinary Things.’ Synthese 41 (1979): 117–54.
——. ‘The Problem of the Many.’ Midwest Studies in Philosophy 5 (1980): 411–67.
Wiggins, David. ‘On Being in the Same Place at the Same Time.’ Material Constitution: A Reader. Ed. Michael Rea.
Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997: 3–9.
——. Sameness and Substance Renewed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Zimmerman, Dean. ‘Theories of Masses and Problems of Constitution.’ Philosophical Review 104 (1995): 53–110.
ª 2010 The Author Philosophy Compass 5/7 (2010): 591–601, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00303.x
Journal Compilation ª 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
