Rearranging the Furniture

Abstract

According to Peter van Inwagen, there are, from the point of view of serious metaphysics, no (non-living) composites, only simples. Saying that we have built a ship is a misleading (even if ordinarily acceptable) way of saying that we have rearranged some simples ship- wise. However, the notion of rearranging simples is problematic, and van Inwagen’s resort to “honorary simples” does not make it less so. Simples can be rearranged only by way of rearranging these, making talk of them not merely a convenient facon de parler, as van Inwagen claims, but ineliminable even when we are in the “ontology room.”