Nostalgia for the ordinary: Comments on papers by Unger and Wheeler

Abstract

The furniture of the earth includes no furniture, according to Peter Unger and Samuel C. Wheeler, III. There are no tables, chairs, or footstools. There is no planet Earth, for that matter. Neither are there sticks or stones, logs or boulders. Unger restricts his denials of existence in the paper under discussion to ordinary inanimate objects, but both he and Wheeler are clearly inclined also to deny the existence of all plants and all animals including persons. Although both Wheeler and Unger use sorites arguments in their attempts to prove that there are no ordinary things, there is a great difference between their arguments. This difference can be expressed by invoking the simple metaphysical contrast between Appearance and Reality. Wheeler and Unger both think that the apparent exis tence of ordinary things is merely apparent. Unger argues that Ap pearance convicts itself of incoherence. His beliefs about reality are mainly negative: tables do not really exist, stones do not really exist, and so forth. On the question how Reality should be positively described, Unger can remain agnostic. Wheeler apparently agrees with Unger that ordinary beliefs about Appearance are internally inconsistent. Unlike Unger, however, he has strong views about the positive nature of the Real, on what is required for genuine causation, genuine properties, genuine kinds, and genuine reference to things in the world. Wheeler's main reason for rejecting Appearance as a sham and illusion is that he supposes there to be a conflict between the Real and the Apparent.