Riddles of Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics [Hardcover]

Earl Conee (Author), Theodore Sider (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0199282269 | ISBN-13: 978-0199282265 | Edition: 1st

The riddles of metaphysics are the deepest and most puzzling questions we can ponder. What are the basic ingredients of reality? What is their ultimate nature? Could reality have been different? And where do human beings fit into reality? Indeed, why does reality contain anything at all?
Riddles of Existence is the first book ever to make metaphysics genuinely accessible and fun. Its lively, informal style brings these questions to life and shows how stimulating it can be to think about them. Earl Conee and Theodore Sider offer a lucid discussion of the major topics in metaphysics. What makes me the same person I was as a child? Is everything fated to be exactly as it is? Does time flow? How fast does it flow, and can one travel back in time, against the current? Does God exist? Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? If our actions are caused by things science can predict and control, how can we have free will? The authors approach these topics in an open-minded and undogmatic manner, giving readers a full sense of the issues involved. They don't try to convince us of their point of view. Instead, they hope that, by reading this book, we will come to appreciate the importance of such problems and develop reasoned opinions of your own.
Riddles of Existence shows that philosophy can be exciting and important, and understandable by anyone. No philosophical background is required to enjoy this book: anyone who has thought about life's most profound questions will find plenty to provoke and entertain them here.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A series of hors d'oeuvres for intellectual diners.... The entertainment value lies in picking one's way through ingenious arguments, encountering along the way basic ideas like the law of the excluded middle and the principle of sufficient reason.... Mr. Conee and Mr. Sider like to start with a common-sense, real-life question--Why is the person in my baby picture the same as the person I see in the mirror today?--and then pick apart the comfortable assumptions that carry most of us through life.... The questions are big. Do things occur by accident or necessity? Do humans have free will? Why does anything exist? Nothing is resolved, but a lot is discussed, and some famous arguments, like St. Anselm's devilishly clever proof of the existence of God, are presented clearly and understandably."--William Grimes, The New York Times

About the Author

Earl Conee teaches philosophy at the University of Rochester. Theodore Sider teaches philosophy at Rutgers University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 210 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press; 1st edition (December 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0199282269
• ISBN-13: 978-0199282265
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #934,493 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loads of fun, December 31, 2005

By 

Mark Twain (US) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Riddles of Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics (Hardcover)

From personal identity to time to "why not nothing?", Conee and Sider have cooked up an introduction to metaphysical questions that are a lot of fun. The chapters can be read (and re-read) in any order and thought about for a lifetime. The book is designed for a general audience - at least a general audience that likes to think philosophically. At the end of each chapter you will a helpful list of suggestions for further reading (mostly by contemporary philosophers).

Don't be fooled by other reviews! The book is neither difficult nor hard to follow. The prose is clear, engaging, and any steps in its arguments are logical, sensible, and clearly labelled (labels aren't always used and aren't rocket science, but help with recall; if you have trouble figuring out that "P2" can stand for "phase 2" then you might end up a little befuddled here and there). This book is suitable for any in high school or above, though it might be found attractive by a precocious middle-schooler. But while accessible to a wide audience, it isn't a "dumbed-down" approach to philosophy.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Introduction, January 7, 2008

By 

TiZ - See all my reviews

This review is from: Riddles of Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics (Hardcover)

"Riddles of Existence" covers central problems in general metaphysics and in special metaphysics. These include the nature of personal identity, free will, fatalism, the existence of God, material constitution, universals and modality.

The problems and their proposed solutions are explained clearly and carefully, and the style is friendly and engaging. Conee and Feldman defend their own positions, and I often disagree with them, but I do not think that they are didactic; they usually treat alternative positions sympathetically and recommend further reading for each chapter.

The book is supposed to be accessible to those without any previous exposure to metaphysics or to philosophy more generally, and I think that it is the most accessible introduction available. To be sure, beginners may find some of the discussion, for example, of the ontological argument and of universals, quite difficult and demanding.

There is also what to my mind is an original formulation and treatment of the ontological argument, and the book may be of interest to more advanced readers. It also includes a chapter on the problem of why there exists anything at all, why there is something rather than nothing, which is typically neglected in introductions.

I think that this book is a fascinating and entertaining introduction for the general interested readers, and that it should also prove quite helpful to undergraduate philosophy students.

30 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Horrid, February 3, 2006

By 

William Kerney (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Riddles of Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics (Hardcover)

There's a number of problems with this book. First and foremost, it's not a guided tour, but mainly just proofs for everything the two authors believe, and dismissive claims against everything they don't. The book is overpriced for its slim size, and while styled as a gentle introduction for beginners without terminology, I had trouble even following arguments I already understood. Instead of lacking terminology, they would give bizarre labels to propositions like Srii11, without an explanation of what exactly the S, r, and i stand for (the 11, at least, was obviously due to it being the 11th statement...).

Moreover, the book is annoying. In the discussion of the cosmological argument for God (also known as the first cause argument), which roughly goes, "Everything effect we know of in science has a cause, therefore there was a first cause, which must necessarily lie outside of science.", they hand-wave / dismiss the claim that everything in the world has a cause thus proving the arguments invalidity, and later on casting serious doubt on the existance of God because of this proof of its falseness.

The problem, of course, is that in two other chapters, in which the authors are arguing against, say, Free Will, they take it as an immutable law that everything in the world has a cause and an effect.

There are good arguments against the Cosmological Argument for God, but they don't use them, instead basing their argument on a claim that they flat out claim is false in other chapters. There's at least one blindingly wrong argument the authors make in every chapter of the book. So reading the book with any level of critical thinking makes you just want to hurl it across the room in disgust.

I'd recommend Labyrinths of Reason insead.