Premium
Material Objects, Constitution, and Mysterianism
Author(s) -
Benbaji Hagit
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
the southern journal of philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.281
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 2041-6962
pISSN - 0038-4283
DOI - 10.1111/j.2041-6962.2008.tb00067.x
Subject(s) - materiality (auditing) , constitution , nothing , virtue , metaphysics , epistemology , philosophy , aesthetics , sociology , law , political science
It is sometimes claimed that ordinary objects, such as mountains and chairs, are not material in their own right, but only in virtue of the fact that they are constituted by matter. As Fine puts it, they are “only derivatively material” (2003, 211). In this paper I argue that invoking “constitution” to account for the materiality of things that are not material in their own right explains nothing and renders the admission that these objects are indeed material completely mysterious. Although there may be metaphysical contexts in which mysterianism can be accepted with equanimity, I further argue, the question of the materiality of quotidian objects is not one of them.