Papers by Peter van Inwagen

This is a collection of philosophical papers by Peter van Inwagen, categorized somewhat arbitrarily. Eventually, I hope to make it complete.

General Metaphysics

(draft) "Dispensing with Ontological Levels: An Illustration".
(2023) "Paraphrase Techniques for Nihilists", Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 13: 3-19.
(2021) "What is an Ontological Category?", Disputatio 10(16): 241-261.
(2020) "The neo-Carnapians", Synthese 197: 7-32.
(2019) "Against Analytic Existence Entailments", The Nature of Ordinary Objects (Cumpa and Brewer, eds.).
(2015) "Nothing is Impossible", God, Truth, and Other Enigmas (Miroslaw Szatkowski, ed.): 33-58.
(2014) "In Defense of Transcendental Universals", Metaphysics and Scientific Realism: Essays in Honor of David Malet Armstrong (Francesco Federico Calemi, ed.): 51-70.
(2014) "Fictional Nominalism and Applied Mathematics", The Monist 97: 479-502.
(2014) "Inside and Outside the Ontology Room", Introduction to Existence: Essays in Ontology.
(2014) "Alston on Ontological Commitment", in Existence: Essays in Ontology.
(2014) "Modes of Being and Quantification", Disputatio 5, 38: 1-24.
(2012) ""Who Sees Not that All the Dispute is About a Word?": Some Thoughts on Bennett's "Proxy 'Actualism'"", Hungarian Philosophical Review 3: 69-81.
(2011) "Relational vs. Constituent Ontologies", Philosophical Perspectives 25: 389-405. Revised and reprinted as "Against Ontological Structure" in The Problem of Universals in Contemporary Thought (Galluzzo and Loux, eds)
(2011) "Causation and the Mental", Reason, Metaphysics, and Mind New Essays on the Philosophy of Alvin Plantinga (Rea, Clark, eds.).
(2010) "Changing the Past", Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 5: 3-28.
(2009) "The New Anti-Metaphysicians", Proceeding and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 83, 2: 45-61.
(2009) "Being, Existence, and Ontological Commitment", Metametaphysics (Chalmers, Manley, Wasserman, eds.): 472-506.
(2008) "McGinn on Existence", The Philosophical Quarterly 58: 36-58.
(2008) "Quine's 1946 Lecture on Nominalism", Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 4: 125-142.
(2007) "Impotence and Collateral Damage: One Charge in Van Fraassen's Indictment of Analytical Metaphysics", Philosophical Topics 35: 67-82. (appeared in 2010)
(2006) "Names for Relations", Philosophical Perspectives 20: 535-477.
(2004) "Properties", Knowledge and Reality (Crisp, Davidson, Vander Laan, eds.): 15-34. (this is a shorter version of "A Theory of Properties")
(2004) "A Theory of Properties", Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 1: 107-138.
(2002) "The Number of Things", Philosophical Issues 12: 176-196.
(2001) "``It is Nonsensical to Speak of the Total Number of Objects''", Metaphysik im postmetaphysichen Zeitaler (Meixner, ed.) 61-71.
(2001) "Existence, Ontological Commitment, and Fictional Entities", The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics (Loux, Zimmerman, eds.).
(2000) "Quantification and Fictional Discourse", Empty Names, Fiction and the Puzzles of Non-existence (Everett, Hofweber, eds.).
(1998) "Meta-ontology", Erkenntnis 48: 233-250.
(1998) "Modal Epistemology", Philosophical Studies 92: 67-84.
(1998) "The Nature of Metaphysics", Contemporary Readings in the Foundations of Metaphysics (Laurence, Macdonald, eds.): 11-21.
(1996) "Why Is There Anything at All?", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 70: 95-110.
(1991) "Searle on Ontological Commitment", John Searle and His Critics (Lepore, ed.).
(1986) "Two Concepts of Possible Worlds", Midwest Studies in Philosophy 11: 185-213.
(1985) "Plantinga on Trans-World Identity", Alvin Plantinga (Tomberlin, van Inwagen, eds.).
(1985) "Pretense and Paraphrase", The Reasons of Art (McCormick, ed.): 414-422.
(1983) "Fiction and Metaphysics", Philosophy and Literature 7: 67-77.
(1980) "Indexicality and Actuality", Philosophical Review 89: 403-426.
(1979) "Creatures of Fiction", American Philosophical Quarterly 14: 299-308.
(1979) "Laws and Counterfactuals", Nous 13: 439-453.
(1978) "A Definition of Chisholm's Notion of Immanent Causation", Philosophia 7: 567-581.
(1977) "Counterfactuals With Disjunctive Antecedents" (with Thomas McKay), Philosophical Studies 31: 353-356.

Free Will

(2018) "The Problem of Free Will Revisited", in Peter van Inwagen: Materialism, Free Will, and God (Jansen, Näger, eds.): 1-15.
(2017) "Ability", Thinking About Free Will.
(2017) "The Problem of Fr** W*ll", Thinking About Free Will.
(2015) "Some Thoughts on An Essay on Free Will", The Harvard Review of Philosophy 22: 16-30.
(2013) "A Dialogue on Free Will", Methode 3: 212-221.
(2011) "A Promising Argument (.doc)", The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, 2nd ed. (Kane, ed.).
(2008) "The Consequence Argument (.doc)", Metaphysics: The Big Questions 2nd Ed. (van Inwagen, Zimmerman, eds.).
(2008) "How to Think About the Problem of Free Will", Journal of Ethics 12: 327-341.
(2004) "Freedom to Break the Laws", Midwest Studies in Philosophy 28: 334-350.
(2004) "van Inwagen on Free Will", Freedom and Determinism (Campbell, O'Rourke, Shier, eds.): 213-230.
(2001) "Genes, Statistics, and Desert", Genetics and Criminal Behavior (Wasserman, Wachbroit, eds.): 225-242.
(2000) "Free Will Remains a Mystery", Philosophical Perspectives 14: 1-19.
(1999) "Moral Responsibility, Determinism, and the Ability to Do Otherwise", Journal of Ethics 3: 341-350.
(1998) "The Mystery of Metaphysical Freedom", Metaphysics: The Big Questions (van Inwagen, Zimmerman, eds.): 365-374.
(1997) "Fischer on Moral Responsibility", The Philosophical Quarterly 47: 373-381.
(1994) "When the Will is Not Free", Philosophical Studies 75: 95-113.
(1992) "Reply to Christopher Hill", Analysis 52: 56-61.
(1991) "Modal Inference and the Free Will Problem", Daimon: Revista De Filosophia 3: 57-63.
(1990) "Logic and the Free Will Problem", Social Theory and Practice 16: 279-290.
(1990) "Response to Slote", Social Theory and Practice 16: 385-395.
(1989) "When is the Will Free?", Philosophical Perspectives 3: 399-422.
(1985) "On Two Arguments for Compatibilism", Analysis 45: 161-163.
(1985) "Compatibilistic Reflections", Australasian Journal of Philosophy 63: 349-353.
(1984) "Dennett on 'Could Have Done Otherwise'", Journal of Philosophy 81: 565-567.
(1980) "The Incompatibility of Responsibility and Determinism", Action and Responsibility (Brand, Bradie, eds.): 30-37.
(1978) "Compatibilism and the Burden of Proof", Analysis 40: 98-100.
(1978) "Ability and Responsibility", Philosophical Review 87: 201-224.
(1977) "Reply to Gallois", Philosophical Studies 32: 107-111.
(1977) "Reply to Narveson", Philosophical Studies 32: 89-98.
(1975) "The Incompatibility of Free Will and Determinism", Philosophical Studies 27: 185-199.
(1974) "A Formal Approach to the Problem of Free Will and Determinism", Theoria 40: 9-22.
(1972) "Lehrer on Determinism, Free Will, and Evidence", Philosophical Studies 23: 351-357.

Material Objects and Human Persons

(2007) "A Materialist Ontology of the Human Person", Persons: Human and Divine (van Inwagen, Zimmerman, eds.): 199-215.
(2007) "Plantinga's Replacement Argument", Alvin Plantinga (Baker, ed.): 188-227.
(2006) "Can Mereological Sums Change Their Parts?", Journal of Philosophy 103: 614-630.
(2004) "The Self: The Incredulous Stare Articulated", Ratio 57: 478-491.
(2002) "What Do We Refer to When We Say 'I'?", The Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics (Gale, ed.): 175-189.
(2002) "Why Vagueness Is A Mystery", Acta Analytica 17: 11-17.
(2000) "Temporal Parts and Identity Across Time", The Monist 83: 437-459.
(1997) "Materialism and the Psychological-Continuity Account of Personal Identity", Philosophical Perspectives 11: 305-319.
(1996) "Foreword", Material Constitution (Rea, ed.): ix-xii.
(1994) "Composition as Identity", Philosophical Perspectives 8: 207-220.
(1993) "Naive Mereology, Admissible Valuations, and Other Matters", Nous 27: 229-234.
(1993) "Precis of Material Beings", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53: 683-686.
(1993) "Reply to Reviewers", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 53: 709-719.
(1990) "Four-Dimensional Objects", Nous 24: 245-255.
(1988) "How to Reason About Vague Objects", Philosophical Topics 16: 255-284.
(1987) "When Are Objects Parts?", Philosophical Perspectives 1: 21-47.
(1986) "How to Reason About Vague Objects (Abstract)", Nous 20: 72-73.
(1984) "On Computer Simulation of the Presence of a Thinking Being", The Syracuse Scholar Fall: 15-21.
(1981) "The Doctrine of Arbitrary Undetached Parts", Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 62: 123-137.
(1980) "Philosophers and the Words 'Human Body'", Time and Cause: Essays Presented to Ricahrd Taylor (van Inwagen, ed.): 283-300.

Philosophy of Religion

"I Look for the Resurrection of the Dead and the Life of the World to Come (.doc)"
(forthcoming) "Falsity and Untruth", Religious Studies
(2023) "Improvable Creations", TheoLogica 8 (2)
(2023) "The 'Range' Argument from Evil", Freedom, Responsibility, and Value: Essays in Honor of John Martin Fischer (Taylor W. Cyr, Andrew Law & Neal A. Tognazzini, eds.): 213-226.
(2018) "Lowe's Ontological Argument", Ontology, Modality, and Mind: Themes from the Metaphysics of E. J. Lowe (Carruth, Gibb, Heil, eds.).
(2018) "Begging the Question", in Ontological Arguments, Oppy, ed.
(2016) "The Rev’d Mr Bayes and the Life Everlasting", in Reason and Faith: Themes from Richard Swinburne, Bergmann and Brower, eds. (video here).
(2015) "Did God Create Shapes?", Philosophia Christi 17: 285-290 (full exchange here).
(2015) "A Reply to Craig", Philosophia Christi 17: 299-305 (full exchange here).
(2012) "CS Lewis' Argument Against Naturalism", Res Philosophica 90: 113-124.
(2012) "Three Versions of the Ontological Argument", Ontological Proofs Today (?Szatkowski, ed.).
(2012) "Russell's China Teapot", The Right to Believe: Perspectives in Religious Epistemology (?ukasiewicz, Pouivet, eds.) Also delivered as the 1st Alston Memorial Lecture at Syracuse University; September, 2012.
(2011) "Comments on Professor Curley's 'The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob'", Divine Evil? The Moral Character of the God of Abraham (Murray, Rea, eds.).
(2010) "A Kind of Darwinism", "Darwinism and Design", "Science and Scripture", Science and Religion in Dialogue, Vol. 2 (Stewart, ed.).
(2010) "The Inspiration of the Hebrew Bible and the Morality of God's Commands", The Harvard Ichthus.
(2009) "Explaining Belief in the Supernatural: Some Thoughts on Paul Bloom's 'Religious Belief as an Evolutionary Accident'", The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion (Schloss, Murray, eds.): 128-138.
(2009) "God and Other Uncreated Things", Metaphysics and God: Essays in Honor of Eleonore Stump (Timpe, ed.): 3-20.
(2009) "Indeterminacy and Vagueness: Logic and Metaphysics", European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1: 1-19.
(2009) "Weak Darwinism", Darwin and Catholicism (Caruana, ed.): 107-120.
(2009) "Some Remarks on the Modal Ontological Argument", Philo 12: 217-227.
(2008) "What Does an Omniscient Being Know About the Future?" Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion 1: 216-230.
(2005) "Reply to Sean Carroll", Faith and Philosophy 22: 636-640.
(2005) "The Problem of Evil", The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Religion (Wainwright, ed.): 188-219.
(2005) "Is God an Unnecessary Hypothesis?", God and the Ethics of Belief (Dole, Chignell, eds.): 131-149.
(2005) "Human Destiny", The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Religion (Mann, ed.): 245-265.
(2004) "Can Science Disprove the Existence of God?", Philosophic Exchange: Annual Proceedings 34: 38-53.
(2003) "Three Persons in One Being: On Attempts to Show that the Doctrine of the Trinity is Self-Contradictory", The Holy Trinity (Stewart, ed.): 83-89.
(2003) "The Compatibility of Darwinism and Design", God and Design: The Teleological Argument and Modern Science (Manson, ed.).
(2002) "What is the Problem of the Hiddenness of God?", in Divine Hiddenness: New Essays (Howard-Snyder and Moser, eds.).
(2001) "The Argument from Particular Horrendous Evils", Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 74: 65-80.
(1999) "Some Remarks on Plantinga's Advice", Faith and Philosophy 16: 164-172.
(1999) "Christian Belief and the Platonic Conception of Rationality", The Rationality of Theism (Bruntrup, Tacelli, eds.): 145-159.
(1997) "Of "Of Miracles"", The Possibility of Resurrection and Other Essays in Christian Apologetics.
(1997) "Probability and Evil", The Possibility of Resurrection and Other Essays in Christian Apologetics.
(1997) "Against Middle Knowledge", Midwest Studies in Philosophy 21: 225-236.
(1997) "A Reply to Professor Hick", Faith and Philosophy 14: 299-302.
(1996) "Reflections on the Essays of Draper, Gale, and Russell", The Evidential Argument from Evil (Howard-Snyder, ed.): 219-243.
(1995) "Dualism and Materialism: Athens and Jerusalem?", Faith and Philosophy 12: 475-488.
(1995) "Non Est Hick", The Rationality of Belief and the Plurality of Faith (Senor, ed.).
(1994) "Not by Confusion of Substance But by Unity of Person", Reason and the Christian Religion (Padgett, ed.): 201-226.
(1994) "Doubts About Darwinism", Darwinism: Science or Philosophy? (Buell, Hearne, eds.): 177-191.
(1994) "Response to Frederick Grinnell", Darwinism: Science or Philosophy?.
(1993) "Critical Studies of the New Testament and the User of the New Testament", Hermes and Athena: Biblical Exegesis and Philosophical Theology (Stump, Flint, eds.): 159-190. Reprinted as "Do You Want Us to Listen to You?" in 'Behind' the Text: History and Biblical Interpretation (Bartholomew, Evans, Healy, Rae, eds.)
(1993) "Genesis and Evolution", Reasoned Faith (Stump, ed.): 93-127.
(1991) "The Problem of Evil, the Problem of Air, and the Problem of Silence", Philosophical Perspectives 5: 135-165.
(1988) "The Magnitude, Duration, and Distribution of Evil: A Theodicy", Philosophical Topics 16: 161-187.
(1988) "And Yet They Are Not Three Gods But One God", Philosophy and the Christian Faith (Morris, ed.): 241-278.
(1988) "The Place of Chance in a World Sustained by God", Divine and Human Action (Morris, ed.): 211-235.
(1978) "The Possibility of Resurrection", International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 9: 114-121.
(1977) "Ontological Arguments", Nous 11: 375-395.

Logic and Language

(2022) "If New York Is Not in the United States, It’s in California", Journal of the American Philosophical Association 8: 41-51.
(2003) "'Carnap' and 'The Polish Logician'", Acta Analytica 17: 7-17.
(2002) "Can Variables Be Explained Away?", Philosophica: Internationale Zeitschrift fuer Gegenwartsphilosophie 4: 3-9.
(2001) "'I am Elizabeth Anscombe' is Not an Identity Proposition", Metaphysica 2: 5-8.
(2000) "Generalizations of Homophonic Truth-Sentences", What is Truth? (Schantz, ed.): 205-222.
(1992) "There Is No Such Thing As Addition", Midwest Studies in Philosophy 17: 138-159.
(1981) "Why I Do Not Understand Substitutional Quantification", Philosophical Studies 39: 281-285.

Misc.

(2019) "Interview with Szatkowski", Quo Vadis, Metaphysics? Essays in Honor of Peter van Inwagen (Szatkowski, ed.): 11-32.
(2019) "Jonathan and Peter (by Elisabeth M. Bolduc)", Quo Vadis, Metaphysics? Essays in Honor of Peter van Inwagen (Szatkowski, ed.): 33-34.
(2018) "Replies", in Peter van Inwagen: Materialism, Free Will, and God (Jansen, Näger, eds.): 199-268.
(2017) "Concluding Meditation", Being, Freedom, and Method (Keller, ed.): 343-394.
(2015) "Opening Statement: What Difference Would (or Does) God's Existence Make?" (from debate at University of Toronto)
(2010) "Peter van Inwagen", Metaphysics: Five Questions (Steglich-Peterson, ed.) 179-195.
(2010) "We're Right, They're Wrong", Disagreement (Feldman, Warfield, ed.): 10-28.
(2009) "Listening to Clifford's Ghost", Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 65: 15-35.
(2008) "Was George Orwell a Metaphysical Realist?", Philosophia Scientiae 1: 161-185 (Pouivet, Rebuschi, eds.).
(2006) "What is Analytic Philosophy? What is Naturalism?", Analytic Philosophy without Naturalism (Corradini, Galvan, Lowe, eds.): 74-88.
(2000) "Double Dactyls", Mind 109: 23-24.
(1997) "Skeptical of the Skeptics" (review of The Historical Christ and the Jesus of Faith: The Incarnational Narrative as History by C. Stephen Evans), Books and Culture May/June 1997.
(1996) ""It is Wrong, Everywhere, Always, and for Anyone, to Believe Anything Upon Insufficient Evidence"", Faith, Freedom, and Rationality (Jordan, Howard-Snyder, eds.): 137-153. Reprinted in Stump and Murray, eds., Philosophy of Religion: The Big Questions (Blackwell, 1999).
(1994) "Quam Dilecta", God and the Philosophers (Morris, ed.).
(1988) "On Always Being Wrong", Midwest Studies in Philosophy 12: 95-111.
(1982) "Abstract of Comments: Abnormal Experience and Abnormal Belief", Nous 16: 13-14.

Encyclopedia Entries.

(2007) "Metaphysics" Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
(1998) "Incarnation and Christology" "Lewis, David", "Trinity", "Resurrection", Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
(1998) "Ontological Arguments", Philosophy of Religion: A Guide to the Subject (Davies, ed.): 54-58.
(1996) "Persistence", The Encyclopedia of Philosophy Supplement.
(1995) "Subsistence", The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy.
(1991) "Entia Successiva", "Determinism", Handbook of Metaphysics and Ontology (Burkhardt, Smith, eds.).

Reviews

(2002) "Review of Persons and Bodies by Lynne Rudder Baker", The Philosophical Review 111:138-141.
(1996) "Review of Problems in Philosophy by Colin McGinn", The Philosophical Review 105: 253-256.
(1993) "Critical Study of Identity, Consciousness, and Value by Peter Unger", Nous 27: 373-379.
(1993) "Universes by John Leslie", Faith and Philosophy 10: 439-443.
(1988) "Critical Study of Elbow Room, by Daniel Dennett", Nous 22: 609-618.
(1987) "Without Proof or Evidence, by O.K. Bouwsma", Faith and Philosophy 4: 103-108.
(1986) "Review of Philosophical Papers, Vol. I by David Lewis", Mind 95: 246-257.
(1985) "Review of The First Person by Roderick M. Chisholm", Nous 19: 122-129.
(1984) "Review of Was Spinoza Fooled by the Ontological Argument? by Joel I. Friedman", The Journal of Symbolic Logic 49: 997-998.
(1984) "Review of The Logical Structure of Spinoza's Ethics, Part I by Charles Jarrett" (with Jonathan Bennett), The Journal of Symbolic Logic 49: 996-997.
(1980) "Critical Study of Worlds, Times and Selves by A.N. Prior and Kit Fine", Nous 14: 251-259.
(1979) "Review of The Coherence of Theism by Richard Swinburne", The Philosophical Review 88: 668-672.
(1978) "Review of Naming, Necessity, and Natural Kinds by Stephen P. Schwartz", International Studies in Philosophy 10: 197-199.
(1978) "Review of Will, Freedom, and Power by Anthony Kenny", The Philosophical Review 87: 99-101.
(1973) "Review of Determinism by Bernard Berofsky", The Philosophical Review 82: 399-404.

Books

(2024) The Abstract and the Concrete: Further Essays in Ontology
(2024) Do Numbers Exist? A Debate About Abstract Objects (with W.L. Craig)
(2023) Being: A Study in Ontology; Preface and Introduction
(2017) Thinking about Free Will
(2014) Existence: Essays in Ontology
(2014) Metaphysics (4th ed.)
(2008) Metaphysics: The Big Questions (2nd ed., van Inwagen, Zimmerman, eds.)
(2007) Persons: Human and Divine (van Inwagen, Zimmerman, eds.)
(2006) The Problem of Evil
(2004) Christian Faith and the Problm of Evil (van Inwagen, ed.)
(2001) Ontology, Identity, and Modality: Essays in Metaphysics
(1997) The Possibility of Resurrection and other Essays in Christian Apologetics
(1995) God, Knowledge, and Mystery: Essays in Philosophical Theology
(1990) Material Beings
(1985) Alvin Plantinga (Tomberlin, van Inwagen, eds.)
(1983) An Essay on Free Will
(1980) Time and Cause: Essays Presented to Richard Taylor (van Inwagen, ed.)

Maintained by Andrew M. Bailey. I maintain similar collections of papers by John Martin Fischer, David Kaplan, David Lewis, and Alvin Plantinga.

(Last updated: 20 March 2025)