Reality: Fundamental Topics in Metaphysics by Peter Loptson (review)

322 letters in canada 2001 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 radically that, in contextualizing itself among the Korean minjung, the history of Western Christianity need not be repeated in Korea. Another figure, Suh Nam-dong, advocates the confluence of the Christian minjung tradition and the Korean minjung tradition, seeing >minjung= as the context in which both Bible and Church should meet. Apart from Donghak and Minjung theology, this book touches upon a great variety of subjects, such as Korean shamanism, Chinese Taoism, neoConfucianism , Minjung Buddhism, Ghandian liberation theology, Latin American theologies, feminist theology, and postmodernism. Although this variety offers a larger context for situating the author=s theological position, it prevents thorough elaboration of its main subjects. The fact that each discourse belongs to a different socio-cultural-practical context needs to be acknowledged. For this reason we might question the legitimacy of so many comparisons in one book. The author=s thesis is that, in doing theology, one should shift from the past to the present, from classical texts to context and praxis. This thesis would be even more plausible if the study were to avoid comparing so many thinkers of different ages and different cultures. In the process of transformation, there should be a dialectical interplay of discontinuity and continuity. (VINCENT SHEN) Peter Loptson. Reality: Fundamental Topics in Metaphysics University of Toronto Press. xvi, 306. $65.00 In these decidedly scientistic and pragmatic times, it might be thought that serious study of metaphysics, a field of inquiry whose subject matter very often ventures beyond the realm of the physical, is scientifically disreputable or even (if Richard Rorty is correct) just plain boring. Peter Loptson=s Reality puts this lie to rest B and decisively so. In seventeen exciting and briskly written chapters, Loptson uncovers the >world behind the world= as it were: the underlying (and often unseen) nature of reality. The reader is treated to fascinating discussions of such topics as the nature of existence, essences and possible worlds, properties, space and time, God, freedom of the will, the relationship between mind and body, and the possibility of immortality. It is an ambitious undertaking; and if there is anything to be said against the book, it is that Loptson covers so much ground that a number of his own ideas are unfortunately left in a rather sketchy and informal state. Even so, no one who reads this book can fail to be convinced of the inherent value of metaphysical thinking and reflection. Although Loptson describes himself as a >kind of Russellian empiricist and a naturalist,= he defends positions that are seemingly at odds with this metaphysical stance. For example, he argues (plausibly, I think) for the xxxxxxx humanities 323 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 existence of abstract objects B objects that are neither concrete nor empirically detectable. Numbers, sets, properties (e.g., redness), and propositions (e.g., that Socrates is wise) are his paradigm examples of abstracta; they clearly exist, he tells us, despite their lacking any spatio-temporal location. Not surprisingly, then, Loptson expressly denies (but without supporting argumentation) that >a genuinely scientific, naturalist, or empiricist point of view, or set of commitments= requires that for a thing to exist it must be capable of standing in causal relations or occupying some causal role in a theory. I have my doubts about this claim, for it seems to me that if abstract objects really do exist, then naturalism is false. Many naturalists (e.g., Paul Churchland and David Armstrong) concur on this point, and Loptson says nothing that would lead us to think they are mistaken. More in keeping with his naturalistic predilections is his treatment of the nature of human persons and the possibility of life after death. According to Loptson, >in the current state of evidence there is every reason to identify minds with brains.= Substance dualism of the Cartesian variety is thereby dismissed as >contingently false=; there are no immaterial minds. Unfortunately for the reader, Loptson never discloses what this evidence actually is. He goes on to say that although there are very likely some referential or intentional mental states which cannot...