Most philosophers and nonphilosophers alike believe in the existence of “ordinary objects” like tables and chairs, but not in the existence of “extraordinary objects” like trogs, which are objects composed of dogs and tree trunks. Yet, somewhat surprisingly, this “conservative” view is a minority view among those working on the metaphysics of material objects. Most of these practitioners adopt a permissivist approach that countenances certain extraordinary objects in addition to ordinary objects, or an eliminativist approach that eliminates certain ordinary objects as well as extraordinary objects.
In his book Objects: Nothing Out of the Ordinary, Daniel Korman mounts a comprehensive and systematic defense of the conservative view. The book is in three parts. The first part (chapters 2–3) surveys various forms of permissivism and eliminativism, and the arguments that have been advanced in favor of them. The second part (chapters 4–7) presents an “argument from counterexamples” in favor of...
