Let me just add that the entire book is great, so you'll profit from all the sections.

I would love to look further at some of his arguments for you and interact with them I just don't have the time or energy right now. Not only will you be greatly challenged, you will learn some good metaphysics and how to engage in metaphysical analysis. If you hold to some kind of dualism or a compatibilism about free will, you would do well to read van Inwagen's positive arguments for his position and negative ones against yours. This in and of itself is a bold move (not many hold to the conjunction of these two, but those who do are very smart guys, e.g., Robert Kane). Van Inwagen argues for physicalism about the human person, and libertarian free will about said persons powers. Given my interests, part (iii) was by far the most interesting, specifically the chapters on the nature of man and his powers (i.e., dualism/physicalism and free will). These three parts are further broken down into chapters. The book has three parts: (i) the way the world is, (ii) why the world is, and (iii) the inhabitants of the world. Very good introduction to the metaphysics - roughly, the study of the nature of ultimate reality. The dualist isn’t bound to think of physical explanations for everything like the physicalist is. I don’t see how this is a problem for the dualist. He says the dualist must likewise own up to the mystery of a non-physical thing (e.g., God) thinking (221). As for criticisms of the book, I am not persuaded that PVI fully dealt with Leibniz’s charge about a physical thing thinking. It is accessible to the Beginner-Intermediate student.

The book is very well-written and surprisingly easy to read. He gives a mostly good account of free will and defends incompatibilism. He does admit that physicalism (i.e., all properties of a person, mental and non-mental, are simply physical properties) is hard-pressed to overcome the problem of identity (see Ship of Theseus discussion). In terms of the mind-body problem, PVI is critical of dualism and opts for a physicalist approach. He covers the Ontological argument, albeit in its modal form (from Plantinga and others). Throughout he covers all of the basic problems and terminology in metaphysics today: inviduation, externality, objective realism, free will, mind-body problem, etc. This text is divided into three parts: The Way the World is, Why the World Is, and the Inhabitants of the World.

PVI sets out to defend the Common Western Metaphysic: basically the common-sense view in the west that there is a ready-made, external world independent of our mind.

Metaphysics book