The Student's Review
A philosophy reviewer admits he knows nothing about the subject. Andreas Matthias approaches a 289-page Springer textbook on metaphysics not as an expert but as a learner — and that honest positioning makes his critique sharper than most academic reviews.
Two Ways to Read
Matthias draws a distinction most reviewers ignore. Andreas Matthias writes, "There are fundamentally two kinds of reviews." One comes from an expert hunting for flaws. The other comes from a student trying to learn. He chooses the second path deliberately, noting that expert reviews "can never approach a book in quite the same way as the book's intended audience."
As Andreas Matthias puts it, "I know next to nothing about metaphysics." He studied it decades ago, when telephones had cords and music lived on cassettes that melted in summer heat. He's forgotten it all — and he's honest about his bias. Andreas Matthias writes, "I've always been joking that I'm philosophise with a hammer rather than with a scalpel." He wants bold claims and sweeping debates. Metaphysics, to him, is the opposite: clockmakers dissecting concepts into smaller fragments, then arguing about whether the reassembled clock actually works.
The book opens with David Foster Wallace's famous fish story — the young fish who don't realize they're swimming in water. Readers familiar with Wallace's This Is Water speech recognize the point: metaphysics asks absurd questions not because they're absurd, but because we're so immersed in reality we forget to question it. The authors lean into this, addressing the "hostile attitude" many philosophers have toward metaphysics — Carnap dismissed metaphysicians as "musicians without musical ability."
"What the hell is water?"
But Matthias spots a warning sign early. The authors promise chapter-opening stories featuring Alice, Bob, Giggino, and Giggina — cutesy dialogues meant to introduce metaphysical concepts. Andreas Matthias writes, "These cutesy topic introductions can quickly become tedious and come across as patronising." He wonders who the intended reader is: someone buying a Springer volume called Contemporary Metaphysics probably doesn't need cartoonish intros. Infinite Jest fans might recall Wallace's own struggle with balancing accessibility and depth — the book's famous difficulty wasn't accidental.
The Price Problem
Before diving into content, Matthias stops at the price tag: $99.99 hardcover, $79.20 Kindle. Andreas Matthias writes, "These prices are unscrupulous and deplorable, especially for an ebook that has near zero production and distribution costs." He argues academic publishing is "fundamentally broken" — universities pay inflated prices with public funds that should educate young people, while authors get nothing. As Andreas Matthias puts it, "asking for a hundred bucks for a book that was acquired for free, likely edited by AI, and published at no cost is fundamentally immoral."
Critics might note this critique, while valid, distracts from evaluating the book's actual content. A cheap book can be bad; an expensive one can be good. Price and quality aren't necessarily linked.
God Without Context
Matthias cheats his beginner stance here — he's taught philosophy of religion. The God chapter opens with Alice and Bob under the stars. Alice argues the cosmos must have meaning; Bob stays rational. Then: Alice hugs Bob a little tighter. "It's a little chilly now," she replies and smiles. Bob forgets for a moment the things he has talked about with Alice, and realises just how beautiful she is.
Matthias doesn't let this pass. Andreas Matthias writes, "a thank you to the authors for reducing Alice to her physical appearance." Her intellectual arguments fade; her beauty matters. He notes this is an Italian book, but 21st-century readers expect better.
The ontological argument gets one page. The modal version presented is:
- Necessarily, if God exists, then God necessarily exists.
- It is possible that God exists.
- Therefore God necessarily exists.
The proof uses possible worlds semantics — if God exists in any possible world, and God's existence is necessary, then God exists in all worlds including ours. Readers who studied the companion deep dive on modality might follow this. But Matthias argues the book doesn't explain the concepts enough. Andreas Matthias writes, "they don't really engage with the argument itself very much." One page for advantages, one page for Kant's criticism — enough to feel you've heard it, not enough to evaluate it.
The cosmological argument gets 17 lines. Russell's view — "the universe is just there and that is all" — gets a mention but no development.
Critics might argue beginners need overview, not depth. But Matthias's point is sharper: the book presents advanced versions of arguments without the scaffolding to understand them. It's neither beginner-friendly nor expert-satisfying.
Bottom Line
Contemporary Metaphysics promises accessibility but delivers neither clarity nor depth. Matthias's student-review approach exposes the gap: the book assumes knowledge it doesn't provide, uses pedagogical devices that patronize, and charges academic prices for AI-era production. Andreas Matthias writes, "the execution is unclear about who the ideal reader is — and will really satisfy nobody." For readers wanting metaphysics without the water analogy, this isn't it.