Peter van Inwagen
E195112
Peter van Inwagen is a prominent contemporary American analytic philosopher best known for his work on metaphysics, free will, and the philosophy of religion.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Peter van Inwagen canonical | 3 |
| van Inwagen | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1723247 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Peter van Inwagen Context triple: [Alvin Plantinga, influenced, Peter van Inwagen]
-
A.
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel is an American philosopher known for his influential work in moral and political philosophy, philosophy of mind, and epistemology, including the famous essay "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?".
-
B.
Alvin Plantinga
Alvin Plantinga is a prominent American analytic philosopher best known for his influential work in philosophy of religion, epistemology, and metaphysics, particularly his defense of the rationality of theism and the free will defense against the problem of evil.
-
C.
Richard Swinburne
Richard Swinburne is a prominent British philosopher of religion known for his analytic defense of theism and influential work on the doctrine of the Trinity.
-
D.
Graham Priest
Graham Priest is a prominent contemporary philosopher and logician best known for his work on non-classical logics, especially dialetheism, and his influential analyses of logical paradoxes.
-
E.
David Lewis
David Lewis was an American philosopher renowned for his influential work in metaphysics, especially modal realism and possible worlds semantics, as well as significant contributions to philosophy of language and mind.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Peter van Inwagen Target entity description: Peter van Inwagen is a prominent contemporary American analytic philosopher best known for his work on metaphysics, free will, and the philosophy of religion.
-
A.
Thomas Nagel
Thomas Nagel is an American philosopher known for his influential work in moral and political philosophy, philosophy of mind, and epistemology, including the famous essay "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?".
-
B.
Alvin Plantinga
Alvin Plantinga is a prominent American analytic philosopher best known for his influential work in philosophy of religion, epistemology, and metaphysics, particularly his defense of the rationality of theism and the free will defense against the problem of evil.
-
C.
Richard Swinburne
Richard Swinburne is a prominent British philosopher of religion known for his analytic defense of theism and influential work on the doctrine of the Trinity.
-
D.
Graham Priest
Graham Priest is a prominent contemporary philosopher and logician best known for his work on non-classical logics, especially dialetheism, and his influential analyses of logical paradoxes.
-
E.
David Lewis
David Lewis was an American philosopher renowned for his influential work in metaphysics, especially modal realism and possible worlds semantics, as well as significant contributions to philosophy of language and mind.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (50)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
American philosopher
ⓘ
analytic philosopher ⓘ human ⓘ metaphysician ⓘ philosopher ⓘ |
| academicDegree | PhD in philosophy ⓘ |
| almaMater |
Rochester Institute of Technology
ⓘ
Syracuse University ⓘ |
| birthDate | 1942-09-21 ⓘ |
| birthPlace |
Buffalo
ⓘ
surface form:
Buffalo, New York, United States
|
| citizenship |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| doctoralAdvisor | Roderick Chisholm ⓘ |
| employer |
Syracuse University
ⓘ
University of Notre Dame ⓘ |
| era |
20th-century philosophy
ⓘ
21st-century philosophy ⓘ |
| familyName |
Peter van Inwagen
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
van Inwagen
|
| fieldOfWork |
analytic philosophy
ⓘ
free will ⓘ metaphysics ⓘ ontology ⓘ philosophy of action ⓘ philosophy of mind ⓘ philosophy of religion ⓘ |
| gender | male ⓘ |
| givenName | Peter ⓘ |
| knownFor |
contributions to the problem of evil in philosophy of religion
ⓘ
defending incompatibilism about free will and determinism ⓘ defense of libertarian free will ⓘ formulating the consequence argument for incompatibilism ⓘ work on the metaphysics of material objects ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainInterest |
Christian philosophy
ⓘ
free will ⓘ material constitution ⓘ ontology of material objects ⓘ problem of evil ⓘ |
| name | Peter van Inwagen self-link ⓘ |
| nationality |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| notableWork |
An Essay on Free Will
ⓘ
God, Knowledge, and Mystery ⓘ Material Beings ⓘ Metaphysics ⓘ Ontology, Identity, and Modality ⓘ The Possibility of Resurrection and Other Essays in Christian Apologetics ⓘ The Problem of Evil ⓘ |
| philosophicalSchool | analytic philosophy ⓘ |
| positionHeld |
John Cardinal O’Hara Professor of Philosophy
ⓘ
professor of philosophy ⓘ |
| religion | Christianity ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Peter van Inwagen Description of subject: Peter van Inwagen is a prominent contemporary American analytic philosopher best known for his work on metaphysics, free will, and the philosophy of religion.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
van Inwagen