“Coming to Understanding” is a serious essay in analytic metaphysics. The general standard of argumentation seems to me to be high, sometimes very high, and the whole is imaginative, amazingly inventive, challenging, well-focused, clearly and attractively written and engaging. The author is no respecter of academic othrodoxy, but in the majority of cases where he (as I assume Monius to be) runs consciously against standard views it seemed to me that he has justice, if not right on his side. “Coming to Understanding” is also extraordinarily ambitious—far more ambitious that most academic philosophy. The aim of these 60 pages is no less than to give an account of the basic structure of ‘reality as a whole’, to argue that reality exists for a purpose, and to identify that purpose. The purpose identified is that reality should be understood—hence the title.

Jonathan Dancy
University of Reading