Full Idea
Van Inwagen's claim that nothing has parts causes incredulity. ..But the problem is not with endorsing the sentence 'Some things have parts'; it is with interpreting this sentence by means of singular resources rather than plural ones.
Gist of Idea
We can deny whole objects but accept parts, by referring to them as plurals within things
Source
report of Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 7) by David Liggins - Nihilism without Self-Contradiction
Book Reference
'Being: Developments in Contemporary Metaphysics', ed/tr. Le Poidevin,R [CUP 2008], p.190
A Reaction
Van Inwagen notoriously denies the existence of normal physical objects. Liggins shows that modern formal plural quantification gives a better way of presenting his theory, by accepting tables and parts of tables as plurals of basic entities.