What would be sufficient to show of some apparently higher-level property that it is 'nothing over and above' some complex configuration of more basic properties? This paper defends a new method for justifying reductions by demonstrating its comparative advantages over two methods recently defended in the literature. Unlike its rivals, what I'll call "the semantic method" makes a reduction's truth epistemically transparent without relying on conceptual analyses.

What is the aim of philosophy? There may be too many philosophical branches, traditions, practices, and programs to admit of a single overarching aim. Here I focus on a fairly traditional philosophical project that has recently received increasingly sophisticated articulation, especially by Frank Jackson (1998) and David Chalmers (2012). In §1, I present the project and suggest that it is usefully thought of as ‘total axiomatics’: the project of attempting to axiomatize the total theory of the world. In §2, I (...) raise a problem for the project that I call the ‘problem of multiple axiomatizations.’ I consider some initially alluring but ultimately unpromising approaches to this problem in §3. In §4, I defend a surprising approach to the problem, according to which competing axiomatizations of the total theory of the world are effectively evaluated for their aesthetic virtues. (shrink)

Jackson argues that conceptual analysis plays a modest, albeit crucial, role in ‘serious metaphysics’: roughly, the project of demystifying phenomena we take to be mysterious by locating them in the natural world. This defence of conceptual analysis is associated with ‘the Canberra Plan’, a philosophical methodology that has its roots in the works of both Lewis :427–446, 1970, Australas J Philos 50:249–258, 1972) and Jackson. There is, however, a distinction to be drawn between conceptual analysis, as it is (...) typically employed in the Canberra plan, and a version of it defended by Jackson himself. In this paper, I elucidate this distinction, and employ examples from the history of science to argue the use of the former, but not the latter, incurs certain problems of conceptual change. Moreover, I also argue neither can be used to undertake serious metaphysics—the former because of the aforementioned problems, and the latter due to the machinery it employs to solve them. (shrink)

(No abstract is available for this citation).

I take up the task of examining how someone who takes seriously the ambitious programme of conceptual analysis advocated by the Canberra School can minimise the eliminative consequences which I argue the Ramsey-Carnap-Lewis recipe of conceptual analysis is likely to have for many folk discourses. The objective is to find a stable means to preserve the constative appearance of folk discourse and to find it generally successful in its attempts to describe an external world, albeit in non-scientific terms that do (...) not reflect the nature of things. The view I settle on, quasi-fictionalism, is modelled on a modified descriptivist version of Kendall Walton’s account of prop-oriented games of make-believe. (shrink)

This book argues that Whitehead’s introduction of God into his process metaphysics renders it incoherent. Replacing roles assigned to God with the powers inherent in finite entities, George Allan recovers a coherent presentation of the truth of time’s primacy, using Whitehead’s major writings.

Ask most philosophers for an example of a moral rationalist, and they will probably answer “Kant.” And no wonder. Kant’s first great work of moral philosophy, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, opens with a clarion call for rationalism, proclaiming the need to work out for once a pure moral philosophy, a metaphysics of morals. That this metaphysics includes the first principle of ethics, the moral law, is obvious. But what about the second principles, particular moral laws, (...) such as duties of truthfulness, beneficence, etc.? Are these principles metaphysical too? Many have thought not, since they make essential use of empirical and anthropological considerations. I argue otherwise; the second principles are metaphysical and this matters. I do this by taking seriously the metaphysics of the metaphysics of morals—more specifically, by understanding the metaphysics of morals alongside the metaphysics of nature. For, qua metaphysics, both employ a common two-stage methodology, the first stage of which is wholly a priori but the second stage of which is partly empirical. As I explain, appreciating this common methodology sheds new light on how the second principles are to be established, as well as on the reach of Kant’s rationalism. (shrink)

What is the rationale for the methodological innovations of experimental philosophy? This paper starts from the contention that common answers to this question are implausible. It then develops a framework within which experimental philosophy fulfills a specific function in an otherwise traditionalist picture of philosophical inquiry. The framework rests on two principal ideas. The first is Frank Jackson’s claim that conceptual analysis is unavoidable in ‘serious metaphysics’. The second is that the psychological structure of concepts is extremely intricate, (...) much more so than early practitioners of conceptual analysis had realized. This intricacy has implications for the activity of analyzing concepts: while the central, coarser, more prominent contours of a concept may be identified from the armchair, the finer details of the concept’s structure require experimental methods to detect. (shrink)

Ross & Spurrett (R&S) fail to take metaphysics seriously because they do not make a clear enough distinction between how we understand the world and what the world is really like. Although they show that the behavioral and cognitive sciences are genuinely explanatory, it is not clear that they have shown that these special sciences identify properties that are genuinely causal.

This bookis about the roots of managerial rationality. A theoretical base, founded on the concept of 'memetics' is developed in order to explain human thinking and human reason as products of cultural evolution. Cultural change and development are explained by simple, value-driven memetic mechanisms like 'ritualization' and 'extremization'.

Paul Marshall takes extrovertive mystical experience seriously by providing a metaphysical framework inspired by Plotinus and Leibniz that aims to interpret it non-reductively and to explain it persuasively. However praiseworthy Marshall's intentions, his account fails for a variety of reasons, among them an inability to establish convincingly why natural objects appear as transfigured and alive, characteristics frequently encountered in the reports of nature mystics. An alternative approach, rooted in contemporary pan-experientialist philosophy of mind, is able to take extrovertive mysticism equally (...) seriously while accounting more successfully for its pre-eminent features at a less extravagant metaphysical cost. (shrink)

Serious actualism is the view that it is metaphysically impossible for an entity to have a property, or stand in a relation, and not exist. Fine (1985) and Pollock (1985) influentially argue that this view is false. In short, there are properties like the property of nonexistence, and it is metaphysically possible that some entity both exemplifies such a property and does not exist. I argue that such arguments are indeed successful against the standard formulation of serious actualism. (...) However, I also argue that we should distinguish a weaker formulation of serious actualism using the actualist distinction between truth in, and truth at, a possible world. This weaker formulation is then shown to be consistent with the existence and possible exemplification of properties like the property of nonexistence. I end with a novel argument for the truth of the weaker formulation. (shrink)

In his "On the Metaphysics of Knowledge" (this volume), Sven Bernecker introduces and defends a novel account of knowledge that he calls ‘identificationism’. In fact, Bernecker’s account is a hybrid view that combines a modal tracking condition – some variation on safety and/or sensitivity – with his original identificationist condition. The reason for including a tracking condition is that some Gettier cases, like the famous fake barn case, are best accommodated in this way. In making this more familiar claim, (...) Bernecker follows epistemologists like Nozick, Sosa, or Pritchard. But he also adds the less familiar claim that there are ‘intractable’ Gettier cases that cannot be dealt with by a tracking condition alone. These intractable cases involve necessary or modally stable propositions, such as '2+2=4' or 'there is carbon on earth', which are either true in all possible worlds, or at least true in all possible worlds that are close to the actual world. In this paper, I will not directly address the epistemological adequacy of Bernecker’s identificationism. Rather, I want to focus on the substantial metaphysical commitments that it incurs, in particular on the problematic idea that our epistemic reasons identify the truthmaker of our respective belief when we know something. My conclusion will be that being a truthmaker for p is metaphysically more demanding than being an epistemic reason for p. A truthmaker for p must necessitate the truth of p, while an epistemic reason for p must merely indicate the truth of p. Thus, we should not expect that epistemic reasons identify the truthmakers of our knowledge-constituting beliefs in the way that Bernecker suggests. (shrink)

In this remarkably clear and original study of the Tractatus Peter Carruthers has two principal aims. He seeks to make sense of Wittgenstein's metaphysical doctrines, showing how powerful arguments may be deployed in their support. He also aims to locate the crux of the conflict between Wittgenstein's early and late philosophies. This is shown to arise from his earlier commitment to the objectivity of logic and logical relations, which is the true target of attack of his later discussion of rule-following. (...) Within this general framework Dr Carruthers explores a number of themes, including the early Wittgenstein's doctrine of the priority of logic over metaphysics, the nature and purpose of his programme of analysis for ordinary language and the various possible arguments supporting the existence of Simples. He offers many original interpretations and defends them with considerable attention to textual detail, yet the book's clarity and directness will make it accessible to anyone acquainted with the Tractatus. It will be required reading for all serious students of Wittgenstein's philosophy. (shrink)

These penetrating metaphysical and spiritual teachings cross the divides of culture and time, providing unexpectedly modern insight.

Some process philosophers—David Ray Griffin chief among them—held that Whitehead offered a vision of the world that is both postmodern and constructive. Specifically, he viewed the reformed theology of process thought as essential to its constructive efficacy. With this collection of essays, George Allan has articulated a cogent case against this position. That is, Whitehead's system does offer a postmodern and constructive vision of the world—but precisely at the expense of a process theology. In his account, a postmodern and constructive (...) process philosophy means a radically contingent temporality that is fundamentally incompatible with any permanent mode of being. All the theological functions within Whitehead's... (shrink)

Serious actualism is the prima facie plausible thesis that things couldn’t have been related while being nothing. The thesis plays an important role in a number of arguments in metaphysics, e.g., in Plantinga’s argument for the claim that propositions do not ontologically depend on the things that they are about and in Williamson’s argument for the claim that he, Williamson, is necessarily something. Salmon has put forward that which is, arguably, the most pressing challenge to serious actualists. (...) Salmon’s objection is based on a scenario intended to elicit the judgment that merely possible entities may nonetheless be actually referred to, and so may actually have properties. It is shown that predicativism, the thesis that names are true of their bearers, provides the resources for replying to Salmon’s objection. In addition, an argument for serious actualism based on Stephanou, 219–250 2007) is offered. Finally, it is shown that once serious actualism is conjoined with some minimal assumptions, it implies property necessitism, the thesis that necessarily all properties are necessarily something, as well as a strong comprehension principle for higher-order modal logic according to which for every condition there necessarily is the property of being a thing satisfying that condition. (shrink)

Since last year, major initiatives have been undertaken by the chair of theoretical philosophy at the University of Tübingen in order to enhance the reception of analytic metaphysics in the European landscape. Here we review the 2013 summer workshop, intended to be the first of an annual series, on “Existence, Truth and Fundamentality”, the invited speakers being Graham Priest (Melbourne), Stephan Leuenberger (Glasgow), Dan López de Sa (Barcelona), Francesco Berto (Aberdeen), Friederike Moltmann (Paris – Pantheon Sorbonne) and Jason Turner (...) (Leeds). The workshop’s scope is fairly large, focusing on three different aspects of contemporary research in metaphysics. However, the underlying idea of organizers Thomas Sattig and Alessandro Torza consisted in exploring their interconnections and even new areas which possibly share the same problem spectrum. Also, they thought of bringing together both young and senior protagonists of the contemporary debate. In this sense, the main thread followed by the speakers consisted in enquiring the ideas of fundamentality, dependence and grounding with respect to ontology (Berto, López de Sa, Turner) and the truthmaking debate (Priest, Moltmann, Leuenberger), thus pretty much in line with some latest tendencies in metaphysics, such as, prima inter paria, the works of Kit Fine. When we say that something is more fundamental than something else, we move into a non-conventional (for the standards of 20 th century philosophy) metodological framework, hardly focusing on the question about what there is, and rather tackling the issue of how fundamentally there is what there is, or how the existence of something is required as a ground for the existence of other things. Here is how Jonathan Schaffer explains the methodological transition in his influential “On What Grounds What” (2009): -/- Among the many assumptions Quine and Carnap share is that metaphysical questions are existence questions, such as whether numbers exist. They only disagree on the further issue of whether such questions are meaningful (at least as the metaphysician might pose them). But why think that metaphysical questions are existence question of this sort? Return to Aristotle’s Metaphysics. There are virtually no existence question posed. The whole discussion is about substances (fundamental units of being). At one point Aristotle pauses to ask if numbers exist, and his answer is a brief and dismissive yes. [. . . ] For Aristotle, the question about numbers is whether they are transcendent substances or grounded in concreta. The question is not whether numbers exist, but how. (Schaffer, 2009, p. 347) -/- The conference opened with Graham Priest’s intriguing and peculiar review of Buddhist cornerstone “The Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way” (Mūlamadhyakamakārikā) by Nāgārjuna (ca. 150-ca. 250 AD), seen as a unrecognized forerunner of multi-valued semantics and dialetheism. Priest shows that Nagarjuna’s thought indeed has valuable analytic grip (contrary to the traditional mystical dismiss of his works altogether) and is even in accord to some formal schemas rejecting both the laws of excluded middle and non-contradiction. Dan López de Sa was interested in the topic of grounding, raising concerns about how to explain the kind of “reality” exemplified by what is not fundamental, but rather derivative on something else. He proposes a conceptual and non-primitive analysis of grounding as linked to fundamentality and derivation, and argues that the view can be advocated along with the acceptance that at least something is not fundamental. Subsequently, he illustrates an impressive range of applications linked to contemporary debates in meta-ontology, truthmaking and philosophy of time. Stephan Leuenberger discussed a semantics for “total logic”, a variant of first order logic which is claimed to have several applications with respect to the issue of excluding negative existentials from the scope of theories accounting for a given ’totality’ of facts. For example, materialism is the claim that everything there is can be traced back to physical facts or to truth implied by those facts. What about the claim that “There are no angels”? According to Leuenberger, ordinary logic falls prey of modal arguments (if it is possible that there are angels, by modus tollens, that it is not metaphysically necessary that everything there is is physical). So, there is space for the introduction of a new operator, the totality operator, claiming of what enters its scope that “that’s the whole truth”. Consequently, total logic’s semantics tackles David Chalmers’ well-known conceivability-based argument in favour of zombie’s (subjects producing behaviour but experiencing no qualia) possible existence. Friederike Moltmann presented a massive array of natural language-based examples on the role played by case-constructions, such as “it is the case that Caesar crossed the Rubicon”, “the case of the stolen statue”, “the case in which it might rain”, and so forth. She suggests that we should take surface phenomena of our language very seriously with regard to the determination of ontological categories and truth-makers. Cases are provided by many natural languages with their own existence predicates (“to occur” and “to present itself ”), and these do not apply to other kind of entities, such as objects and events. Trying to derive a substantive thesis on their nature, she claims that they are filtered entities, a structure taking into account some features of the corresponding objects and events and preserving their relational pattern. Jason Turner discussed meta-ontological concerns against the claim that ontological debates are defective. Analysed the structure of a metaphysical theory and identified two different forms of defectiveness that can occur in ontological questions, the defection from without and the defection from within, the author provided an original solution in order to avoid such difficulties. He argued thus in favor of a logical constancy, a translation principle thanks to it would be possible reconceive an ontological defection. Lastly, Francesco Berto’s talk closed the workshop with a sagacious discussion of meinongian quantification. He substains that Meinongians and Quineans experience no conceptual equivocation. Even if the former claims that “There are things that do not exist”, something that the latter contrasts with the interpretation of existential quantifiers as all-including, they still rely upon the same concept of “existence” and they understand each other when they are outside the ontology room, so that it cannot be that they lack competence. Subsequently, Berto deals with the objection that Meinongians commit analytic falsehood in separating the meaning of “to be” from that of “exists”. The Quinean has no independent evidence for analytic equivalence aside from her emphatic stress on the “is” in “there is”. Meinongians, however, can retort to linguistic considerations and claim that existence predicates display fairly different functions. -/- As for what regards our internal division of the “philosophical labor”, Fabio Ceravolo reviewed Moltmann and Berto’s talks; whereas Mattia Cozzi took care of Priest’s and Leuenberger’s, and Mattia Sorgon of those given by López de Sa and Turner. Conclusively, we would like to thank Thomas Sattig and Alessandro Torza for all of their organizational efforts and the kind welcome they reserved to us. We hope we will have further opportunities to collaborate with Tübingen in supporting similarly innovative and valiant european initiatives. (shrink)

Serious actualists take it that all properties are existence entailing. I present a simple puzzle about sentence tokens which seems to show that serious actualism is false. I then consider the most promising response to the puzzle. This is the idea that the serious actualist should take ordinary property-talk to contain an implicit existential presupposition. I argue that this approach does not work: it fails to generalise appropriately to all sentence types and tokens. In particular, it fails (...) to capture the right distinctions we ought to make between what I call _typographical sentence types_—an interesting and previously undiscussed class of fine-grained sentence types which are partially individuated by their typography, or how they look when written out. (shrink)

The metaphysical realist asserts, while the metaphysical antirealist denies, that there are individuals that exist independently of the existence and workings of any mind or minds. I begin by distinguishing the thesis of metaphysical realism from other theses that are also called ' realism '. Of particular interest in this discussion is the relation between metaphysical realism and views such as moral realism and scientific realism. ; Metaphysical realism is commonly thought to be the default position in the debate since (...) it is prima facie supported by our commonsense intuitions concerning the nature of reality. I develop several arguments to show that, when we examine our intuitions in detail, metaphysical realism is not the entirely commonsensical view that it at first appears. I argue that if metaphysical realism is true, it is difficult to see how semantic and epistemic access to the mind-independent world is possible and that, even if we do have such access, it will be difficult to rule out very bizarre ontologies. While none of these arguments constitute a decisive objection to metaphysical realism, they do suggest that the metaphysical realist should say something in defense of his view. ;I then examine Peter van Inwagen's attempted defense of metaphysical realism. This defense takes the form of a series of arguments designed to show that metaphysical antirealism is incoherent because incompatible with the existence of objective truth. I argue that his criticisms do not constitute an adequate defense of metaphysical realism because certain forms of antirealism, if otherwise philosophically viable, plausibly escape. ;This leads to a discussion of the extent to which an antirealist metaphysic can be considered a viable philosophical view. In this context, I examine the views of Hilary Putnam and Paul Grice. While the versions of metaphysical antirealism presented face serious difficulties of their own, I argue that it is a matter of philosophical judgment which view, metaphysical realism or metaphysical antirealism, has the more severe problems. (shrink)

Fictionalism is the view that a serious intellectual inquiry need not aim at truth. It came to prominence in philosophy in 1980, when Hartry Field argued that mathematics does not have to be true to be good, and Bas van Fraassen argued that the aim of science is not truth but empirical adequacy. Both suggested that the acceptance of a mathematical or scientific theory need not involve belief in its content. Thus the distinctive commitment of fictionalism is that acceptance (...) in a given domain of inquiry need not be truth-normed, and that the acceptance of a sentence from the associated region of discourse need not involve belief in its content. In metaphysics fictionalism is now widely regarded as an option worthy of serious consideration. This volume represents a major benchmark in the debate: it brings together an impressive international team of contributors, whose essays represent the state of the art in various areas of metaphysical controversy, relating to language, mathematics, modality, truth, belief, ontology, and morality. (shrink)

If we want to be autonomous, what do we want? The author shows that contemporary value-neutral and metaphysically economical conceptions of autonomy, such as that of Harry Frankfurt, face a serious problem. Drawing on Plato, Augustine, and Kant, this book provides a sketch of how "ancient" and "modern" can be reconciled to solve it. But at what expense? It turns out that the dominant modern ideal of autonomy cannot do without a costly metaphysics if it is to be (...) coherent. (shrink)

Pragmatist Metaphysics proposes a pragmatist re-articulation of the nature, aims and methods of metaphysics. Rather than regarding metaphysics as a ‘first philosophy’, an inquiry into the world independent of human perspectives, the pragmatist views metaphysics as an inquiry into categorizations of reality laden with human practices. Insofar as our categorizations of reality are practice-laden, they are also, inevitably, value-laden. Sami Pihlström argues that metaphysics does not, then, study the world’s ‘own’ categorial structure, but a structure (...) we, through our conceptual and practical activities, impose on the reality we experience and interact with. Engaging with the classical American pragmatists, in particular William James, and neopragmatists, including Hilary Putnam, the author seeks to correct long-held misconceptions regarding the nature of the relationship between metaphysics and pragmatism. He argues that a coherent metaphysical alternative to the currently fashionable realist metaphysics emerges from pragmatism and that pragmatism itself should be reinterpreted in a metaphysically serious manner. Moreover, the book argues that, from a pragmatist perspective, metaphysics must be inextricably linked with ethics. (shrink)

Inductive Metaphysics combines an anti-aprioristic emphasis on an empirical and scientific basis for metaphysics with an insistence on a specifically philosophical abductive theory-building. Since the latter specifically philosophical work is not empirical itself, it may in a liberal sense be called apriori. This paper highlights this apriori dimension within IM by a case study on Structuralism, the view that fundamental reality consists of a network of relations, which a number of philosophers consider to be suggested by modern physics. (...) Focussing on Dasgupta’s algebraic Generalism, the author argues that Structuralism suffers from a severe entailment problem, because the relations-spanning apparatus must stand for metaphysically fundamental forms. Schaffer’s contention that there are no entailment problems is rejected. Advocates of IM are well advised to take seriously their own insistence on metaphysical abduction and not to one-sidedly emphasise the empirical input: the elaboration of exact metaphysical theories and the apriori evaluation of their inherent tenability is a constituent of IM no less important than the consideration of scientific input. More traditional ways of metaphysical reasoning inevitably survive as an essential dimension within IM. (shrink)

This essay is a review of Daniel Garber's "Descartes' Metaphysical Physics" (Chicago U P 1992) and Michael Friedman's "Kant and the Exact Sciences" (Harvard U P 1992). Garber's study of Descartes is scrupulous but his historicist assumptions result in a failure to grasp Descartes' originality or the unity and power of his thought. Friedman, by taking Kant's conception of science seriously, sheds great light on Kant's thought generally and implicitly raises important philosophical problems for the present day.

The paper first argues that if one takes current fundamental physics seriously, one gets to a metaphysics of events and relations in contrast to substances and intrinsic properties. Against that background, the paper discusses Heil’s theory of properties being both categorical and dispositional and his rejection of levels of being. I contrast these views with a Humean metaphysics. My concluding claim is that Heil’s account of properties opens up the perspective of a conservative reductionism, which avoids the common (...) reservations against reductionism. (shrink)

In the first chapter of From Metaphysics to Ethics, Frank Jackson begins, as he puts it, ‘by explaining how serious metaphysics by its very nature raises the location problem.’ (1998, p. 1) He gives us two examples of location problems. The first concerns semantic properties, such as truth and reference: Some physical structures are true. For example, if I were to utter a token of the type ‘Grass is green’, the structure I would thereby bring into existence (...) would be true ... How are the semantic properties of the sentence related to the non-semantic properties of the sentence? Where, if anywhere, are the semantic properties of truth, content and reference to be found in the non-semantic, physical or naturalistic account of the sentence?’ (1998, p. 2) Jackson notes two possible answers to questions of this kind. The first denies that there are any such semantic properties. (shrink)

The view that human beings begin to exist at fertilization (namely conceptionism) faces a serious challenge from the twinning argument, that identical twins coming from the same zygote must be numerically distinct from the zygote and so did not exist at fertilization. Recently, some philosophers have claimed that the twinning argument rests on a particular metaphysical theory of persistence, namely endurantism, on which a human being, for example, is wholly present at every moment of her existence. And we can (...) easily refute the argument, they claim, by employing perdurantism or exdurantism, according to which a human being is a temporally extended entity with temporal parts or a momentarily existing stage who has other momentarily existing stages as counterparts. I argue that such claims are mistaken. The twinning argument does not rest on endurantism and can be formulated in terms of perdurantism to provide a good reason for perdurantists to reject conceptionism. And exdurantism does not have any advantage in defending conceptionism either, for it already concedes more than what the twinning argument aims to show. (shrink)

If metaphysics is centrally concerned with charting the domain of the possible, the only coherent account of the ground of metaphysical possibility and of our capacity for modal knowledge is to be found in a version of essentialism: a version that I call serious essentialism, to distinguish it from certain other views which may superficially appear very similar to it but which, in fact, differ from it fundamentally in certain crucial respects. This version of essentialism eschews any appeal (...) whatever to the notion of possible worlds in its account of the nature and ground of metaphysical possibility, for reasons that which I shall endeavour to explain and justify in this paper. (shrink)

Naturalized metaphysics is based on the idea that philosophy should be guided by the sciences. The paradigmatic science that is relevant for metaphysics is physics because physics tells us what fundamental reality is ultimately like. There are other sciences, however, that de facto play a role in philosophical inquiries about what there is, one of them being the science of language, i.e. linguistics. In this paper I will be concerned with the question what role linguistics should and does (...) play for the metametaphysical question of how our views about fundamental reality can be reconciled with the everyday truisms about what there is. I will present several examples of two kinds of approaches to this question, linguistics-based accounts and purely philosophical accounts, and will discuss their respective methodological merits and shortcomings. In the end I will argue that even proponents of a purely philosophical answer to the metametaphysical question should take the results of linguistics seriously. (shrink)

This dissertation attempts to demonstrate that the Platonic thesis that thought is like a dialogue of the soul with itself, in the form it is given in the philosophy of Wilfrid Sellars, is a key to the metaphysics of transcendental subjectivity, and can be used fruitfully as a foil in critically interpreting the classical Cartesian and Kantian texts on the metaphysics of the subject. The metaphor becomes fruitful only when developed in the direction of a functional account of (...) acts of thought, according to which the concepts of intentionality are indifferent as to the material constitution of the items which function in such a manner as to be acts of thought. ;Chapter I demonstrates that although the Platonic thesis appears again and again in ancient and Medieval texts, a functional account is never pursued seriously. The tradition assumes that acts of thought are "diaphanous." Chapter II shows that although there are hints of a functional turn in Descartes' distinction between ideas materialiter and ideas objective, he remains true to the tradition in developing his substance metaphysics of the subject. After a brief look at Leibniz in Chapter III, Chapter IV shows how Kant makes the turn to a functional account of the thinking subject, according to which it is a category mistake to say that the transcendental 'I' is in the world either phenomenally or noumenally. Chapter V shows how Wilfrid Sellars develops the Kantian position by taking up the Platonic thesis and interpreting it in a functional direction. This opens up the way to a positive metaphysics of transcendental subjectivity which is able to do justice to the fact that the subject which constitutes the world is also a subject in the world. (shrink)

In his discussions of the Eucharist, Descartes gives prominent place to the notion of the “surfaces” of bodies. Given this context, it may seem that his account of surfaces is of limited interest. However, I hope to show that such an account is in fact linked to a philosophically significant medieval debate over whether certain mathematical “indivisibles”, including surfaces, really exist in nature. Moreover, the particular emphasis in Descartes on the fact that surfaces are modes rather than parts of bodies (...) bespeaks the influence of the later scholastic Francisco Suárez. However, in his own contribution to the medieval debate, Suárez refrained from identifying surfaces with modes, holding instead that they are special “constituents” of bodies that differ from the parts of which these bodies are composed. Two main conclusions derive from the comparison of the views of Suárez and Descartes on surfaces. The first is that Descartes’s “modal realist” account is in fact superior to the “moderate realist” account that Suárez offers, for reasons internal to Suárez’s own system. The second is that Suárez’s reasons for refraining from adopting modal realism in this case serve to highlight a serious deficiency in Descartes’s version of this view. In this way, a consideration of the relevant Suárezian background allows us to better appreciate both the strengths and the weaknesses of Descartes’s stance on the metaphysics of surfaces. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Three Conventions: Metaphysical Dialogues, Principia Metaphysica, and Commentary So long as we conceive the world to be only in the process of Becoming, so long will it be inevitable that all our world-conceptions be in constant flux. A world that never is but always to be cannot remain stable enough for a single moment to allow even of description, let alone of definition and interpretation; and a statement approximately true. Today may be anything but true tomorrow. (...) class='Hi'>Metaphysics and Phi 1050phy, in these circumstances, are not so much as even guesses at truth, since the truth about a process of Becoming, if it be no more than that, can only be known when the process is complete, that is to say, when all life has ceased. They are, at best, a kind of meteorological prediction, but in a field vastly more complex than that of weather and, in consequence, at a vastly greater disadvantage than common mete orology. If, as is too. Generally assumed by modern science, what we call life is only Becoming, there is small wonder that Metaphysics and Philosophy proper should be regarded as fancies unworthy of serious attention. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Metaphysical views typically draw some distinction between reality and appearance, endorsing realism about some subject matters and antirealism about others. There are different conceptions of how best to construe antirealist theories. A simple view has it that we are antirealists about a subject matter when we believe that this subject matter fails to obtain. This paper discusses an alternative view, which I will call the fundamentality-based conception of antirealism. We are antirealists in this sense when we think that the relevant (...) matter fails to be constitutive of fundamental reality. The following discussion will not rely on any particular understanding of fundamental reality, covering conceptions based on grounding, naturalness and truthmaking, to name three salient ones. This paper argues that there are serious issues with fundamentality-based metaphysics. It will be argued that: the fundamentality-based approach shapes and restricts our realist and antirealist views in unsatisfying ways, that it is unable to handle the conflicting facts that lie across the envisaged ‘layers’ of the metaphysically structured world, and that the methodological reasons for adopting the fundamentality-based approach fail. The paper will conclude with a diagnosis of the discussed issues, identifying a common source. (shrink)

Analytic metaphysics is in resurgence; there is renewed and vigorous interest in topics such as time, causation, persistence, parthood and possible worlds. We who share this interest often pay lip-service to the idea that metaphysics should be informed by modern science; some take this duty very seriously.2 But there is also a widespread suspicion that science cannot really contribute to metaphysics, and that scientific findings grossly underdetermine metaphysical claims. For some, this prompts the thought ‘so much the (...) worse for metaphysics’; others mutter ‘so much the worse for science’. (shrink)

Even though metaphysical dependence has been a subject of a lively debate in contemporary metaphysics, it is rare in such a debate to seriously consider the possibility that the metaphysical dependence relations among the things in the reality is inconsistent. This paper focuses on two philosophers of the Kyoto School, Kitaro Nishida and Keiji Nishitani, who challenge the common supposition that the structure of reality is consistent. In this paper, we show that Nishida’s logic of place is a version (...) of inconsistent foundationalism, according to which absolute nothingness as a foundational element does not depend on anything but depends on itself, and that Nishtani’s theory of the field of emptiness is a version of inconsistent coherentism, according to which emptiness does not depend on anything but depends on everything else (and possibly on itself). (shrink)

This Element is an introduction to the metaphysics of biology, a very general account of the nature of the living world. The first part of the Element addresses more traditionally philosophical questions - whether biological systems are reducible to the properties of their physical parts, causation and laws of nature, substantialist and processualist accounts of life, and the nature of biological kinds. The second half will offer an understanding of important biological entities, drawing on the earlier discussions. This division (...) should not be taken too seriously, however: the topics in both parts are deeply interconnected. Although this does not claim to be a scientific work, it does aim to be firmly grounded in our best scientific knowledge; it is an exercise in naturalistic metaphysics. Its most distinctive feature is that argues throughout for a view of living systems as processes rather than things or, in the technical philosophical sense, substances. (shrink)

An argument is offered for this conditional: If our current concept conscious state is sharp rather than vague, and also correct , then common versions of familiar metaphysical theories of consciousness are false--?namely versions of the identity theory, functionalism, and dualism that appeal to complex physical or functional properties in identification, realization, or correlation. Reasons are also given for taking seriously the claim that our current concept conscious state is sharp. The paper ends by surveying the theoretical options left open (...) by the concept's sharpness and the truth of the conditional argued for in the paper. (shrink)

Much has been made of the so-called “empirical turn” of “speculative materialism” with thinkers like Quentin Meillassoux championing the material sciences as a new route to absolute reality. According to Meillassoux, the material sciences “provide philosophers access once again to the great outdoors, the absolute outside,” of reality in-itself. One might expect from such encomia the attempt to engage with the products of contemporary science in order to develop a new metaphysics; but, Meillassoux spends almost no time in this (...) way, focusing instead on the form and methods of the material sciences over their actual accomplishments. As a result, his praise rings hollow and his metaphysics remains undeveloped. This paper examines what would happen if we were to take seriously his claims that a new metaphysics be developed from a scientific accounting of material reality by surveying the conclusions of contemporary physics. The paper ends by contrasting such a new speculative and materialistic metaphysics with the speculative nihilism of Ray Brassier. (shrink)

This paper presents a distinctively metaphysical version of the problem of other minds. The main source of this version of the problem lies in the principle that, when it comes to consciousness, no distinction can sensibly be drawn between appearance and reality. I will argue that, unless we want to call that principle into question, we should seriously consider the possibility of accepting the conclusion that other minds are not like our own. This option is less problematic than it might (...) seem at first if we are willing to reconceive facts of consciousness as subjective rather than objective in nature. -/- . (shrink)

This slim volume is sure to provoke. The topics include physicalism, the theory of color, and metaethics, but the primary focus is metaphilosophical: Jackson aims to defend the use of conceptual analysis as a tool for doing “serious metaphysics.”.

The film A Serious Man cinematically deconstructs the life of a mid-twentieth century, mid-western American physics professor named Larry Gopnik. As it happens, Larry is up for tenure with a wife who is about to leave him, an unemployed brother who sleeps on his couch, and two self-obsessed teenage children. The film presents a Job-like theodicy in which the mysteries of quantum physics are haunted both by questions of good and evil as well as the spectre of an un-named (...) God, reverently referred to as Hashem. The following paper examines the broader set of philosophical, theological and ethical concerns which arise from the film’s themes, using it to illustrate those concerns. Just as Newtonian physics underwrote Kant’s evocation of the image of starry skies above and moral law within, quantum physics underwrites a new set of ethical anxieties, which the film narrates as a key facet of contemporary western culture’s postmodern re-enchantment. Although some, such as Slavoj Zizek, see this as a positively charged opportunity to rethink metaphysics and ethics, the film leaves the audience with more sinister conclusions. (shrink)