As analytic philosophy is becoming increasingly aware of and interested in its own history, the study of that field is broadening to include, not just its earliest beginnings, but also the mid-twentieth century. One of the towering figures of this epoch is W.V. Quine (1908-2000), champion of naturalism in philosophy of science, pioneer of mathematical logic, trying to unite an austerely physicalist theory of the world with the truths of mathematics, psychology, and linguistics. Quine's posthumous papers, notes, and drafts revealing (...) the development of his views in the forties have recently begun to be published, as well as careful philosophical studies of, for instance, the evolution of his key doctrine that mathematical and logical truth are continuous with, not divorced from, the truths of natural science. But one central text has remained unexplored: Quine's Portuguese-language book on logic, his 'farewell for now' to the discipline as he embarked on an assignment in the Navy in WWII. Anglophone philosophers have neglected this book because they could not read it. Jointly with colleagues, I have completed the first full English translation of this book. In this accompanying paper I draw out the main philosophical contributions Quine made in the book, placing them in their historical context and relating them to Quine's overall philosophical development during the period. Besides significant developments in the evolution of Quine's views on meaning and analyticity, I argue, this book is also driven by Quine's indebtedness to Russell and Whitehead, Tarski, and Frege, and contains crucial developments in his thinking on philosophy of logic and ontology. This includes early versions of some arguments from 'On What There Is', four-dimensionalism, and virtual set theory. (shrink)

Can the neo-Aristotelian uphold a pluralist substance ontology while taking seriously the recent arguments in favour of monism based on quantum holism and other arguments from quantum mechanics? In this article, Jonathan Schaffer’s priority monism will be the main target. It will be argued that the case from quantum mechanics in favour of priority monism does face some challenges. Moreover, if the neo-Aristotelian is willing to consider alternative ways to understand ‘substance’, there may yet be hope for a pluralist substance (...) ontology. A speculative case for such an ontology will be constructed based on primitive incompatibility. (shrink)

According to the quantificational Quinean model in meta-ontology, the question of ontology boils down to the question of whether a sortal property is exemplified. I address some complications that arise when we try to build a philosophical reconstruction of the link between individuals and kinds displayed in the exemplification relation from the point of view of conceptualism about kinds and having in mind this stand in ontology. I distinguish two notions of resemblance, object-to- object and object-to- kind, and show the (...) problems with both of them. Finally, I argue for a better awareness of the implicit "bias" involved in the very notion of "resemblance," without indulging in Quine's veto toward this notion. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a theory of living organisms that captures the insights of both traditional Aristotelian hylomorphism and John Dupré's “biological processualism”. Like traditional Aristotelian hylomorphism, the proposed theory understands material objects to be comprised of both matter and form. Unlike contemporary structural varieties of hylomorphism, however, it does not understand the form of a material object to be a relation, configuration, or structure exhibited by its parts but an activity or process in which its matter is continuously (...) engaged. Following Mark Steen, I call the proposed theory “Hyloenergeism”. As a version of hylomorphism, hyloenergeism better captures the inherent dynamism of living organisms than contemporary structural approaches. And it does so not by abandoning the substantialist paradigm, as Dupré's biological processualism does, but by reconceptualizing the nature of material substances as possessing a processual core. Hyloenergeism, then, paves a middle way for those looking for a substance view of living organisms sensitive to the concerns raised by contemporary processualist philosophers of biology. (shrink)

The Euthyphro objection is often perceived, rightly or wrongly, as the king objection to theistic meta-ethics. This paper proposes a response that hasn’t been much explored within the contemporary literature, based on the metaphysics of dispositions and natural law theory. The paper will first contend that there is a parallel between ways theists conceptualise God’s role in creating laws of nature and the ways God creates goods. Drawing upon these parallels I propose a possible response to the dilemma, where this (...) response parallels the dispositionalist response as to how God creates laws of nature. I do this by first explicating a natural law theory of goodness, then suggesting how the ontology of dispositions can be used in a novel way to account for goods, and finally by explaining how all this relates to the dilemma. I conclude the paper by posing some objections to myself and providing some replies. (shrink)

Neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) are neural states or processes correlated with consciousness. The aim of this article is to present a coherent explanatory model of NCC that is informed by Thomas Aquinas’s human ontology and Aristotle’s metaphysics of causation. After explicating four starting principles regarding causation and mind-body dependence, I propose the Mind-Body Powers model of NCC.

The goal of this paper is to illuminate the connections between agency, perception, subjectivity, space and the body. Such connections have been the subject matter of much philosophical work. For example, the importance of the body and bodily action on perception is a growth area in philosophy of mind. Nevertheless, there are some key relations that, as will become clear, have not been adequately explored. We start by examining the relation between embodiment and agency, especially the dependence of agency on (...) perception and the dependence of perception on agency. We also consider the nature of subjectivity itself: In virtue of what do humans and animals but not rocks and pencils have genuine perceptual and agentive intentional contents? We sketch a hylomorphic account of subjects and subjectivity, which highlights connections between the conclusions argued for in the previous sections and some basic principles of teleosemantics. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to illuminate the connections between agency, perception, subjectivity, space and the body. Such connections have been the subject matter of much philosophical work. For example, the importance of the body and bodily action on perception is a growth area in philosophy of mind. Nevertheless, there are some key relations that, as will become clear, have not been adequately explored. We start by examining the relation between embodiment and agency, especially the dependence of agency on (...) perception and the dependence of perception on agency. We also consider the nature of subjectivity itself: In virtue of what do humans and animals but not rocks and pencils have genuine perceptual and agentive intentional contents? We sketch a hylomorphic account of subjects and subjectivity, which highlights connections between the conclusions argued for in the previous sections and some basic principles of teleosemantics. (shrink)

An odd dissensus between confident metaphysicians and neopragmatist antimetaphysicians pervades early twenty-first century analytic philosophy. Each faction is convinced their side has won the day, but both are mistaken about the philosophical legacy of the twentieth century. More historical awareness is needed to overcome the current dissensus. Lewis and his possible-world system are lionised by metaphysicians; Quine’s pragmatist scruples about heavy-duty metaphysics inspire antimetaphysicians. But Lewis developed his system under the influence of his teacher Quine, inheriting from him his empiricism, (...) his physicalism, his metaontology, and, I will show in this paper, also his Humeanism. Using published as well as never-before-seen unpublished sources, I will make apparent that both heavy-duty metaphysicians and neopragmatist antimetaphysicians are wrong about the roles Quine and Lewis played in the development of twentieth-century philosophy. The two are much more alike than is commonly supposed, and Quine much more instrumental to the pedigree of current metaphysics. (shrink)

‘Thing’ in the titular question should be construed as having the utmost generality. In the relevant sense, a thing just is an entity, an existent, a being. The present task is to say what a thing of any category is. This task is, I believe, the primary one of any comprehensive and systematic metaphysics. Indeed, an answer provides the means for resolving perennial disputes concerning the integrity of the structure in reality—whether some of the relations among things are necessary merely (...) given those relata themselves—and the intricacy of this structure—whether some things are more or less fundamental than others. After considering some reasons for thinking the generality of the titular question makes it unanswerable, I propound the methodology, original inquiry, required to answer it. The key to this methodology is adopting a singular perspective; confronting the world as merely the impetus to inquiry, one can attain an account of what a thing must be. Radical ontology is a systematic metaphysics—broadly Aristotelian, essentialist and nonhierarchical—that develops the consequences of this account. With it, it is possible to move past stalemate in metaphysics by revealing the grounds of a principled choice between seemingly incommensurable worldviews. (shrink)

St. Paul says that same-sex sexual acts are “contrary to nature.” Plainly this is intended as a condemnation, but beyond that its meaning is obscure. In particular, we are given no general account of what it means to be contrary to nature, including what other acts might fit this description. This article attempts to provide such an account. It relies for this purpose on the biblical and classical sources of this idiom as well as its subsequent use within the Greek (...) patristic tradition. It argues that the core meaning of “contrary to nature” is that of violating the integrity of structure and function of the human body. The article further contrasts this biblical and Greek patristic understanding with that of the “sin against nature” developed in the West during the Middle Ages. It argues that they are different in important ways and that a recovery of the biblical and Greek patristic view can help restore the concept of the unnatural to its proper place within Christian ethics. (shrink)

This thesis offers a naturalist revision of Alain Badiou’s philosophy. This goal is pursued through an encounter of Badiou’s mathematical ontology and theory of truth with contemporary trends in philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science. I take issue with Badiou’s inability to elucidate the link between the empirical and the ontological, and his residual reliance on a Heideggerian project of fundamental ontology, which undermines his own immanentist principles. I will argue for both a bottom-up naturalisation of Badiou’s philosophical approach (...) to mathematics and a top-down naturalisation. Articulating my particular understanding of what realism and naturalism should commit us to, I propose a creative fusion of Badiou’s attention to metamathematical results with a structural-informational metaphysics, proposing a ‘matherialism’ uniting the more daring speculative insights of the former with the naturalist and empiricist commitments motivating the latter. (shrink)

The following is a critical and historical account of Aristotelian Essentialism informed by recent work on Aristotle’s modal syllogistic. The semantics of the modal syllogistic are interpreted in a way that is motivated by Aristotle, and also make his validity claims in the Prior Analytics consistent to a higher degree than previously developed interpretative models. In Chapter One, ancient and contemporary objections to the Aristotelian modal syllogistic are discussed. A resolution to apparent inconsistencies in Aristotle’s modal syllogistic is proposed and (...) developed out of recent work by Patterson, Rini, and Malink. In particular, I argue that the semantics of negation is distinct in modal context from those of assertoric negative claims. Given my interpretive model of Aristotle’s semantics, in Chapter Two, I provide proofs for each of the mixed apodictic syllogisms, and propose a method of using Venn Diagrams to visualize the validity claims Aristotle makes in the Prior Analytics. Chapter Three explores how Aristotle’s syllogistic fits within Aristotle’s philosophy of science and demonstration, particularly within the context of the Posterior Analytics. Consideration is given to the Aristotelian understanding of the relationship among necessity, explanation, definition, and essence. Chapter Four applies Aristotelian modal logic in contemporary contexts. I contrast Aristotelian modality and essentialism with contemporary modalism based upon the semantics of possible worlds, e.g. Kripke and Putnam. I also develop an account of how Aristotelian modal logic can ground a sortal dependent theory of identity, as discussed by Wiggins. (shrink)

This project investigates naturalized metaphysics as a recent trend in analytic metaphysics originating in the naturalist attitude of James Ladyman and Don Ross in their seminal work Everything must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized (2007). The primary focus, however, will be the more recent article “Neo-Positivist Metaphysics” (2012) by Alyssa Ney that originates in this tradition. The project will conclude that naturalized metaphysics is an unsuccessful attempt at an answer to the question ’how is metaphysics possible’. More precisely, the project will establish (...) that any answer to this question must instruct how to succeed at attempts at assertions about the Kantian thing in itself. This requirement is the result of an argument that no other conception of ’reality’ is robust enough to accommodate an ambitious metaphysics. Subsequently, it will be argued that naturalized metaphysics is conceived by its proponents as an attempt at such an answer, but that naturalized metaphysics does not provide the required instruction. This problem occurs because of Carnap’s challenge to metaphysics. Carnap observes that no assertion can be made outside a linguistic framework which has the consequence that metaphysical assertions must be about the conceptual conventions of the linguistic framework rather than the thing in itself. It is the view of Ney and the other proponents of naturalized metaphysics that metaphysics is possible as a naturalized metaphysics; a metaphysics that appropriately defers or yields to the findings of science. The project argues that this requirement does nothing to ensure that Carnap’s challenge is avoided. The challenge is equally significant to naturalized and non-naturalized metaphysics, so long as both require that successful attempts at metaphysics must be assertions about the thing in itself. -/- The project concludes that until or unless Carnap’s challenge is refuted, naturalized metaphysics remain impossible, just like the metaphysics it is supposed to replace. (shrink)

This Master's Thesis discusses the nature of the Eucharistic Sacrifice in the systematic theology of two German scholars; Lutheran theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg and Roman Catholic theologian Joseph Ratzinger, the latter perhaps better known as pope (emeritus) Benedict XVI.

Many analytic philosophers of mind take for granted a certain conception of causality. Assumptions deriving from that conception are in place when they problematize what they call mental causation or argue for physicalism in respect of the mental. I claim that a different conception of causality is needed for understanding many ordinary causal truths about things which act, including truths about human, minded beings — sc. rational beings who lead lives.

This thesis articulates a novel interpretation of Heidegger’s explication of the being (Seins) of gear (Zeugs) in §15 of his masterwork Being and Time (1927/2006) and develops and applies the position attributed to Heidegger to explain three phenomena of unreflective action discussed in recent literature and articulate a partial Heideggerian ecological metaphysics. Since §15 of BT explicates the being of gear, Part 1 expounds Heidegger’s concept of the ‘being’ (Seins) of beings (Seienden) and two issues raised in the ‘preliminary methodological (...) remark’ in §15 of BT regarding explicating being. §1.1 interprets the being (Sein) or synonymously constitution of being (Seinsverfassung) of a being (Seienden) as a regional essence: a property unifying a region (Region), district (Bezirk), or subject-area (Sachgebiet) – a highly general (‘regional’) class of entities. Although Heidegger posits two components of the being of a being, viz. material-content (Sachhaltigkeit, Sachgehalt) and mode-of-being (Seinsart) or way-of-being (Seinsweise, Weise des Seins, Weise zu sein) (1927/1975, 321), the unclarity of this distinction means that it does not figure prominently herein. §1.2 addresses Heidegger’s distinction between ontological and ontic investigations and his notion of ‘modes of access’ (Zugangsarten, Zugangsweisen). Part 2 expounds §15 of BT’s explication of the being of gear. §2.1 analyses Heidegger’s two necessary and sufficient conditions for being gear and three core basic concepts (Grundbegriffe) enabling comprehension of these conditions and therewith a foundational comprehension of gear. Heidegger explicates the being of gear through content of unreflectively purposeful, non-intersubjective intentional states. I term such states ‘mundane concern’, which is almost synonymous with Hubert Dreyfus’s term ‘absorbed coping’ (1991, 69). Heidegger’s explication highlights around-for references (Um-zu-Verweisungen) as the peculiar species of property figuring in mundanely concernful intentional content. §2.2 clarifies Heidegger’s position on the relationship between to-hand-ness (Zuhandenheit) and extantness (Vorhandenheit) in the narrow sense: two of Heidegger’s most widely discussed concepts. I reject Kris McDaniel’s recent reading of Heidegger as affirming that nothing could be both to-hand and extant simultaneously (McDaniel 2012). Part 3 develops and applies Heidegger’s phenomenology of mundane concern. §3.1 explains the phenomena of situational holism, situated normativity, and mundanely concernful prospective control. §3.2 undertakes the metaphysical accommodation of around-for references, which §3.1 posited as featuring prominently within mundanely concernful intentional content. This thesis thus contributes not only to Heidegger scholarship, but also to contemporary debates within the philosophy of action and cognitive science. (shrink)

The claim that metaphysics is fundamental has frequently been voiced in the history of the discipline. However, the usual ways in which this claim is justified do not appear to be effective. This article aims to fill this gap in meta-metaphysical theory by providing a credible justification of the fundamentality of metaphysics in two steps. The first consists in establishing a set of five conditions of fundamentality for the discipline. The second consists in showing that these conditions are satisfied when (...) the object of study of metaphysics is identified with an ontologically neutral object, namely categories, and the task of the discipline is taken to be the determination of the number and identity of the most general categories and the relation of less general categories to the most general ones. (shrink)

Following W.V. Quine’s lead, many metaphysicians consider ontology to be concerned primarily with existential questions of the form, “What is there?”. Moreover, if the position advanced by Rudolf Carnap, in his seminal essay, “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology ”, is correct, then many of these existential ontological questions ought to be classified as either trivially answerable or as “pseudo-questions”. One may justifiably wonder, however, whether the Quinean and Carnapian perspective on ontology really does justice to many of the most central concerns (...) of this discipline. This chapter argues, by considering a particular ontological dispute between two different kinds of trope theorists, that some of the most interesting and important debates which properly belong to the study of being, whether we call it “metaphysics” or “ ontology ”, do not concern existential questions at all; rather, such disputes in some cases focus on non-existential disagreements over questions of fundamentality. (shrink)

The Metametaphysics of Categories: Replies to Hakkarainen and Keinänen (in Finnish). Part of a book symposium on my An Introduction to Metametaphysics.