Switch to: References

Citations of:

Naturalness

In Karen Bennett & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, Volume 8. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. pp. 1 (2013)

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Hamiltonian Privilege.Josh Hunt, Gabriele Carcassi & Christine Aidala - forthcoming - Erkenntnis:1-24.
    We argue that Hamiltonian mechanics is more fundamental than Lagrangian mechanics. Our argument provides a non-metaphysical strategy for privileging one formulation of a theory over another: ceteris paribus, a more general formulation is more fundamental. We illustrate this criterion through a novel interpretation of classical mechanics, based on three physical conditions. Two of these conditions suffice for recovering Hamiltonian mechanics. A third condition is necessary for Lagrangian mechanics. Hence, Lagrangian systems are a proper subset of Hamiltonian systems. Finally, we provide (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Critical social ontology.Kevin Richardson - 2023 - Synthese 201 (6):1-19.
    Critical social ontology is any study of social ontology that is done in order to critique ideology or end social injustice. The goal of this paper is to outline what I call the fundamentality approach to critical social ontology. On the fundamentality approach, social ontologists are in the business of distinguishing between appearances and (fundamental) reality. Social reality is often obscured by the acceptance of ideology, where an ideology is a distorted system of beliefs that leads people to promote or (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Naturalness: Abundant and Sparse Properties.Elanor Taylor - 2024 - In Anna Sofia Maurin & Anthony Fisher (eds.), Routledge Handbook on Properties.
    Commitment to sparseness amounts to the idea that there is an objective, worldly privileging of certain properties over others that makes the privileged properties suited to play certain roles, and is responsible for their playing such roles. In this chapter I offer a brief, opinionated overview of sparseness. I begin by examining a set of problems that I call “problems of abundance”, which generate canonical motivations for sparseness. I then survey some influential approaches to sparseness and the roles that they (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • (1 other version)Naturalness: Abundant and Sparse Properties.Elanor Taylor - 2024 - In Anna Sofia Maurin & Anthony Fisher (eds.), Routledge Handbook on Properties.
    Commitment to sparseness amounts to the idea that there is an objective, worldly privileging of certain properties over others that makes the privileged properties suited to play certain roles, and is responsible for their playing such roles. In this chapter I offer a brief, opinionated overview of sparseness. I begin by examining a set of problems that I call “problems of abundance”, which generate canonical motivations for sparseness. I then survey some influential approaches to sparseness and the roles that they (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Ideological innocence.Daniel Rubio - 2022 - Synthese 200 (5):1-22.
    Quine taught us the difference between a theory’s ontology and its ideology. Ontology is the things a theory’s quantifiers must range over if it is true, Ideology is the primitive concepts that must be used to state the theory. This allows us to split the theoretical virtue of parsimony into two kinds: ontological parsimony and ideological parsimony. My goal is help illuminate the virtue of ideological parsimony by giving a criterion for ideological innocence—a rule for when additional ideology does not (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • The Metaphysics of gender is (Relatively) substantial.Kevin Richardson - 2022 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 107 (1):192-207.
    According to Sider, a question is metaphysically substantive just in case it has a single most natural answer. Recently, Barnes and Mikkola have argued that, given this notion of substantivity, many of the central questions in the metaphysics of gender are nonsubstantive. Specifically, it is plausible that gender pluralism—the view that there are multiple, equally natural gender kinds—is true, but this view seems incompatible with the substantivity of gender. The goal of this paper is to argue that the notion of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Naturalness by law.Verónica Gómez Sánchez - 2023 - Noûs 57 (1):100-127.
    The intuitive distinction between natural and unnatural properties (e.g., green vs. grue) informs our theorizing not only in fundamental physics, but also in non-fundamental domains. This paper develops a reductive account of this broad notion of naturalness that covers non-fundamental properties: for a property to be natural, I propose, is for it to figure in a law of nature. After motivating the account, I defend it from a potential circularity charge. I argue that a suitably broad notion of lawhood can (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Does everything resemble everything else to the same degree?Ben Blumson - 2022 - Asian Journal of Philosophy 1 (1):1-21.
    According to Satosi Watanabe's "theorem of the ugly duckling", the number of predicates satisfied by any two different particulars is a constant, which does not depend on the choice of the two particulars. If the number of predicates satisfied by two particulars is their number of properties in common, and the degree of resemblance between two particulars is a function of their number of properties in common, then it follows that the degree of resemblance between any two different particulars is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The Necessity of Naturalness.Joshua D. K. Brown & Nathan Wildman - 2022 - Erkenntnis 89 (3):1017-1025.
    Are properties perfectly natural (or not) relative to worlds, or are they perfectly natural (or not) tout court? That is, could there be a property P that is instanti-ated at worlds w1 and w2, and is perfectly natural at w1 but not at w2? Here, we offer an original argument for the non-world-relativity of perfect naturalness. Along the way, we reply to a prima facie compelling argument for the contin-gency of perfect naturalness, based upon the connection between natural prop-erties and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Nominalist dispositional essentialism.Lisa Vogt - 2022 - Synthese 200 (2).
    Dispositional Essentialism, as commonly conceived, consists in the claims that at least some of the fundamental properties essentially confer certain causal-nomological roles on their bearers, and that these properties give rise to the natural modalities. As such, the view is generally taken to be committed to a realist conception of properties as either universals or tropes, and to be thus incompatible with nominalism as understood in the strict sense. Pace this common assumption of the ontological import of Dispositional Essentialism, the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • (1 other version)Definition.Samuel Elgin - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 179 (9):3019-3036.
    This paper presents a puzzle about the logic of real definition. I demonstrate that five principles concerning definition—that it is coextensional and irreflexive, that it applies to its cases, that it permits expansion, and that it is itself defined—are logically incompatible. I then explore the advantages and disadvantages of each principle—one of which must be rejected to restore consistency.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Emerging into the rainforest: Emergence and special science ontology.Alexander Franklin & Katie Robertson - 2024 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 14 (4):1-26.
    Scientific realists don’t standardly discriminate between, say, biology and fundamental physics when deciding whether the evidence and explanatory power warrant the inclusion of new entities in our ontology. As such, scientific realists are committed to a lush rainforest of special science kinds (Ross, 2000). Viruses certainly inhabit this rainforest – their explanatory power is overwhelming – but viruses’ properties can be explained from the bottom up: reductive explanations involving amino acids are generally available. However, reduction has often been taken to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Classicism.Andrew Bacon & Cian Dorr - 2024 - In Peter Fritz & Nicholas K. Jones (eds.), Higher-Order Metaphysics. Oxford University Press. pp. 109-190.
    This three-part chapter explores a higher-order logic we call ‘Classicism’, which extends a minimal classical higher-order logic with further axioms which guarantee that provable coextensiveness is sufficient for identity. The first part presents several different ways of axiomatizing this theory and makes the case for its naturalness. The second part discusses two kinds of extensions of Classicism: some which take the view in the direction of coarseness of grain (whose endpoint is the maximally coarse-grained view that coextensiveness is sufficient for (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Engineering Existence?Lukas Skiba - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    This paper investigates the connection between two recent trends in philosophy: higher-orderism and conceptual engineering. Higher-orderists use higher-order quantifiers (in particular quantifiers binding variables that occupy the syntactic positions of predicates) to express certain key metaphysical doctrines, such as the claim that there are properties. I argue that, on a natural construal, the higher-orderist approach involves an engineering project concerning, among others, the concept of existence. I distinguish between a modest construal of this project, on which it aims at engineering (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • The Structure of Analog Representation.Andrew Y. Lee, Joshua Myers & Gabriel Oak Rabin - 2023 - Noûs 57 (1):209-237.
    This paper develops a theory of analog representation. We first argue that the mark of the analog is to be found in the nature of a representational system’s interpretation function, rather than in its vehicles or contents alone. We then develop the rulebound structure theory of analog representation, according to which analog systems are those that use interpretive rules to map syntactic structural features onto semantic structural features. The theory involves three degree-theoretic measures that capture three independent ways in which (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  • Musical Works as Structural Universals.A. R. J. Fisher - 2021 - Erkenntnis 88 (3):1245-67.
    In the ontology of music the Aristotelian theory of musical works is the view that musical works are immanent universals. The Aristotelian theory (hereafter Musical Aristotelianism) is an attractive and serviceable hypothesis. However, it is overlooked as a genuine competitor to the more well-known theories of Musical Platonism and nominalism. Worse still, there is no detailed account in the literature of the nature of the universals that the Aristotelian identifies musical works with. In this paper, I argue that the best (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • An explanatory idealist theory of grounding.David Mark Kovacs - 2022 - Noûs 56 (3):530-553.
    How is grounding related to metaphysical explanation? The standard view is that the former somehow “backs”, “undergirds” or “underlies” the latter. This view fits into a general picture of explanation, according to which explanations in general hold in virtue of a certain elite group of “explanatory relations” or “determinative relations” that back them. This paper turns the standard view on its head: grounding doesn't “back” metaphysical explanation but is in an important sense downstream from it. I call this view “grounding (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Why Can’t There Be Numbers?David Builes - forthcoming - The Philosophical Quarterly.
    Platonists affirm the existence of abstract mathematical objects, and Nominalists deny the existence of abstract mathematical objects. While there are standard arguments in favor of Nominalism, these arguments fail to account for the necessity of Nominalism. Furthermore, these arguments do nothing to explain why Nominalism is true. They only point to certain theoretical vices that might befall the Platonist. The goal of this paper is to formulate and defend a simple, valid argument for the necessity of Nominalism that seeks to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • (1 other version)Definition.Samuel Elgin - manuscript
    This paper presents a puzzle about the logic of real definition. In particular, I demonstrate that five principles concerning definition (that it is coextensional and irreflexive, that it applies to its cases, that it permits expansion and that it is itself defined) are incompatible. I then explore the advantages and disadvantages of each principle—one of which must be rejected to restore consistency.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Unity of Science.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2021 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    Unity of science was once a very popular idea among both philosophers and scientists. But it has fallen out of fashion, largely because of its association with reductionism and the challenge from multiple realisation. Pluralism and the disunity of science are the new norm, and higher-level natural kinds and special science laws are considered to have an important role in scientific practice. What kind of reductionism does multiple realisability challenge? What does it take to reduce one phenomenon to another? How (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Why Defend Humean Supervenience?Siegfried Jaag & Christian Loew - 2020 - Journal of Philosophy 117 (7):387-406.
    Humean Supervenience is a metaphysical model of the world according to which all truths hold in virtue of nothing but the total spatiotemporal distribution of perfectly natural, intrinsic properties. David Lewis and others have worked out many aspects of HS in great detail. A larger motivational question, however, remains unanswered: As Lewis admits, there is strong evidence from fundamental physics that HS is false. What then is the purpose of defending HS? In this paper, we argue that the philosophical merit (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Purely Theoretical Explanations.Giacomo Andreoletti, Jonathan Tallant & Giuliano Torrengo - 2020 - Philosophia 49 (1):133-154.
    This paper introduces a new kind of explanation that we describe as ‘purely theoretical’. We first present an example, E, of what we take to be a case of purely theoretical explanation. We then show that the explanation we have in mind does not fit neatly into any of the existing categories of explanation. We take this to give us prima facie motivation for thinking that purely theoretical explanation is a distinctive kind of explanation. We then argue that it can (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • A puzzle about the experience of left and right.Brian Cutter - 2020 - Noûs 55 (3):678-698.
    Imagine your mirror‐inverted counterpart on Mirror Earth, a perfect mirror image of Earth. Would her experiences be the same as yours, or would they be phenomenally mirror‐inverted? I argue, first, that her experiences would be phenomenally the same as yours. I then show that this conclusion gives rise to a puzzle, one that I believe pushes us toward some surprising and philosophically significant conclusions about the nature of perception. When you have a typical visual experience as of something to your (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Social Ontology.Rebecca Mason & Katherine Ritchie - 2020 - In Ricki Bliss & James Miller (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics. New York, NY: Routledge.
    Traditionally, social entities (i.e., social properties, facts, kinds, groups, institutions, and structures) have not fallen within the purview of mainstream metaphysics. In this chapter, we consider whether the exclusion of social entities from mainstream metaphysics is philosophically warranted or if it instead rests on historical accident or bias. We examine three ways one might attempt to justify excluding social metaphysics from the domain of metaphysical inquiry and argue that each fails. Thus, we conclude that social entities are not justifiably excluded (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • Making best systems best for us.Christian Loew & Siegfried Jaag - 2018 - Synthese 197 (6):2525-2550.
    Humean reductionism about laws of nature appears to leave a central aspect of scientific practice unmotivated: If the world’s fundamental structure is exhausted by the actual distribution of non-modal properties and the laws of nature are merely efficient summaries of this distribution, then why does science posit laws that cover a wide range of non-actual circumstances? In this paper, we develop a new version of the Humean best systems account of laws based on the idea that laws need to organize (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   40 citations  
  • The Eligibility of Rule Utilitarianism.David Mokriski - 2020 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 17 (3).
    According to the eligibility theory of meaning, often attributed to David Lewis, the referent of a predicate is the property that best balances the twin constraints of charity and eligibility, where eligibility is a function of metaphysical naturalness. This sort of metasemantics, which is motivated by its ability to resolve problems of indeterminacy and secure shared reference between disputing parties, can be somewhat friendly towards revisionary theories, since highly natural properties can act as “reference magnets,” securing our reference despite some (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • A pluralistic theory of wordhood.Luca Gasparri - 2020 - Mind and Language 36 (4):592-609.
    What are words and how should we individuate them? There are two main answers on the philosophical market. For some, words are bundles of structural-functional features defining a unique performance profile. For others, words are non-eternal continuants individuated by their causal-historical ancestry. These conceptions offer competing views of the nature of words, and it seems natural to assume that at most one of them can capture the essence of wordhood. This paper makes a case for pluralism about wordhood: the view (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Disjunction and the Logic of Grounding.Giovanni Merlo - 2020 - Erkenntnis 87 (2):567-587.
    Many philosophers have been attracted to the idea of using the logical form of a true sentence as a guide to the metaphysical grounds of the fact stated by that sentence. This paper looks at a particular instance of that idea: the widely accepted principle that disjunctions are grounded in their true disjuncts. I will argue that an unrestricted version of this principle has several problematic consequences and that it’s not obvious how the principle might be restricted in order to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • How Can Brains in Vats Experience a Spatial World? A Puzzle for Internalists.Adam Pautz - 2018 - In Adam Pautz & Daniel Stoljar (eds.), Blockheads! Essays on Ned Block’s Philosophy of Mind and Consciousness. new york: MIT Press.
    In this chapter, Pautz raises a puzzle about spatial experience for phenomenal internalists like Ned Block. If an accidental, lifelong brain-in-the-void (BIV) should have all the same experiences as you, it would have an experience as of items having various shapes, and be able to acquire concepts of those shapes, despite being cut off from real things with the shapes. Internalists cannot explain this by saying that BIV is presented with Peacocke-style visual field regions having various shapes, because these would (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  • Humean Laws and (Nested) Counterfactuals.Christian Loew & Siegfried Jaag - 2019 - Philosophical Quarterly 70 (278):93-113.
    Humean reductionism about laws of nature is the view that the laws reduce to the total distribution of non-modal or categorical properties in spacetime. A worry about Humean reductionism is that it cannot motivate the characteristic modal resilience of laws under counterfactual suppositions and that it thus generates wrong verdicts about certain nested counterfactuals. In this paper, we defend Humean reductionism by motivating an account of the modal resilience of Humean laws that gets nested counterfactuals right.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  • Logical Combinatorialism.Andrew Bacon - 2020 - Philosophical Review 129 (4):537-589.
    In explaining the notion of a fundamental property or relation, metaphysicians will often draw an analogy with languages. The fundamental properties and relations stand to reality as the primitive predicates and relations stand to a language: the smallest set of vocabulary God would need in order to write the “book of the world.” This paper attempts to make good on this metaphor. To that end, a modality is introduced that, put informally, stands to propositions as logical truth stands to sentences. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   18 citations  
  • Conceptual evaluation: epistemic.Alejandro Pérez Carballo - 2019 - In Alexis Burgess, Herman Cappelen & David Plunkett (eds.), Conceptual Engineering and Conceptual Ethics. New York, USA: Oxford University Press. pp. 304-332.
    On a view implicitly endorsed by many, a concept is epistemically better than another if and because it does a better job at ‘carving at the joints', or if the property corresponding to it is ‘more natural' than the one corresponding to another. This chapter offers an argument against this seemingly plausible thought, starting from three key observations about the way we use and evaluate concepts from en epistemic perspective: that we look for concepts that play a role in explanations (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Moral Realism and Semantic Plasticity.David Manley - manuscript
    Are moral terms semantically plastic—that is, would very slight changes in our patterns of use have shifted their meanings? This is a delicate question for moral realists. A 'yes' answer seems to conflict with the sorts of intuitions that support realism; but a 'no' answer seems to require a semantics that involves hefty metaphysical commitments. This tension can be illustrated by thinking about how standard accounts of vagueness can be applied to the case of moral terms, and also by considering (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Linguistic Interventions and Transformative Communicative Disruption.Rachel Katharine Sterken - 2019 - In Alexis Burgess, Herman Cappelen & David Plunkett (eds.), Conceptual Engineering and Conceptual Ethics. New York, USA: Oxford University Press. pp. 417-434.
    What words we use, and what meanings they have, is important. We shouldn't use slurs; we should use 'rape' to include spousal rape (for centuries we didn’t); we should have a word which picks out the sexual harassment suffered by people in the workplace and elsewhere (for centuries we didn’t). Sometimes we need to change the word-meaning pairs in circulation, either by getting rid of the pair completely (slurs), changing the meaning (as we did with 'rape'), or adding brand new (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   36 citations  
  • Metaphysically explanatory unification.David Mark Kovacs - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (6):1659-1683.
    This paper develops and motivates a unification theory of metaphysical explanation, or as I will call it, Metaphysical Unificationism. The theory’s main inspiration is the unification account of scientific explanation, according to which explanatoriness is a holistic feature of theories that derive a large number of explananda from a meager set of explanantia, using a small number of argument patterns. In developing Metaphysical Unificationism, I will point out that it has a number of interesting consequences. The view offers a novel (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   27 citations  
  • The externalist challenge to conceptual engineering.Steffen Koch - 2021 - Synthese 198 (1):327–348.
    Unlike conceptual analysis, conceptual engineering does not aim to identify the content that our current concepts do have, but the content which these concepts should have. For this method to show the results that its practitioners typically aim for, being able to change meanings seems to be a crucial presupposition. However, certain branches of semantic externalism raise doubts about whether this presupposition can be met. To the extent that meanings are determined by external factors such as causal histories or microphysical (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   52 citations  
  • Modality is Not Explainable by Essence.Carlos Romero - 2019 - Philosophical Quarterly 69 (274):121-141.
    Some metaphysicians believe that metaphysical modality is explainable by the essences of objects. In §II, I spell out the definitional view of essence, and in §III, a working notion of metaphysical explanation. Then, in §IV, I consider and reject five natural ways to explain necessity by essence: in terms of the principle that essential properties can't change, in terms of the supposed obviousness of the necessity of essential truth, in terms of the logical necessity of definitions, in terms of Fine's (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   28 citations  
  • Realism and the Absence of Value.Shamik Dasgupta - 2018 - Philosophical Review 127 (3):279-322.
    Much recent metaphysics is built around notions such as naturalness, fundamentality, grounding, dependence, essence, and others besides. In this article I raise a problem for this kind of metaphysics, the “problem of missing value.” I survey a number of possible solutions to the problem and find them all wanting. This suggests a return to a kind of Goodmanian view that the world is a structureless mess onto which we project our own categorizations, not something with categories already built in.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   43 citations  
  • Diamonds are Forever.Cian Dorr & Jeremy Goodman - 2019 - Noûs 54 (3):632-665.
    We defend the thesis that every necessarily true proposition is always true. Since not every proposition that is always true is necessarily true, our thesis is at odds with theories of modality and time, such as those of Kit Fine and David Kaplan, which posit a fundamental symmetry between modal and tense operators. According to such theories, just as it is a contingent matter what is true at a given time, it is likewise a temporary matter what is true at (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   30 citations  
  • Intrinsic properties and relations.Jan Plate - 2018 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 61 (8):783-853.
    This paper provides an analysis of the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction, as applied both to properties and to relations. In contrast to other accounts, the approach taken here locates the source of a property’s intrinsicality or extrinsicality in the manner in which that property is ‘logically constituted’, and thus – plausibly – in its nature or essence, rather than in e.g. its modal profile. Another respect in which the present proposal differs from many extant analyses lies in the fact that it does (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • Fundamentality.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2023 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    The notion of fundamentality, as it is used in metaphysics, aims to capture the idea that there is something basic or primitive in the world. This metaphysical notion is related to the vernacular use of “fundamental”, but philosophers have also put forward various technical definitions of the notion. Among the most influential of these is the definition of absolute fundamentality in terms of ontological independence or ungroundedness. Accordingly, the notion of fundamentality is often associated with these two other technical notions.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   42 citations  
  • II—Evolved Powers, Artefact Powers, and Dispositional Explanations.Barbara Vetter - 2018 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 92 (1):277-297.
    Alexander Bird puts forward a modest version of anti-Humeanism about the non-fundamental, by providing an argument for the existence of a certain select class of non-fundamental but sparse dispositions: those that have an evolutionary function. I argue that his argument over-generates, so much so that the sparse–abundant distinction, and with it the tenet of his anti-Humean view, becomes obsolete. I suggest an alternative way of understanding anti-Humeanism in the non-fundamental realm, one which is not concerned with the existence of sparse (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Possible Patterns.Jeffrey Sanford Russell & John Hawthorne - 2018 - Oxford Studies in Metaphysics 11.
    “There are no gaps in logical space,” David Lewis writes, giving voice to sentiment shared by many philosophers. But different natural ways of trying to make this sentiment precise turn out to conflict with one another. One is a *pattern* idea: “Any pattern of instantiation is metaphysically possible.” Another is a *cut and paste* idea: “For any objects in any worlds, there exists a world that contains any number of duplicates of all of those objects.” We use resources from model (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • (1 other version)On the indeterminacy of the meter.Kevin Scharp - 2017 - Synthese 196:1-31.
    In the International System of Units, ‘meter’ is defined in terms of seconds and the speed of light, and ‘second’ is defined in terms of properties of cesium 133 atoms. I show that one consequence of these definitions is that: if there is a minimal length, then the chances that ‘meter’ is completely determinate are only 1 in 21,413,747. Moreover, we have good reason to believe that there is a minimal length. Thus, it is highly probable that ‘meter’ is indeterminate. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • (1 other version)Naturalistic Moral Realism, Moral Rationalism, and Non-Fundamental Epistemology.Tristram McPherson - 2018 - In Karen Jones & François Schroeter (eds.), The Many Moral Rationalisms. New York: Oxford Univerisity Press. pp. 187-209.
    This paper takes up an important epistemological challenge to the naturalistic moral realist: that her metaphysical commitments are difficult to square with a plausible rationalist view about the epistemology of morality. The paper begins by clarifying and generalizing this challenge. It then illustrates how the generalized challenge can be answered by a form of naturalistic moral realism that I dub joint-carving moral realism. Both my framing of this challenge and my answer advertise the methodological significance of non-fundamental epistemological theorizing, which (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • What is Wrong with Self-Grounding?David Mark Kovacs - 2018 - Erkenntnis 83 (6):1157-1180.
    Many philosophers embrace grounding, supposedly a central notion of metaphysics. Grounding is widely assumed to be irreflexive, but recently a number of authors have questioned this assumption: according to them, it is at least possible that some facts ground themselves. The primary purpose of this paper is to problematize the notion of self-grounding through the theoretical roles usually assigned to grounding. The literature typically characterizes grounding as at least playing two central theoretical roles: a structuring role and an explanatory role. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  • A Dilemma for Russellian Monists About Consciousness.Adam Pautz - 2015
    I develop a new argument against Russellian Monism about consciousness.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Resemblance.Sam Cowling - 2017 - Philosophy Compass 12 (4):e12401.
    Our ordinary judgments and our metaphysical theories share a common commitment to facts about resemblance. The nature of resemblance is, however, a matter of no small controversy. This essay examines some of the pressing questions that arise regarding the status and structure of resemblance. Among those to be discussed in what follows: what kinds of resemblance relations are there? Can resemblance be analyzed in terms of the sharing of properties? Is resemblance an objective or subjective matter? What, if any, resemblance (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • (1 other version)To Be F Is To Be G.Cian Dorr - 2016 - Philosophical Perspectives 30 (1):39-134.
    This paper is an investigation of the general logic of "identifications", claims such as 'To be a vixen is to be a female fox', 'To be human is to be a rational animal', and 'To be just is to help one's friends and harm one's enemies', many of which are of great importance to philosophers. I advocate understanding such claims as expressing higher-order identity, and discuss a variety of different general laws which they might be thought to obey. [New version: (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   191 citations  
  • Parthood and naturalness.M. Eddon - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (12):3163-3180.
    Is part of a perfectly natural, or fundamental, relation? Philosophers have been hesitant to take a stand on this issue. One reason for this hesitancy is the worry that, if parthood is perfectly natural, then the perfectly natural properties and relations are not suitably “independent” of one another. In this paper, I argue that parthood is a perfectly natural relation. In so doing, I argue that this “independence” worry is unfounded. I conclude by noting some consequences of the naturalness of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations