Biochemical kinds such as proteins pose interesting problems for philosophers of science, as they can be studied from the points of view of both biology and chemistry. The relationship between the biological functions of biochemical kinds and the microstructures that they are related to is the key question. This leads us to a more general discussion about ontological reductionism, microstructuralism, and multiple realization at the biology-chemistry interface. On the face of it, biochemical kinds seem to pose a challenge for ontological (...) reductionism and hence motivate a dual theory of chemical and biological kinds, a type of pluralism about natural kinds. But it will be argued that the challenge, which is based on multiple realization, can be addressed. The upshot is that there are reasonable prospects for ontological reductionism about biochemical kinds, which corroborates natural kind monism. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to make headway on a metaphysics of social construction. In recent work, I’ve argued that social construction should be understood in terms of metaphysical grounding. However, I agree with grounding skeptics like Wilson that bare claims about what grounds what are insufficient for capturing, with fine enough grain, metaphysical dependence structures. To that end, I develop a view on which the social construction of human social kinds is a kind of realization relation. Social kinds, (...) I argue, are multiply realizable kinds. I depart from the Wilson by further arguing that an appeal to grounding is not otiose when it comes to social construction. Social construction, I claim, belongs to the “big-G” Grounding genus, but it is the specific “small-g” relation of realization at work in cases of human kind social construction. (shrink)

Framed within the dialectic of the causal exclusion argument (Kim 2005), this paper does two things. One, it clarifies some properties of multiple realizability based on its true origin (Turing 1950). And two, it challenges a form of argument Noordhof (1997), Clarke (1999), and Whittle (2007) employ to support the idea that the mental has causal powers not had by its physical realization base (Novel). The paper challenges Novel with ideas derived from multiple realizability, among others.

b>: This article explains the concept of multiple realizability and its role in the philosophy of mind. In particular, I consider what is required for the multiple realizability of psychological kinds, the relevance of multiple realizability to the reducibility and autonomy of psychology, as well as further refinements of the concept that would prove helpful.

Though multiple realization has been an important concept in the philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology for more than fifty years, it has not been until quite recently that anyone proposed an actual theory of what multiple realization is. This paper argues that the most dominant current theories of multiple realization are unacceptable. It does so by mainly arguing for a particular methodology for theorizing about multiple realization. Rather than being mostly constrained by intuitions, as theorizing about folk notions (...) usually is, theorizing about multiple realization is, it argues, constrained by the theoretical context in which the concept was born. By the lights of this method for constructing theories of multiple realization, these current theories are unacceptable. (shrink)

This paper focuses on two prominent arguments claiming that physicalism entails reductionism. One is Kim’s causal exclusion argument (CEA), and the other is Papineau’s causal argument. The paper argues that Kim’s CEA is not logically valid and that it is driven by two implausible justifications. One is “Edward’s dictum”, which is alien to non-reductive physicalism and should be rejected. The other is by endorsement of Papineau’s conception of the physical, immanent in Papineau’s causal argument. This argument only arrives at the (...) physical property-property identities by using a conception of the physical that licenses anything to be reductively physical, including putative core anti-physical entities; thus, leaving Papineau’s causal argument and Kim’s CEA without a reductive physicalist conclusion of philosophical interest. (shrink)

This paper seeks to utilize mathematical methods to formally define and analyze the metaethical theory that is ethical reductionism. In contemporary metaethics, realist-antirealist debates center on the ontology of moral properties. Our research reflects an innovative methodology using methods from Graph Theory to clarify a debated position of Meta-Ethics, previously encumbered by intrinsic vagueness and ambiguity. We employ rigorous mathematical formalism to symbolize, parse, and thus disambiguate, particular philosophical questions regarding ethical ontological materialism of the reductionist variety. In this paper, (...) we seek to revisit the once vexed question regarding the multiple-realizability of moral properties by employing the mathematical machinery of hypergraphs and category theory. The utilization of Mathematical formalism offers explanatory flexibility specifically to the hypothesis that there are potentially an infinite number of unrelated subvening facts which may constitute supervening moral properties. We by no means have attempted to settle the argument on the side of naturalism, but have only identified an obstacle to rigorous argumentation, and pioneered a method to eliminate it. We hope our research will be of interest to both the Analytic Philosophy and the Applied Mathematics communities, and will help facilitate discussions of metaethics, particularly pertaining to ethical naturalism. We believe there is much research yet to be done. (shrink)

Proponents of mechanistic explanation have argued that dynamical models are mere phenomenal models, in that they describe rather than explain the scientific phenomena produced by complex systems. I argue instead that dynamical models can, in fact, be explanatory. Using an example from neuroscientific research on epilepsy, I show that dynamical models can meet the explanatory demands met by mechanistic models, and as such occupy their own unique place within the space of explanatory scientific models.

Anti-reductionists hold that special science explanations of some phenomena are objectively better than physical explanations of those phenomena. Prominent defenses of this claim appeal to the multiple realizability of special science properties. I argue that special science explanations can be shown to be better, in one respect, than physical explanations in a way that does not depend on multiple realizability. Namely, I discuss a way in which a special science explanation may be more abstract than a competing physical explanation, even (...) if it is not multiply realizable, and I argue that this kind of abstraction can be used to support the idea that that special science explanation omits explanatorily irrelevant detail. (shrink)