Einar Bohn has argued that principles of composition must be contingent if gunky objects and junky worlds are both metaphysically possible. This paper critically examines such a case for contingentism about composition. I argue that weak mereological universalism, the principle that any two objects compose something, is consistent with the metaphysical possibility of both gunky objects and junky worlds. I further argue that, contra A. J. Cotnoir, the weak mereological universalist can accept a plausible mereological remainder axiom. The proponent of (...) contingent composition will have to look elsewhere for an argument in favor of his position. (shrink)

Philosophers often state that the persistence of objects in vision is experienced differently than the persistence of sounds in audition. This difference is expressed by using metaphors from the metaphysical endurantism/perdurantism debate. For instance, it is claimed that only sounds are perceived as “temporally extended”. The paper investigates whether it is justified to characterize visually experienced objects and auditorily experienced sounds as different types of entities: endurants and perdurants respectively. This issue is analyzed from the perspective of major specifications of (...) the endurance/perdurance distinction connected, inter alia, with the notions of temporal parts and temporal localization. It is argued that it is unjustified to characterize visually experienced objects and auditorily experienced sounds as different types of entities in respect of how they persist. On the other hand, the apparent difference in the way of persisting can be explained by the presence of contingent differences between typical visual and auditory experiences. (shrink)

The way in which vision represents objects as being the same despite movement and qualitative changes has been extensively investigated in contemporary psychology. However, the formal properties of the visual sameness relation are still unclear, for example, whether it is an identity-like, equivalence relation. The paper concerns one aspect of this problem: the transitivity of visual sameness. Results obtained by using different experimental paradigms are analysed, in particular studies using streaming/bouncing stimuli, multiple object tracking experiments and investigations concerning object-specific preview (...) benefit, and it is argued that the transitive interpretation of visual sameness is the most plausible given the current stage of knowledge. What is more, it is claimed that the way in which visual sameness is represented suggests that in some cases it should be characterized as a “primitive sameness”, similarly as in philosophical theories postulating “thisness”. (shrink)

This paper develops a moodless theory of modality, intended to be as closely analogous to the tenseless theory of time as possible. It is argued that the new theory is distinct from David Lewis' modal realism and that it solves certain problems better than modal realism does, namely, the problem of advanced modalizing, the problem of necessitism, and the problem of conflict with common opinion.

Fictionalists maintain that possible worlds, numbers or composite objects exist only according to theories which are useful but false. Hale, Divers and Woodward have provided arguments which threaten to show that fictionalists must be prepared to regard the theories in question as contingently, rather than necessarily, false. If warranted, this conclusion would significantly limit the appeal of the fictionalist strategy rendering it unavailable to anyone antecedently convinced that mathematics and metaphysics concern non-contingent matters. I try to show that their arguments (...) can be resisted by developing and defending a strategy suggested by Rosen, Nolan and Dorr, according to which the fiction-operator is to be analysed in terms of a counterfactual that admits of non-trival truth-values even when the antecedent is impossible. (shrink)

Fine is widely thought to have refuted the simple modal account of essence, which takes the essential properties of a thing to be those it cannot exist without exemplifying. Yet, a number of philosophers have suggested resuscitating the simple modal account by appealing to distinctions akin to the distinction Lewis draws between sparse and abundant properties, treating only those in the former class as candidates for essentiality. I argue that ‘sparse modalism’ succumbs to counterexamples similar to those originally posed by (...) Fine, and fails to capture paradigmatic instances of essence involving abundant properties and relations. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the so-called problem of creeping minimalism, the problem of distinguishing metaethical expressivism from its rivals once expressivists start accepting minimalist theories about truth, representation, belief, and similar concepts. I argue that Dreier’s ‘explanation’ explanation is almost correct, but by critically examining it we not only get a better solution, but also draw out some interesting results about expressivism and non-representationalist theories of meaning more generally.

Some properties such as having a beard and being a philosopher are intuitively qualitative, while other properties such as being identical to Plato and being a student of Socrates are intuitively non-qualitative. It is often assumed that, necessarily, a property is qualitative if and only if it can be designated descriptively without the aid of directly referential devices. I argue that this linguistic thesis fails in both directions: there might be non-qualitative properties that can be designated descriptively, and there appear (...) to be qualitative properties that can only be designated directly. I conclude that while the linguistic thesis is ultimately untenable as stated, it can be plausibly recast as a thesis about our concepts rather than the properties they designate. (shrink)

This note is to show that a well-known point about David Lewis’s (1986) modal realism applies to Timothy Williamson’s (1998; 2002) theory of necessary existents as well.1 Each theory, together with certain “recombination” principles, generates individuals too numerous to form a set. The simplest version of the argument comes from Daniel Nolan (1996).2 Assume the following recombination principle: for each cardinal number, ν, it’s possible that there exist ν nonsets. Then given Lewis’s modal realism it follows that there can be (...) no set of all (that is, Absolutely All) the nonsets. For suppose for reductio that there were such a set, A; let ν be A’s cardinality; and let µ be any cardinal number larger than ν. By the recombination principle, it’s possible that there exist µ nonsets; by modal realism, there exists a possible world containing, as parts, µ nonsets; each of these nonsets is a member of A. (shrink)

Summary of my book, Writing the Book of the World, for a symposium. The book defends realism about structure, the view that there is a privileged way to describe the world.

According to Timothy Williamson, we should accept the simplest and most powerful second-order modal logic, and as a result accept an ontology of "bare possibilia". This general method for extracting ontology from logic is salutary, but its application in this case depends on a questionable assumption: that modality is a fundamental feature of the world.

There will be a few themes. One to get us going: expansion versus contraction. About an object, o, and the region, R, of space(time) in which o is exactly located,1 we may ask: i) must there exist expansions of o: objects in filled superregions2 of R? ii) must there exist contractions of o: objects in filled subregions of..

NeoFregeanism is an intriguing but elusive philosophy of mathematical existence. At crucial points, it goes cryptic and metaphorical. I want to put forward an interpretation of neoFregeanism—perhaps not one that actual neoFregeans will embrace—that makes sense of much of what they say. NeoFregeans should embrace quantifier variance.

Exotic ontologies are all the rage. Distant from common sense and often science as well, views like mereological essentialism, nihilism, and fourdimensionalism appeal to our desire to avoid arbitrariness, anthropocentrism, and metaphysical conundrums.1 Such views are defensible only if they are materially adequate, only if they can “reconstruct” the world of common sense and science. (No disrespect to the heroic metaphysicians of antiquity, but this world is not just an illusion.) In the world of common sense and science, bicycles survive (...) changes in their parts, billiard balls strike one another, and nothing travels faster than light. The mereological essentialist denies the rst, but offers this replacement: “there exist successions of numerically distinct, but appropriately related, bicycles with different parts” (Chisholm, , chapter ). The nihilist denies the second, but offers this replacement: “there exist X s and Y s such that the X s are arranged billiard-ball-wise, the Y s are also arranged billiard-ball-wise, and the X s strike the Y s”.2 The four-dimensionalist denies the third, but offers this replacement: “no sequences of matter-stages that are related by genidentity travel faster than light”.3 There is room for disagreement over what exactly “reconstruction” amounts to, but at a minimum: when a metaphysical theory reconstructs ordinary sentences φ1. . . as replacement sentences ψ1. . . , ordinary and scienti c evidence must not refute the view that, strictly speaking, it is ψ1. . . rather than φ1. . . that are true. The metaphysician needs reconstruction in order to face the tribunal of experience. An intriguing newcomer to the contemporary scene is the ancient doctrine of monism, the claim that “reality is one”.4 I will argue that, contrary to.. (shrink)

Most facts of grounding involve nonfundamental concepts, and thus must themselves be grounded. But how? The leading approaches—due to Bennett, deRosset, and Dagupta—are subject to objections. The way forward is to deny a presupposition common to the leading approaches, that there must be some simple formula governing how grounding facts are grounded. Everyone agrees that facts about cities might be grounded in some complex way about which we know little; we should say the same about the facts of grounding themselves. (...) The kinds of facts that might enter into the grounds of the facts of grounding are explored at length. (shrink)

Jonathan Schaffer distinguishes two sorts of monism. Existence monists say that only one object exists: The World. Priority monists admit the existence of The World’s parts, but say that their features are derivative from the properties of The World. Both have trouble explaining the features of statespace, the set of possibilities available to The World.

The distinction between quantitative and qualitative parsimony is supposed to allow David Lewis to dismiss one of the charges against his modal realism: that is, the charge of bloated ontology. The aim of this paper is to undermine Lewis's response to this objection. In order to do this, a distinction between multipliable and nonmultipliable objects is introduced. Based on this it is argued that the acceptance of Lewis's response requires one to believe in modal realism in the first place—that is, (...) one has to believe in the view that the existence of nonactual spatiotemporal worlds does not affect the quality of the ontological commitment. Although the paper focuses on the problem of the metaphysics of possible worlds, this should be regarded merely as a case study. Accordingly, the results of this analysis should find applications in other metaphysical debates as well. (shrink)

The argument for modal collapse is partly responsible for the widespread rejection of the so-called Principle of Sufficient Reason in recent times. This paper discusses the PSR against the background of the recent debate about grounding and develops principled reasons for rejecting the argument from modal collapse.

There are well-known quasi-formal arguments that identity is a "strict" relation in at least the following three senses: (1) There is a single identity relation and a single distinctness relation; (2) There are no contingent cases of identity or distinctness; and (3) There are no vague or indeterminate cases of identity or distinctness. However, the situation is less clear cut than it at first may appear. There is a natural formal theory of identity that is very close to the standard (...) classical theory but which does not validate the formal analogues of (1)-(3). The core idea is simple: We weaken the Principle of the Indiscernibility of Identicals from a conditional to an entailment and we adopt a weakly classical logic. This paper investigates this weakly classical theory of identity (and related theories) and discusses its philosophical ramifications. It argues that we can accept a reasonable theory of identity without committing ourselves to the uniqueness, necessity, or determinacy of identity. (shrink)

What are the objects of knowledge, belief, probability, apriority or analyticity? For at least some of these properties, it seems plausible that the objects are sentences, or sentence-like entities. However, results from mathematical logic indicate that sentential properties are subject to severe formal limitations. After surveying these results, I argue that they are more problematic than often assumed, that they can be avoided by taking the objects of the relevant property to be coarse-grained (“sets of worlds”) propositions, and that all (...) this has little to do with the choice between operators and predicates. (shrink)

Øystein Linnebo and Richard Pettigrew have recently developed a version of non-eliminative mathematical structuralism based on Fregean abstraction principles. They argue that their theory of abstract structures proves a consistent version of the structuralist thesis that positions in abstract structures only have structural properties. They do this by defining a subset of the properties of positions in structures, so-called fundamental properties, and argue that all fundamental properties of positions are structural. In this article, we argue that the structuralist thesis, even (...) when restricted to fundamental properties, does not follow from the theory of structures that Linnebo and Pettigrew have developed. To make their account work, we propose a formal framework in terms of Kripke models that makes structural abstraction precise. The formal framework allows us to articulate a revised definition of fundamental properties, understood as intensional properties. Based on this revised definition, we show that the restricted version of the structuralist thesis holds. 1Introduction 2The Structuralist Thesis 3LP-Structuralism 4Purity 5A Formal Framework for Structural Abstraction 6Fundamental Relations 7The Structuralist Thesis Vindicated 8Conclusion. (shrink)

Øystein Linnebo and Richard Pettigrew have recently developed a version of non-eliminative mathematical structuralism based on Fregean abstraction principles. They argue that their theory of abstract structures proves a consistent version of the structuralist thesis that positions in abstract structures only have structural properties. They do this by defining a subset of the properties of positions in structures, so-called fundamental properties, and argue that all fundamental properties of positions are structural. In this paper, we argue that the structuralist thesis, even (...) when restricted to fundamental properties, does not follow from the theory of structures that Linnebo and Pettigrew have developed. To make their account work, we propose a formal framework in terms of Kripke models that makes structural abstraction precise. The formal framework allows us to articulate a revised definition of fundamental properties, understood as intensional properties. Based on this revised definition, we show that the restricted version of the structuralist thesis holds. (shrink)

The Crazyist Metaphysics of Mind. . ???aop.label???

We argue that a formal semantics for music can be developed, although it will be based on very different principles from linguistic semantics and will yield less precise inferences. Our framework has the following tenets: Music cognition is continuous with normal auditory cognition. In both cases, the semantic content derived from an auditory percept can be identified with the set of inferences it licenses on its causal sources, analyzed in appropriately abstract ways. What is special about music semantics is that (...) it aggregates inferences based on normal auditory cognition with further inferences drawn on the basis of the behavior of voices in tonal pitch space. This makes it possible to define an inferential semantics but also a truth-conditional semantics for music. In particular, a voice undergoing a musical movement m is true of an object undergoing a series of events e just in case there is a certain structure-preserving map between m and e. Aspects of musical syntax might be derivable on semantic grounds from an event mereology, which also explains some cases in which tree structures are inadequate for music. Intentions and emotions may be attributed at several levels, and we speculate on possible explanations of the special relation between music and emotions. (shrink)

Knowledge ascriptions seem context sensitive. Yet it is widely thought that epistemic contextualism does not have a plausible semantic implementation. We aim to overcome this concern by articulating and defending an explicit contextualist semantics for ‘know,’ which integrates a fairly orthodox contextualist conception of knowledge as the elimination of the relevant alternatives, with a fairly orthodox “Amherst” semantics for A-quantification over a contextually variable domain of situations. Whatever problems epistemic contextualism might face, lack of an orthodox semantic implementation is not (...) among them. (shrink)

Todd (2016) proposes an analysis of future-directed sentences, in particular sentences of the form 'will(φ)', that is based on the classic Russellian analysis of definite descriptions. Todd's analysis is supposed to vindicate the claim that the future is metaphysically open while retaining a simple Ockhamist semantics of future contingents and the principles of classical logic, i.e. bivalence and the law of excluded middle. Consequently, an open futurist can straightforwardly retain classical logic without appeal to supervaluations, determinacy operators, or any further (...) controversial semantical or metaphysical complication. In this paper, we will show that this quasi-Russellian analysis of 'will' both lacks linguistic motivation and faces a variety of significant problems. In particular, we show that the standard arguments for Russell's treatment of definite descriptions fail to apply to statements of the form 'will(φ)'. (shrink)

Following Lewis, it is widely held that branching worlds differ in important ways from diverging worlds. There is, however, a simple and natural semantics under which ordinary sentences uttered in branching worlds have much the same truth values as they conventionally have in diverging worlds. Under this semantics, whether branching or diverging, speakers cannot say in advance which branch or world is theirs. They are uncertain as to the outcome. This same semantics ensures the truth of utterances typically made about (...) quantum mechanical contingencies, including statements of uncertainty, if the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics is true. The ‘incoherence problem’ of the Everett interpretation, that it can give no meaning to the notion of uncertainty, is thereby solved. IntroductionMetaphysicsPersonal fissionBranching worldsPhysicsObjections. (shrink)

Those who believe that ordinary things have temporal as well as spatial parts must give an account of the truth conditions of temporally modified predications of the form ‘a is F at t ’ in terms of temporal parts. I will argue that the friend of temporal parts is committed to an account of temporal predication that is incompatible with the classical principle of predicate abstraction.

Four-dimensionalists offer a unified picture of various puzzles about identity over time, including the puzzle of fission, the puzzle of constitution and the puzzle of undetached parts. What unifies the four-dimensionalist approaches to these puzzles is the possibility of temporal overlap—the possibility for distinct continuants to share a common temporal part, or stage. I claim that the unified picture is inconsistent, if there are informative criteria of identity over time. I will show that while temporal overlap is compatible with four-dimensionalist (...) criteria of diachronic composition, temporal overlap is incompatible with any four-dimensionalist criteria of diachronic identity. (shrink)

Suppose that all non-qualitative facts are grounded in qualitative facts. I argue that this view naturally comes with a picture in which trans-world identity is indeterminate. But this in turn leads to either pervasive indeterminacy in the non-qualitative, or else contingency in what facts about modality and possible worlds are determinate.

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 (...) logic of essence, and in terms of the theory of real definitions. I will conclude that the present evidence favours rejecting the hypothesis that modality is explainable by essence. (shrink)

The paper argues against Peacocke's moderate rationalism in modality. In the first part, I show, by identifying an argumentative gap in its epistemology, that Peacocke's account has not met the Integration Challenge. I then argue that we should modify the account's metaphysics of modal concepts in order to avoid implausible consequences with regards to their possession conditions. This modification generates no extra explanatory gap. Yet, once the minimal modification that avoids those implausible consequences is made, the resulting account cannot support (...) Peacocke's moderate rationalism. (shrink)

Following David Lewis, Ted Sider has famously argued that unrestricted first-order quantification cannot be vague. His argument was intended as a type of reductio: its strategy was to show that the mere hypothesis of unrestricted quantifier vagueness collapses into the claim that unrestricted quantification is precise. However, this short article considers two natural reconstructions of the argument, and shows that each can be resisted. The theme will be that each reconstruction of the argument involves assumptions which advocates of vague quantification (...) have independent reason to reject. (shrink)

In a recent article Mark Ian Thomas Robson argues that there is a clear contradiction between the view that possible worlds are a part of God's nature and the theologically pivotal, but philosophically neglected, claim that God is perfectly beautiful. In this article I show that Robson's argument depends on several key assumptions that he fails to justify and as such that there is reason to doubt the soundness of his argument. I also demonstrate that if Robson's argument were sound (...) then this would be a problem for all classical theists and not just those who hold the possible worlds view. (shrink)

I focus on two arguments, due to Jaegwon Kim and Trenton Merricks, that move from claims about the sufficiency of one class of causes to the reduction or elimination of another class of entity, via claims about overdetermination. I argue that in order to validate their move from sufficiency to reduction or elimination, both Kim and Merricks must assume that there can be no ‘weak overdetermination’; i.e., that no single effect can have numerically distinct but dependently sufficient causes occurring at (...) the same time. One problem for both arguments is that weak overdetermination isn't obviously objectionable. That point has been well made before. But I want here to go further than merely shifting the burden of proof onto the advocates of overdetermination arguments. I want to tease out why they are so convinced that we must resist weak overdetermination and explain why their conviction is misguided. Both Merricks and Kim, I shall argue, ultimately rest their case on the same motivating principle, wh.. (shrink)

Since the linguistic turn, many have taken semantics to guide ontology. Here, I argue that semantics can, at best, serve as a partial guide to ontological commitment. If semantics were to be our guide, semantic data and semantic treatments would need to be taken seriously. Through an examination of plurals and their treatments, I argue that there can be multiple, equally semantically adequate, treatments of a natural language theory. Further, such treatments can attribute different ontological commitments to a theory. Given (...) this, I argue that semantics can fail to deliver determinate ontological commitments and determinate answers to ontological questions, more generally. (shrink)

Syntactic Reductionism, as understood here, is the view that the ‘logical forms’ of sentences in which reference to abstract objects appears to be made are misleading so that, on analysis, we can see that no expressions which even purport to refer to abstract objects are present in such sentences. After exploring the motivation for such a view, and arguing that no previous argument against it succeeds, sentences involving generalized quantifiers, such as ‘most’, are examined. It is then argued, on this (...) basis, that Syntactic Reductionism is untenable. (shrink)

In this paper, I show how a solution to Lewis’ problem of temporary intrinsics is also a response to McTaggart’s argument that the A-series is incoherent. There are three strategies Lewis considers for solving the problem of temporary intrinsics: perdurantism, presentism, and property-indexing. William Lane Craig (Analysis 58(2):122–127, 1998) has examined how the three strategies fare with respect to McTaggart’s argument. The only viable solution Lewis considers to the problem of temporary intrinsics that also succeeds against McTaggart, Craig claims, is (...) presentism. This gives us prima facie reason to be presentists. But there is a strategy Craig does not consider-indexing, or relativizing, the copula. In this paper, I show that to the degree that indexing the copula solves the problem of temporary intrinsics, it also shows the invalidity of McTaggart’s argument. The upshot: the copula-indexer needn’t affirm the unreality of time, nor need she embrace presentism. (shrink)

Here, I suggest a hitherto relatively unexplored way beyond the opposed Aristotelian realist and Kantian idealist approaches that divide recent interpretations of the categories or “thought determinations” of Hegel’s Logic, by locating his idealism within the terrain of recent debates in modal metaphysics. In particular, I return to the outlook of the first philosopher to attempt to bring Hegel into the analytic conversation, John Niemeyer Findlay, and consider Hegel’s idealism as instantiating the metaphysical position that, following the work of Findlay’s (...) former student, Arthur Prior, has come to be called “modal actualism”. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ : Les attitudes de se sont généralement considérées comme constituant une classe particulière d’attitudes de re. Cet article propose une analyse différente, qui s’appuie sur la notion d’attitude de objecto et qui évite un engagement ontologique envers le sujet. La proposition élabore l’idée de Hintikka d’une logique épistémique dite de seconde génération, qui introduit un marqueur syntaxique permettant d’exprimer des relations d’indépendance entre certaines constantes logiques. De cette sémantique résulte une conception du Moi, dénotation de «je», comme un objet (...) simplement intentionnel. ABSTRACT: De se attitudes are generally regarded as being a proper part of de re attitudes. In this paper an alternative analysis that avoids ontological commitment to the self is proposed, based on the notion of de objecto attitudes. This proposal develops an idea from Hintikka’s second generation epistemic logic, which introduces a syntactic marker expressing independence relations between certain logical constants. According to this semantic account, the Self, as the denotation of ‘I’, is conceived of as a mere intentional object. (shrink)

According to the B-theory, the passage of time is an illusion. The B-theory therefore requires an explanation of this illusion before it can be regarded as fullysatisfactory; yet very few B-theorists have taken up the challenge of trying to provide one. In this paper I take some first steps toward such an explanation by first making a methodological proposal, then a hypothesis about a key element in the phenomenology of temporal passage. The methodological proposal focuses onthe representational content of the (...) element of experience by virtue of which time seems to pass. The hypothesis involves the claim that the experience of changeinvolves the representation of something enduring, rather than perduring, through any change. (shrink)

The paper defends an Aristotelian notion of indeterminism, as rigorously formulated in the framework of branching space-times (BST) of Belnap (1992), against the model-theoretic characterization of indeterminism that Montague (1962) introduced into the philosophy of science. It delineates BST branching against the background provided by Earman's (2008) distinction between individual vs. ensemble branching. It describes a construction of physically-motivated BST models, in which histories are isomorphic to Minkowski spacetime. Finally it responds to criticism leveled against BST by addressing some semantical (...) questions, a topological issue, and the past/future asymmetry. (shrink)

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 (...) not seek to analyse the ‘global’ distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties on the basis of the ‘local’ distinction between having a property intrinsically and having it extrinsically. Instead, the latter distinction is explicated on the basis of the former. (shrink)