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Switch to: References
Citations of:
Ramseyan humility
In David Braddon-Mitchell & Robert Nola (eds.), Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism. MIT Press. pp. 203-222 (2009)
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One of the most pressing objections against Divine simplicity is that it entails what is commonly termed a ‘modal collapse’, wherein all contingency is eliminated and every true proposition is rendered necessarily true. In this paper, I show that a common form of this argument is in fact famously invalid and examine three ways in which the opponent of Divine simplicity might try to repair the argument. I conclude that there is no clear way of repairing the argument that does (...) |
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How should ‘the physical’ be defined for the purpose of formulating physicalism? In this paper I defend a version of the via negativa according to which a property is physical just in case it is neither fundamentally mental nor possibly realized by a fundamentally mental property. The guiding idea is that physicalism requires functionalism, and thus that being a type identity theorist requires being a realizer-functionalist. In §1 I motivate my approach partly by arguing against Jessica Wilson's no fundamental mentality (...) |
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Many think that properties are powers. However, whilst some claim that properties are pure powers, others claim that properties are powerful qualities. In this paper, I argue that the canonical formulation of the powerful qualities view is no different from the pure powers view. Contrary to appearances, the two positions accept the same view of properties. Thus, the debate between them rests on an illusion. I draw out some consequences of this surprising result for issues over property individuation. Along the (...) |
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David Chalmers’ ‘conceivability’ argument against physicalism is perhaps the most widely discussed and controversial argument in contemporary philosophy of mind. Recently, several thinkers have suggested a novel response to this argument, which employs the ‘powerful qualities’ ontology of properties. In this paper, I argue that this response fails because it presupposes an implausible account of the physical/phenomenal distinction. In the course of establishing this, I discuss the so-called ‘ultimate’ argument for the claim that dispositional properties form the subject matter of (...) |
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Some have argued that panpsychism offers the most simple view of reality. The most prominent advocate of this argument is Philip Goff. In this paper, I examine Goff’s position and argue that considerations of simplicity and parsimony do not support panpsychism. Quite the reverse: they give us good reason to reject it. |
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This paper brings out an inconsistency between David Chalmers's dualism, which is the main element of his philosophy of mind, and his structuralism, which is the main element of his epistemology. The point is ad hominem , but the inconsistency if it can be established is of considerable independent interest. For the best response to the inconsistency, I argue, is to adopt what Chalmers calls ‘type‐C Materialism’, a version of materialism that has been much discussed in recent times because of (...) |
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This article suggests that Chomsky’s notorious ‘London’ argument against semantics looks much more plausible that it is usually interpreted as being when seen in the light of something apparently remote from its concerns, viz., David Lewis’s distinction between natural and non-natural properties. |
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Over the last decade or so, there has been a renewed interest in a view about properties known as quidditism. However, a review of the literature reveals that ‘quidditism’ is used to cover a range of distinct views. In this paper I explore the logical space of distinct types of quidditism. The first distinction noted is between quidditism as a thesis explicitly about property individuation and quidditism as a principle of unrestricted property recombination. The distinction recently drawn by Dustin Locke (...) |
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Jonathan Schaffer argues against a necessary connection between properties and laws. He takes this to be a question of what possible worlds we ought to countenance in our best theories of modality, counterfactuals, etc. In doing so, he unfairly rigs the game in favor of contingentism. I argue that the necessitarian can resist Schaffer’s conclusion while accepting his key premise that our best theories of modality, counterfactuals, etc. require a very wide range of things called ‘possible worlds’. However, the necessitarian (...) |
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Robert Black argues against quidditism on the grounds that the quidditist is either committed to proper-class many possible worlds and proper-class many possible fundamental properties or must adopt an unacceptably arbitrary restriction on the number of possible fundamental properties. In this paper, I examine Black’s cardinality argument against quidditism and argue that quidditists and non-quidditists alike have reason to reject a key premise of that argument. While it may be the case that the quidditist is committed to nomically indiscernible possible (...) |
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Structural realists claim that we should endorse only what our scientific theories say about the structure of the unobservable world. But according to Newman’s Objection, the structural realist’s claims about unobservables are trivially true. In recent years, several theorists have offered responses to Newman’s Objection. But a common complaint is that these responses “give up the spirit” of the structural realist position. In this paper, I will argue that the simplest way to respond to Newman’s Objection is to return to (...) |
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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 (...) |
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In this article, I discuss Richard Swinburne’s case for the conception of substance causation, identified with the substances-powers-liabilities account of causation, versus the conception of event causation, identified with alternative accounts. I specify the place of Swinburne’s argument in the debates about agent causation, and uncover reasons to be sceptical about the claims that substance causation is a genuine alternative to event causation, and that it helps to comprehend the specifics of the causation involved in free agency. I also advance (...) |
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It is common ground among proponents and detractors of wavefunction realism that the view ‘privileges position’, in the sense that it arbitrarily singles out one among a continuum infinity of wavefunction representations as characterizing the fundamental field: the position representation. This paper shows that, properly understood, wavefunction realism does not involve such an arbitrary choice. First, I argue that, though each wavefunction representation gives rise to a different version of wavefunction realism, the difference between these theories amounts to a mere (...) |
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Is the relation between properties and the causal powers they confer necessary, or contingent? Necessary, says Sydney Shoemaker, on pain of skepticism about the properties. Contingent, says David Lewis, swallowing the skeptical conclusion. I shall argue that Lewis is right about the metaphysics, but that Shoemaker and Lewis are wrong about the epistemology. Properties have intrinsic natures (quiddities), which we can know. |
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The problem of the many seems to problematize the platitude that we can think about particular things in the world. How is it that, given how very many cat-like candidates there are, we often manage to think and talk about a particular cat? I argue that this challenge stems from an under-examined assumption about the relationship between metaphysics and intentionality. I explore and develop a way of characterizing what it is to think and talk about the world, according to which (...) |
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Though not myself a physicalist, I develop a new argument against antiphysicalist positions that are motivated by zombie arguments. I first identify four general features of phenomenal states that are candidates for non-physical types; these are used to generate different types of zombie. I distinguish two antiphysicalist positions: strict dualism, which posits exactly one general non-physical type, and pluralism, which posits more than one such type. It turns out that zombie arguments threaten strict dualism and some pluralist positions as much (...) |
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David Lewis famously argued that the time traveller ‘can’ murder her grandfather, even though she never will: it is compossible with a particular set of facts including her motive, opportunity and skill . I argue that while ordinary agents ‘can’ under Lewis’s conception, philosophers cannot – the latter will not only fail to fulfill their homicidal intentions but also fail to form them in the first place. |
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The question as to whether some objects are possible worlds that have an initial segment in common, i.e. so that their fusion is a temporal tree whose branches are possible worlds, arises both for those who hold that our universe has the structure of a temporal tree and for those who hold that what there is includes concrete universes of every possible variety. The notion of “possible world” employed in the question is seen to be the notion of an object (...) |
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Categoricalism is a doctrine about properties according to which the dispositional aspects of properties are not essential to them. In opposition to categoricalism, dispositionalism holds that the dispositional aspects of properties are essential to them. In this article, I shall construct a new version of categoricalism that should be favoured over the other existing versions: Semi-Necessitarian Categoricalism. In Section 2 I shall elaborate on the distinction between categoricalism and dispositionalism and single out different ‘shades’ of both doctrines. I shall also (...) |
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This paper proposes to carve out a new position in the scientific realism/antirealism debate and argue that it captures some of the most important realist and some of the most important antirealist considerations. The view, briefly stated, is that there is always a fact of the matter about whether the singular statements science gives us are literally true, but there is no fact of the matter about whether the non-singular statements science gives us are literally true. I call this view (...) |
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In this article, I argue that an epistemic question about knowledge of our own phenomenal states encourages a certain metaphysical picture of consciousness according to which phenomenal states are reflexive mental representations. Section 1 describes and motivates the thesis that phenomenal self-knowledge is ‘receptive’: that is, the view that a subject has knowledge of their phenomenal states only insofar as they are inwardly affected by those states. In Sections 2 and 3, I argue that this model of phenomenal self-knowledge is (...) |
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Absolutism about mass claims that mass ratios obtain in virtue of absolute masses. Comparativism denies this. Dasgupta, Oxford studies in metaphysics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013) argues for comparativism about mass, in the context of Newtonian Gravity. Such an argument requires proving that comparativism is empirically adequate. Dasgupta equates this to showing that absolute masses are undetectable, and attempts to do so. This paper develops an argument by Baker to the contrary: absolute masses are in fact empirically meaningful, that is (...) |
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The leading account of intrinsicality over the last thirty years has arguably been David Lewis's account in terms of perfect naturalness. Lewis's account, however, has three serious problems: i) it cannot allow necessarily coextensive properties to differ in whether they are intrinsic; ii) it falsely classifies non-qualitative properties like being Obama as non-intrinsic; and iii) it is incompatible with a number of metaphysical theories that posit irreducibly non-categorical properties. I argue that, as a result of these problems, Lewis's account should (...) |
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David Lewis argues for Ramseyan humility, the thesis that we can’t identify the fundamental properties that occupy the nomological roles at our world. Lewis, however, remarks that there is a potential exception to this, which involves assuming two views concerning qualia panphenomenalism : all instantiated fundamental properties are qualia and the identification thesis : we can know the identities of our qualia simply by being acquainted with them. This paper aims to provide an exposition, as well as an assessment, of (...) |
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Modal arguments like the Knowledge Argument, the Conceivability Argument and the Inverted Spectrum Argument could be used to argue for experiential primitivism; the view that experiential truths aren’t entailed from nonexperiential truths. A way to resist these arguments is to follow Stoljar (Ignorance and imagination. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006) and plead ignorance of a type of experience-relevant nonexperiential truth. If we are ignorant of such a truth, we can’t imagine or conceive of the various sorts of scenarios that are (...) |
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Byerly recently developed a new solution to the gap problem for cosmological arguments. His idea is that the best explanation for why the necessary being is found to have necessary existence is that it is a perfect being. I raise an objection to Byerly’s solution on the ground that there is some rival naturalistic explanation that is as good as Byerly s theistic explanation. |
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Presentism says that only present objects exist. But the view has trouble grounding past-tensed truths like “dinosaurs existed”. Standard Eternalism grounds those truths by positing the existence of past objects—like dinosaurs. But Standard Eternalism conflicts with the intuition that there is genuine change—the intuition that there once were dinosaurs and no longer are any. I offer a novel theory of time—‘The Imprint’—that does a better job preserving both the grounding and genuine change intuitions. The Imprint says that the past and (...) |
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This paper develops an account of the metaphysics of fundamental laws I call “the Package Deal Account ” that is a descendent of Lewis’ BSA but differs from it in a number of significant ways. It also rejects some elements of the metaphysics in which Lewis develops his BSA. First, Lewis proposed a metaphysical thesis about fundamental properties he calls “Humean Supervenience” according to which all fundamental properties are instantiated by points or point sized individuals and the only fundamental relations (...) |
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Structuralism and quidditism are competing views of the metaphysics of property individuation: structuralists claim that properties are individuated by their nomological roles; quidditists claim that they are individuated by something else. This paper (1) refutes what many see as the best reason to accept structuralism over quidditism and (2) offers a methodological argument in favor of a quidditism. The standard charge against quidditism is that it commits us to something ontologically otiose: intrinsic aspects of properties, so-called ‘quiddities’. Here I grant (...) |
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Radical non-dispositionalism is the view according to which the actual causal/nomic roles of natural properties are totally irrelevant to their de re modal representation. The major difficulty besetting all forms of radical non-dispositionalism is that the latter allegedly allows the metaphysical possibility of two natural properties swapping their actual causal/nomic roles. The aim of this paper is to provide a plausible solution to that problem. To this end, I describe the necessary steps that a proponent of the view may take (...) |
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Cet article présente, contre le physicalisme, un argument métaphysique fondé sur la distinction entre les propriétés intrinsèques et extrinsèques. Il soutient que le physique, comme le physicalisme doit le comprendre, comprend uniquement des propriétés extrinsèques, tandis que la conscience implique au moins certaines propriétés intrinsèques. Il conclut que la conscience a des propriétés non-physiques et que le physicalisme est faux. L’article défend ensuite ses prémisses contre la pensée physicaliste actuelle. Autant que possible, il offre des arguments métaphysiques portant sur les (...) |
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Any panpsychism building complex consciousness out of basic atoms of consciousness needs a theory of ‘mental chemistry’ explaining how this building works. This paper argues that split-brain patients show actual mental chemistry or at least give reasons for thinking it possible. The paper next develops constraints on theories of mental chemistry. It then puts forward models satisfying these constraints. The paper understands mental chemistry as a transformation consistent with conservation of consciousness rather than an aggregation perhaps followed by the creation (...) |
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The paper is a survey of contemporary quidditism, understood as two interrelated metaphysicalpositions — recombinatorial quidditism, which is an account of the nature of possibilities, andindividuation quidditism, which is concerned with the problem of how to individuate properties.I have three aims: to examine the commitments and consequences of both views, to investigatethe relationships between them, and to sketch the logic of the dispute between structuralism andquidditism. I explain how these views relate to Ramseyan humility, according to which we cannotknow the (...) |
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In this paper, I discuss a connection between quidditism and the Lewisian principle of recombination. I begin by reconstructing a typical characterisation of a Lewisian principle of recombination, followed by an explanation of quidditism. In the remainder, I argue that a proponent of a Lewisian principle of recombination cannot endorse quidditism without some important modifications of her view. |
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Kant’s claim that we are ignorant of things in themselves is a claim that we cannot know ‘the intrinsic nature of things’, or so at least I argued in Kantian Humility.2 I’m delighted to find that Lucy Allais is in broad agreement with this core idea, thinking it represents, at the very least, a part of Kant’s view. She sees some of the advantages of this interpretation. It has significant textual support. It does justice to Kant’s sense that we are (...) |
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The question of the role of theory in the determination of reference of theoretical terms continues to be a controversial one. In the present paper I assess a number of responses to this question (including variations on David Lewis’s appeal to Ramsification), before describing an alternative, epistemically oriented account of the reference-determination of such terms. The paper concludes by discussing some implications of the account for our understanding of both realism and such competitors of realism as constructive empiricism. |
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An introduction to the Synthese topical collection "Humeanisms". |
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Dispositional Essentialism is a unified anti-Humean account of the metaphysics of low-level physical properties and laws of nature. In this paper, I articulate the view that I label Canonical Dispositional Essentialism, which comprises a structuralist metaphysics of properties and an account of laws as relations in the property structure. I then present an alternative anti-Humean account of properties and laws. This account rejects CDE’s structuralist metaphysics of properties in favour of a view of properties as qualitative grounds of dispositions and (...) |
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Some philosophers maintain that physical properties are irreducibly modal: that properties are powers. Powers are then employed to provide explanations of other phenomena of philosophical interest such as laws of nature and modality. There is, however, a dispute among powers theorists about how far the powers ontology extends: are all manner of properties at all levels of fundamentality powers or are powers only to be found among the fundamental properties? This paper argues that the answer to this question depends on (...) |
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It has often been claimed that Locke’s agnostic remarks in the Essay represent his suspension of philosophical judgment on crucial ontological issues or his hesitation over which metaphysical stance to adopt. Against this often-raised criticism, I argue that Locke actually held a clear position—a type of functionalism about thingness in general, whether macro or micro, or whether mental or physical. What Locke refers to as a ‘nominal essence’, I further argue, represents a set of functional roles that a thing plays (...) |
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Stephen Mumford and Alexander Bird disagree about which properties are powers and, correspondingly, about the extent of the philosophical work to which powers may be put. Unfortunately, there is an important respect in which these authors are talking past each other and so the reason for their disagreement remains obscured. I highlight what has gone wrong in their recent exchange, attempt to clear up the confusion and pinpoint the true source of their disagreement. My hope is to redirect the efforts (...) |
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In ‘Ramseyan Humility’ David Lewis argues that a particular view about fundamental properties, quidditism, leads to the position that we are irredeemably ignorant of the identities of fundamental properties. We are ignorant of the identities of fundamental properties since we can never know which properties play which causal roles, and we have no other way of identifying fundamental properties other than by the causal roles they play. It has been suggested in the philosophical literature that Lewis’ argument for Humility is (...) |
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Kripke's argument against the identity theory in the philosophy of mind runs as follows. Suppose some psychophysical identity statement S is true. Then S would seem to be contingent at least in the sense that S seems possibly false. And given that seeming contingency entails genuine contingency when it comes to such statements S is contingent. But S is necessary if true. So S is false. This entry considers responses to each of the three premises. It turns out that each (...) |
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