Ontology is the philosophical discipline which aims to understand how things in the world are divided into categories and how these categories are related together. This is exactly what information scientists aim for in creating structured, automated representations, called 'ontologies,' for managing information in fields such as science, government, industry, and healthcare. Currently, these systems are designed in a variety of different ways, so they cannot share data with one another. They are often idiosyncratically structured, accessible only to those who (...) created them, and unable to serve as inputs for automated reasoning. This volume shows, in a nontechnical way and using examples from medicine and biology, how the rigorous application of theories and insights from philosophical ontology can improve the ontologies upon which information management depends. (shrink)

One of the standard puzzles in ordinary-object metaphysics concerns what happens when an object and one of its undetached parts apparently begin to coincide. I distinguish two versions of this puzzle: the problem of extraordinary undetached parts and the problem of ordinary undetached parts. Then I present a novel phasalist solution to the problem of ordinary undetached parts. My solution is designed to supplement the recently-defended view that ordinary undetached parts exist but extraordinary ones do not.

In a series of papers over a period of several years Barry Smith andWerner Ceusters have offered a number of cogent criticisms of historical approaches to creating, maintaining, and applying biomedical terminologies and ontologies. And they have urged the adoption of what they refer to as a “realism-based” approach. Indeed, at times they insist that the realism-based approach not only offers clear advantages and a well-founded methodological basis for ontology development and evaluation, but that such a realist perspective is in (...) fact necessary for understanding and using terminologies and ontologies in science. -/- This paper explores a number of questions surrounding such claims, provides a careful characterization of the type of realism recommended by Smith and Ceusters, and evaluates the role that realism plays in the critiques and recommendations that they offer. The conclusion reached is that while Smith’s and Ceusters’ criticisms of prior practice in the treatment of ontologies and terminologies in medical informatics are often both perceptive and well founded, and while at least some of their own proposals demonstrate obvious merit and promise, none of this either follows from or requires the brand of realism that they propose. (shrink)

The paper argues that four-dimensionalism is incompatible with the existence of additively cumulative properties, including mass, volume, and electrical charge. These properties add up over disjoint objects: for example, the mass of a whole composed of two disjoint objects is a sum of the individual masses of the objects. The difficulty with such properties for four-dimensionalism stems from the way this theory makes persistence depend on the existence of disjoint objects at disjoint times. I consider various possible responses to this (...) difficulty and conclude that they all fail. (shrink)

The purpose of this dialogue between an ‘empirical realist’ and a ‘traditional ontologist’ is to clarify and evaluate the presuppositions of the kind of anti-ontological position exemplified by empirical realism. After ontology is defined and the empirical realist's position explained, the traditional ontologist pursues a series of dialectical developments and criticisms of the empirical realist's claim to have a coherently non-ontological position. The eventual conclusion is that the empirical realist's opposition to ontology just arbitrarily assumes ontology to be associated with (...) infallibilism and incompatible with fallibilism instead of conveying the illegitimacy of ontology itself or convincingly explaining the non-ontological standing of their position. The significance of this dialogue for critical realism is that it extends the case against anti-ontological epistemologies in general and empirical realism in particular by demonstrating the problems that result f.. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers of mind tend to accept either some version of dualism or physicalism when considering the mind–body problem. Likewise, recent philosophers of religion typically assume that we must work within these two categories when considering problems related to the possibility of bodily resurrection. Recently, some philosophers have reintroduced the Thomistic version of hylomorphism. In this article, we will consider the distinctive doctrines of Thomistic hylomorphism and how they can be used to address concerns about both the mind–body problem and (...) the possibility of resurrection. We will see that hylomorphism allows for a novel version of emergent property dualism that is both metaphysically plausible and allows us to recognize the irreducibility of mental states and the possibility of resurrection without ignoring the fact of human embodiment. We will also discuss the currently lively debate among Thomistic hylomorphists who advocate opposed corruptionist and survivalist versions of the afterlife. (shrink)

Is the assumption of a fundamental distinction between particulars and universals another unsupported dogma of metaphysics? F. P. Ramsey famously rejected the particular – universal distinction but neglected to consider the many different conceptions of the distinction that have been advanced. As a contribution to the piecemeal investigation of this issue three interrelated conceptions of the particular – universal distinction are examined: universals, by contrast to particulars, are unigrade; particulars are related to universals by an asymmetric tie of exemplification; universals (...) are incomplete whereas particulars are complete. It is argued that these conceptions are wanting in several respects. Sometimes they fail to mark a significant division amongst entities. Sometimes they make substantial demands upon the shape of reality; once these demands are understood aright it is no longer obvious that the distinction merits our acceptance. The case is made via a discussion of the possibility of multigrade universals. (shrink)

Is there a particular‐universal distinction? Ramsey famously advocated scepticism about this distinction. In “Some Formal Ontological Relations” E.J. Lowe argues against Ramsey that a particular‐universal distinction can be made out after all if only we allow ourselves the resources to distinguish between the elements of a four‐fold ontology. But in defence of Ramsey I argue that the case remains to be made in favour of either the four‐fold ontology Lowe recommends or the articulation of a particular‐universal distinction within it. I (...) also argue that the case remains to be made against a spatio‐temporal conception of the particular‐universal distinction. (shrink)

Some formal ontological relations are identified, in the context of an account of ontological categorization. It is argued that neither formal ontological relations nor ontological categories should themselves be regarded as elements of being, but that this does not undermine the claim of formal ontology to be a purely objective science. It is also argued that some formal ontological relations, like some ontological categories, are more basic than others. A four‐category ontology is proposed, in which two basic categories of universals (...) and two basic categories of particulars are distinguished in terms of certain formal ontological relations characteristically obtaining between entities belonging to the different categories. (shrink)

Non-Cartesian substance dualism maintains that persons or selves are distinct from their organic physical bodies and any parts of those bodies. It regards persons as ‘substances’ in their own right, but does not maintain that persons are necessarily separable from their bodies, in the sense of being capable of disembodied existence. In this paper, it is urged that NCSD is better equipped than either Cartesian dualism or standard forms of physicalism to explain the possibility of mental causation. A model of (...) mental causation adopting the NCSD perspective is proposed which, it is argued, is consistent with all that is currently known about the operations of the human central nervous system, including the brain. Physicalism, by contrast, seems ill-equipped to explain the distinctively intentional or teleological character of mental causation, because it effectively reduces all such causation to ‘blind’ physical causation at a neurological level. (shrink)

A personal view is presented of how metaphysics and ontology stand at the beginning of the twenty-first century, in the light of developments during the twentieth. It is argued that realist metaphysics, with serious ontology at its heart, has a promising future, provided that its adherents devote some time and effort to countering the influences of both its critics and its false friends.

Towards the end of Chapter XXI of Book II of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke remarks, with all the appearance of sincerity and genuine modesty, that.

Several difficulties, concerning the individuation and the variation of tropes, beset the initial classic version of trope theory. K. Campbell (Abstract particulars, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1990) presented a modified version that aims to avoid those difficulties. Unfortunately, the revised theory cannot make the case that one of the fundamental tropes, space-time, is a genuine particular.

Pragmatism’s heartening recent revival (spearheaded by Richard Rorty’s bold intervention into analytic philosophy Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature) has coalesced into a distinctive philosophical movement frequently referred to as ‘neopragmatism’. This movement interprets the very meaning of pragmatism as rejection of metaphysical commitments: our words do not primarily serve to represent non-linguistic entities, but are tools to achieve a range of human purposes. A particularly thorough and consistent version of this position is Huw Price’s global expressivism. We here critically (...) appraise Price’s understanding of a commitment to pragmatism as a rejection of metaphysics, and argue that such rejection is not as easy or desirable as Price claims. First we argue that Price’s global expressivism itself draws on significant metaphysical assumptions (a ‘word-world’ dualism, and a nominalism concerning the meaning of general terms). Then we seek to resolve neopragmatist anxieties about metaphysics by arguing that metaphysics is indispensable for pragmatist philosophizing insofar as it seeks ways for human beings to realise themselves through practices of understanding reality and their place in it. If, as we argue, metaphysics consists in a maximally general inquiry into the nature and structure of reality, to try to block it seems a puzzling exercise in epistemic self-harm. (shrink)

Bio-ontologies are digital frameworks for handling biological and biomedical data. They consist of theoretical entities and relations with explicitly defined logical structures and precise definitions, whose purpose is to provide a shared language for representing information to be distributed and integrated across diverse scientific contexts. It is tempting to view bio-ontologies as clear and formal expressions of a scientific community’s ontological commitments about their domain of inquiry, and to view their integration as tantamount to the metaphysical unification of science that (...) some philosophers have envisaged. However, I argue that the local, practical, social and technological factors that influence their design prevent us from straightforwardly reading metaphysical conclusions from them. I discuss these complications and suggest how they can be overcome, revealing more general lessons for the development of a well-founded scientific metaphysics. (shrink)

That we are morally responsible for what we do willingly and knowingly is a commonplace. That our moral responsibility extends as far as to cover at least the intended consequences of our voluntary actions and perhaps also the ones we did not intend, but could or did foresee, is equally beyond dispute. But what about omissions? Are we, or can we be, (equally) morally responsible for the harm that has occured because we did not prevent it, even though we could (...) have done so? Say, for all the enormous suffering, caused daily by famine, deprivation and curable diseases in the Third World countries? Moral intuitions and practices that one could consult in this matter seem to leave us in the dark. We regularly ascribe responsibility to people for harms resulting from their negligence or failure to fulfill professional duties. On the other hand, we tend to think that unless there is some evidence of the causal contribution that agents made to a harmful event and/or state, it is not really fair to blame it on them. And finally, to complicate things even more, most of us deny that omissions could effect anything (any change) in the world and consequently regard them as causally impotent (as well as possibly harmless). (shrink)

In E.J. Lowe's ontology, (individual) objects are property-bearers which 1) have identity and 2) are countable. This makes it possible to become or cease to be an object, by beginning or ceasing to fulfil one of these conditions. But the possibility of switching fundamental ontological categories should be excluded. Furthermore, Lowe does not show that “quasi-individuals” (which are not countable) can exist. I argue against Lowe that kinds cannot be property-bearers in a more genuine sense than properties, that they are (...) not absolutely countable, whether conceived according to science or common sense, and that they are dependent on individual objects. (shrink)

Philosophical investigation in synthetic biology has focused on the knowledge-seeking questions pursued, the kind of engineering techniques used, and on the ethical impact of the products produced. However, little work has been done to investigate the processes by which these epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical forms of inquiry arise in the course of synthetic biology research. An attempt at this work relying on a particular area of synthetic biology will be the aim of this chapter. I focus on the reengineering of (...) metabolic pathways through the manipulation and construction of small DNA-based devices and systems synthetic biology. Rather than focusing on the engineered products or ethical principles that result, I will investigate the processes by which these arise. As such, the attention will be directed to the activities of practitioners, their manipulation of tools, and the use they make of techniques to construct new metabolic devices. Using a science-in-practice approach, I investigate problems at the intersection of science, philosophy of science, and sociology of science. I consider how practitioners within this area of synthetic biology reconfigure biological understanding and ethical categories through active modelling and manipulation of known functional parts, biological pathways for use in the design of microbial machines to solve problems in medicine, technology, and the environment. We might describe this kind of problem-solving as relying on what Helen Longino referred to as “social cognition” or the type of scientific work done within what Hasok Chang calls “systems of practice”. My aim in this chapter will be to investigate the relationship that holds between systems of practice within metabolic engineering research and social cognition. I will attempt to show how knowledge and normative valuation are generated from this particular network of practitioners. In doing so, I suggest that the social nature of scientific inquiry is ineliminable to both knowledge acquisition and ethical evaluations. (shrink)

In the first part ("Determination"), I consider different notions of determination, contrast and compare modal with non-modal accounts and then defend two a-modality theses concerning essence and supervenience. I argue, first, that essence is a a-modal notion, i.e. not usefully analysed in terms of metaphysical modality, and then, contra Kit Fine, that essential properties can be exemplified contingently. I argue, second, that supervenience is also an a-modal notion, and that it should be analysed in terms of constitution relations between properties. (...) In the second part ("A Theory of Truthmaking"), I first review the literature on ontological commitment, and argue that the notion of truthmaking is better suited to play its explanatory rôle. I then argue that we should take truthmaker theory seriously, and that we should provide actual truthmakers for all truths there are. In the last chapter of this part, I review Armstrong's truthmaker theories and argue that they are unsatisfactory. I generalise my criticism to an argument against truthmaker necessitarianism, the view that truthmakers necessarily make true the truths they are truthmakers of. In the third part ("Properties and their Kind(s)"), I discuss qualitative determination. I present and endorse the truthmaker argument for universals, and defend universalism against friends of tropes, states of affairs and facts. I then give a novel characterisation of the important class of intrinsic properties, building on Lewis' work. With a workable notion of intrinsicness at hand, I argue that relations are ontologically – but not "ideologically" – dispensable: qualitative determination in general is a matter of intrinsic structure. In the future, I plan to add two parts and to publish my thesis as a book: In the fourth part ("Exemplification"), I argue for the existence of an exemplification relation tying universals and particulars together. I derive theoretical benefits from this relation by providing adverbialist theories of modality and tense and identify exemplification with a type of parthood. In the fifth part ("Qua qua qua"), I investigate the curious and interesting ontological category of so-called "qua-objects" (Picasso-as-a-painter, for example) and argue that they exist, are not identical with transworld indidivuals or modal parts and that they provide (contingent) truthmakers for all true predications. (shrink)

The paper ends with an argument that says: necessarily, if there are finitely spatially extended particulars, then there are monadic universals. Before that, in order to characterize the distinction between particulars and universals, Roman Ingarden’s notions of existential moments and modes (ways) of being are presented, and a new pair of such existential moments is introduced: multiplicity–monadicity. Also, it is argued that there are not only real universals, but instances of universals (tropes) and fictional universals too.

The paper argues, that a direct formalization of the way common sense thinks about the numerical identity of enduring entities, requires that traditional predicate logic is developed. If everyday language mirrors the world, then persons, organisms, organs, cells, and ordinary material things can lose some parts but nonetheless remain numerically exactly the same entity. In order to formalize this view, two new logical operators are introduced; and they bring with them some non-standard syntax. One of the operators is called ‘the (...) instantiation operator’; it is needed because the existential quantifier and its traditional relatives cannot do the job required. The other operator is called ‘the form-on-matter operator’, and it allows an individual (an instance of a form) to stay the same even though some of its parts (its constituting matter) is taken away from it. Also, a certain kind of predicates, called ‘nature terms’, is needed in order to represent what gives a particular its kind of identity. Both the operators and the nature terms introduced can be used in constructions of formal languages and formal systems, but no such constructions are made in the paper. The paper is structured as a comment on the philosophical problem called ‘the problem of the cats Tibbles and Tib’. (shrink)

This paper presents and evaluates Jaegwon Kim’s recent argument against substance dualism. The argument runs as follows. Causal interaction between two entities requires pairing relations. Pairing relations are spatial relations, such as distance and orientation. Souls are supposedly nonspatial, immaterial substances. So it is hard to see how souls could enter into paired causal relations with material substances. I show that Kim’s argument against dualism fails. I conclude by sketching a way the substance dualist could meet Kim’s central challenge of (...) explaining how souls and bodies are uniquely paired, allowing for them to enter into specific causal relationships, forming a singular soul–body unit. (shrink)

The idea of truthmakers is important for doing serious metaphysics, since a truthmaker principle can give us important guidance in finding out what we would like to include into our ontology. Recently, David Lewis has argued against Armstrong’s argument that a plausible truthmaker principle requires us to accept facts. I would like to take a close look at the argument. I will argue in detail that the Humean principle of recombination on which Lewis relies is not plausible (independently of the (...) issue of facts). Then I will show that the right truthmaker principle that vindicates facts is superior to the modified truthmaker principle that Lewis has proposed. This will lead into the topic of being and existence. It turns out that truthmaking and facts are plausible, well suited for one another, and very coherent with a plausible conception of being. (shrink)

E.J. Lowe is one of the few philosophers who defend both the existence of spatially coincident entities and the Principle of Weak Extensionality that no two objects which have proper parts have exactly the same proper parts at the same time. Lowe maintains that when spatially coincident things like the statue and the lump of bronze are in a constitution relation, the constituted entity (the statue) has parts that the constituting entity (the lump) doesn’t, hence the compatibility with Weak Extensionality. (...) My contention is that his argument for why the statue has parts the lump of bronze lacks can also be used to show that the lump of bronze has parts the statue doesn’t. This will mean that there is no basis for saying the statue and the lump are in a constitution relation. I argue for accepting a modified account of constitution and abandoning the Principle of Weak Extensionality. (shrink)

The doctrine of radical impermanence expresses the temporal dimension of Buddhist metaphysics, especially in the philosophy of Dharmakīrti and his successors. Most straightforwardly, the doctrine says that everything that exists is momentary; we are not impermanent in the sense that we perish eventually, say when our brain ceases functioning, but rather we perish immediately upon conception. The person who begins to write this sentence and the person who completes it are, strictly speaking, different entities. However, there is a devastating problem (...) for the doctrine: How can any momentary entities be causally efficacious, and more particularly, given their extremely meager duration of existence, how might the momentarist explain the phenomena of cooperation among contemporaneous entities to occasion novel entities, such as seeds, soil, water and sunlight giving rise to sprouts? Even more difficult, can the momentarist offer such an explanation that does not undermine his negative claim that non-momentary things cannot exist? Śāntarakṣita and Ratnakīrti offer answers, but they both fail. By meticulously analyzing and evaluating their arguments, I identify the stumbling blocks of their arguments and show what needs to be done to save the doctrine of momentariness. (shrink)

Many powers metaphysicians postulate both active and passive powers, understood as distinct kinds of intrinsic causal properties of objects. I argue that the category of passive power is superfluous. I also offer a diagnosis of how philosophers are misled to postulate passive powers.

We begin by considering two common ways of conceiving critical metaphysics. According to the first (and polemical) conception, critical metaphysics analyzes nothing more than the form of thought and thereby misses the proper point of metaphysics, namely to investigate the form of reality. According to the second (and affirmative) conception, critical metaphysics starts from the supposed insight that the form of reality cannot be other than the form of thought and is thus not required to analyze anything but that form. (...) We argue that the first conception is too weak while the second is too strong. Then we sketch an alternative conception of critical metaphysics, a conception we find expressed both in Kant’s B-Deduction and in the way Barry Stroud has recently investigated the possibility of metaphysics. According to such a conception, a properly critical metaphysics needs to proceed in two steps: first, it needs to analyze the most general and necessary form of any thought that is about an objective reality at all; second, it needs to investigate how that form of thought relates to the reality it purports to represent. But unlike Kant, Stroud remains sceptical regarding the possibility of a satisfying transition from thought to reality in metaphysics. We argue that this dissatisfaction can be traced back to a notion of objectivity and reality in terms of complete mind-independence. Then we sketch an alternative notion of objectivity and reality in terms of distinctness from subjects and acts of thinking, and argue that it is that notion that allows Kant, with his Transcendental Idealism, to make the transition required for any satisfying metaphysics, namely that from the form of thought to reality. (shrink)

Several advocates of the lively field of “metaphysics of science” have recently argued that a naturalistic metaphysics should be based solely on current science, and that it should replace more traditional, intuition-based, forms of metaphysics. The aim of the present paper is to assess that claim by examining the relations between metaphysics of science and general metaphysics. We show that the current metaphysical battlefield is richer and more complex than a simple dichotomy between “metaphysics of science” and “traditional metaphysics”, and (...) that it should instead be understood as a three dimensional “box”, with one axis distinguishing “descriptive metaphysics” from “revisionary metaphysics”, a second axis distinguishing a priori from a posteriori metaphysics, and a third axis distinguishing “commonsense metaphysics”, “traditional metaphysics” and “metaphysics of science”. We use this three-dimensional figure to shed light on the project of current metaphysics of science, and to demonstrate that, in many instances, the target of that project is not defined with enough precision and clarity. (shrink)

I argue that relations between non-collocated spatial entities, between non-identical topological spaces, and between non-identical basic building blocks of space, do not exist. If any spatially located entities are not at the same spatial location, or if any topological spaces or basic building blocks of space are non-identical, I will argue that there are no relations between or among them. The arguments I present are arguments that I have not seen in the literature.

I argue that relations between non-identical times, such as the relations, earlier than, later than, or 10 seconds apart, involve contradiction, and only co-temporal relations are non-contradictory, which would leave presentism the only non-contradictory theory of time. The arguments I present are arguments that I have not seen in the literature.

Mereological nihilism is the philosophical position that there are no items that have parts. If there are no items with parts then the only items that exist are partless fundamental particles, such as the true atoms (also called philosophical atoms) theorized to exist by some ancient philosophers, some contemporary physicists, and some contemporary philosophers. With several novel arguments I show that mereological nihilism is the correct theory of reality. I will also discuss strong similarities that mereological nihilism has with empirical (...) results in quantum physics. And I will discuss how mereological nihilism vindicates a few other theories, such as a very specific theory of philosophical atomism, which I will call quantum abstract atomism. I will show that mereological nihilism also is an interpretation of quantum mechanics that avoids the problems of other interpretations, such as the widely known, metaphysically generated, quantum paradoxes of quantum physics, which ironically are typically accepted as facts about reality. I will also show why it is very surprising that mereological nihilism is not a widely held theory, and not the premier theory in philosophy. (shrink)

Immanent universals, being wholly present wherever they are instantiated, are capable of both multi-location and co-location. As a result, they can become involved in some bizarre situations, situations whose contradictory appearance cannot be dispelled by any of the relativizing maneuvers familiar to metaphysicials as solutions to the problem of change. Douglas Ehring takes this to be a fatal problem for immanent universals, but I do not. Although the old relativizing maneuvers don't solve the problem, I propose a new one that (...) does. I spend half the paper defending the proposed solution against objections, and in the course of this task I touch upon such topics as backward time travel and the distinction between universals and particulars. I close by putting forward -- merely as an option -- a new way to draw the distinction in question. (shrink)

Tobias Rosefeldt argues that in order to reconcile a physics-based fundamental ontology with the ontological implications of our everyday utterances, philosophers should pursue a ‘linguistics-based conciliatory’ strategy: They should refer to the results of linguistic research in order to avoid ontological commitment to problematic entities. Whereas Rosefeldt is not an advocate of radical forms of naturalized metaphysics, his argument is driven by the motivation behind pleas for a naturalization of the discipline. I claim that although there is a need for (...) reconciliation, Rosefeldt’s favored account falls short of this goal. More generally, I argue that so-called ‘conciliatory accounts’ fail to do justice to the motivation that necessitated them in the first place, as the role they assign to analyses of everyday speech in search of ontological commitments is at odds with said motivation. ‘Conciliatory accounts’, hence, sit uneasily between radically naturalistic and traditional armchair approaches to metaphysics. (shrink)

Four-dimensionalism, the stage theory version in particular, has been defended as the best solution for avoiding vagueness in regards to composition, persistence and identity. Stage theory is highly problematic by itself, and the two views usually packed with it, unrestricted composition and counterpart theory, are a heavy burden. However, dispensing with these two views, four-dimensionalism could avoid vague persistence by issuing a criterion that would establish sharp temporal boundaries for the existence of genuine entities (simples, molecules and living organisms). This (...) would avoid vague existence and vague identity, but in a way that is still compatible with endurantism. Nevertheless, a minimal (substantialist) four-dimensionalism, a worm perdurantist ontology, would fit better with the unique way in which organisms persist: by retaining both identity and intrinsic change. (shrink)

The standard approach to the so-called paradoxes of identity has been to argue that these paradoxes do not essentially concern the notion of identity but rather betray misconceptions on our part regarding other metaphysical notions, like that of an object or a property. This paper proposes a different approach by pointing to an ambiguity in the identity predicate and arguing that the concept of identity that figures in many ordinary identity claims, including those that appear in the paradoxes, is not (...) the traditional philosophical concept but one that can be defined in terms of relevant similarity. This approach to the paradoxes will be argued to be superior to the standard one. (shrink)

In this contribution, I comment on Raffaella Campaner’s defense of explanatory pluralism in psychiatry (in this volume). In her paper, Campaner focuses primarily on explanatory pluralism in contrast to explanatory reductionism. Furthermore, she distinguishes between pluralists who consider pluralism to be a temporary state on the one hand and pluralists who consider it to be a persisting state on the other hand. I suggest that it would be helpful to distinguish more than those two versions of pluralism – different understandings (...) of explanatory pluralism both within philosophy of science and psychiatry – namely moderate/temporary pluralism, anything goes pluralism, isolationist pluralism, integrative pluralism and interactive pluralism. Next, I discuss the pros and cons of these different understandings of explanatory pluralism. Finally, I raise the question of how to implement or operationalize explanatory pluralism in scientific practice; how to structure the “genuine dialogue” or shape “the pluralistic attitude” Campaner is referring to. As tentative answers, I explore a question-based framework for explanatory pluralism as well as social-epistemological procedures for interaction among competing approaches and explanations. (shrink)

Composition as Identity is the view that an object is identical to its parts taken collectively. I elaborate and defend a theory based on this idea: composition is a kind of identity. Since this claim is best presented within a plural logic, I develop a formal system of plural logic. The principles of this system differ from the standard views on plural logic because one of my central claims is that identity is a relation which comes in a variety of (...) forms and only one of them obeys substitution unrestrictedly. I justify this departure from orthodoxy by showing some problems which result from attempts to avoid inconsistencies within plural logic by means of postulating other non-singular terms besides plural terms. Thereby, some of the main criticisms raised against Composition as Identity can be addressed. Further, I argue that the way objects are arranged is relevant with respect to the question which object they compose, i.e. to which object they are identical to. This helps to meet a second group of arguments against Composition as Identity. These arguments aim to show that identifying composite objects on the basis of the identity of their parts entails, contrary to our common sense view, that rearranging the parts of a composite object does not leave us with a different object. Moreover, it allows us to carve out the intensional aspects of Composition as Identity and to defend mereological universalism, the claim that any objects compose some object. Much of the pressure put on the latter view can be avoided by distinguishing the question whether some objects compose an object from the question what object they compose. Eventually, I conclude that Composition as Identity is a coherent and plausible position, as long as we take identity to be a more complex relation than commonly assumed. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that the ethical supervenes on the natural, where this is roughly the claim that it is impossible for two circumstances to be identical in all natural respects, but different in their ethical respects. This chapter refines and defends the traditional thought that this fact poses a significant challenge to ethical non-naturalism, a view on which ethical properties are fundamentally different in kind from natural properties. The challenge can be encapsulated in three core claims which the chapter (...) defends: that a defensible non-naturalism is committed to the supervenience of the ethical, that this commits the non-naturalist to a brute necessary connection between properties of distinct kinds, and that commitment to such brute connections counts against the non-naturalist’s view. Each of these claims has recently been challenged. Against Nicholas Sturgeon’s recent doubts about the dialectical force of supervenience, this chapter defends a supervenience thesis as deserving to be common ground among ethical realists. It is then argued that attempts to explain supervenience on behalf of the non-naturalist either fail as explanations, generate near-identical explanatory burdens elsewhere, or appeal to commitments that are inconsistent with core motivations for non-naturalism. The chapter concludes that, suitably refined, the traditional argument against nonnaturalism from supervenience is alive and well. (shrink)

Nonreductive physicalists have a causal exclusion problem. Given certain theses all physicalists accept, including psychophysical supervenience and the causal closure of the physical realm, it is difficult to see how irreducible mental phenomena could make a causal difference to the world. The upshot, according to those who push the problem, is that we must embrace reductive physicalism. Only then is mental causation saved. -/- Grant the argument, at least provisionally. Here our focus is the conditional question: What form should one's (...) reductionism take if it is motivated in part by the exclusion problem? Must one be a type identity theorist, or are alternative reductive views available, as Jaegwon Kim has suggested more than once? (shrink)

The IPAP Schizophrenia Algorithm was originally designed in the form of a flow chart to help physicians optimise the treatment of schizophrenic patients. We examined the current version from the perspective of recent work on terminologies and ontologies thereby drawing on the resources of Basic Formal Ontology, and this with the objective to make the algorithm appropriate for Semantic Web applications. We found that Basic Formal Ontology is a rich enough theory to represent all the entities involved and that applying (...) the theory to the IPAP schizophrenia algorithm results in a representation that can be used by software agents to perform monitoring and control in a referent tracking environment. (shrink)

The work is the presentation of a logical theory - Logic in Reality (LIR) - and of applications of that theory in natural science and philosophy, including ...

Is attention both necessary and sufficient for consciousness? Call this central question of this treatise, “Q.” We commonly have the experience of consciously paying attention to something, but is it possible to be conscious of something you are not attending to, or to attend to something of which you are not conscious? Where might we find examples of these? This treatise is a quest to find an answer to Q in two parts. Part I reviews the foundations upon which the (...) discourse on Q is built. Different inputs to Q produce different answers. After consideration of the many ways “attention” and “consciousness” have been defined, I settle upon phenomenal consciousness and Executive Attention (defined as a suite of strategies for structuring cognition for further processing implemented by the executive of working memory) as the most interesting inputs to Q, and the ones on which Part II focuses. Attention without consciousness seems relatively easy to establish empirically, but consciousness without attention is much harder. The putative candidates all seem to have major problems, but I build a strong abductive case for the hitherto ignored case of foveal phenomenal overflow. We consciously see far more detail in our foveal fields than we can Executively Attend, although there is a serious obstacle to our ever confirming that empirically—identifying conscious content relies on Executive Attentional report. Triangulating the capacity limitations of attention, consciousness, and working memory strengthens this case for consciousness without attention, and suggests that cognition must work something like my “Witches’ Hat Model,” on which content can become conscious outside of Executive Attention or working memory. I conclude with some reflections on the implications of my arguments for the discourse on Q, and for other discourses such as the ontologies of attention and consciousness, theories of consciousness, some other cognitive concepts, and ethical considerations in humans, animals, and machines. A conclusive answer to Q continues to elude us. It may perhaps be an ultimately insoluble conundrum. But it is the very essence of humanity to seek an answer, and in so doing, to improve our understanding of our own nature: “The proper study of mankind is man.”1. (shrink)

Rivka Weinberg advances an error theory of ultimate meaning with three parts: (1) a conceptual analysis, (2) the claim that the extension of the concept is empty, and (3) a proposed fitting response, namely being very, very sad. Weinberg’s conceptual analysis of ultimate meaning involves two features that jointly make it metaphysically impossible, namely (i) the separateness of activities and valued ends, and (ii) the bounded nature of human lives. Both are open to serious challenges. We offer an internalist alternative (...) to (i) and a relational alternative to (ii). We then draw out implications for (2) and conclude with reasons to be cheerful about the prospects of a meaningful life. (shrink)

This dissertation is a defense of a particular theory of the metaphysics of time which I call "accretivism", but which is popularly known in a form usually called the "Growing Block Theory". The goal of a metaphysics of time is to incorporate the various aspects of our temporal experience into a single, comprehensive whole. To this end I delineate five aspects of our ordinary experience of time: 1) The Tensed Aspect, in virtue of which objects are presented to us as (...) past, present, or future; 2) The Transitory Aspect, in virtue of which time passes or "flows"; 3) The Durational Aspect, in virtue of which entities have a certain temporal extent; 4) The Structural Aspect, in virtue of which entities are given as being in temporal relations to one another, and 5) The Differential-Repetitive Aspect, in virtue of which things are different from one time to another, and yet there is a certain recurrence of aspects of our experience form one time to another. I contrast the accretivist picture of time, according to which that which is past and that which is present both have ontological status, but nothing which is future has ontological status, and in which temporal passage consists in the coming-into-being of new entities at the temporal edge of reality marked by the present, with the two dominant theories of time in the contemporary literature: 1) presentism, according to which only that which is present has ontological status, and 2) four-dimensionalism, according to which time is to be understood on analogy with spatial dimensions. Accretivism, I argue, is superior to the other two views in virtue of the fact that it gives full status to both the Structural Aspect of Time, for which the presentist has difficulty accounting, and the Transitory Aspect of Time, for which the four-dimensionalist has difficulty accounting. I then defend the accretivist picture against a variety of objections that might be raised to it. (shrink)