ABSTRACT There has been recent interest in the idea that, when metaphysicians disagree over the truth of (say) ‘There are numbers’ or ‘Chairs exist’, their dispute is merely verbal. This idea has been taken to motivate quantifier variance, the view that the meanings of quantifier expressions vary across different ontological languages, and that each of these meanings is of equal metaphysical merit. I argue that quantifier variance cannot be upheld in light of natural language theorists’ analyses of quantifier expressions. The (...) idea that metaphysicians are engaged in verbal disputes can be maintained only through alternative strategies that have nothing to do with quantifier expressions. (shrink)

There has been recent interest in the idea that speakers who appear to be having a verbal dispute may in fact be engaged in a metalinguistic negotiation: they are communicating information about how they believe an expression should be used. For example, individuals involved in a dispute about whether a racehorse is an athlete might be communicating their diverging views about how ‘athlete’ should be used. While many have argued that metalinguistic negotiation is a pervasive feature of philosophical and everyday (...) discourse, the literature currently lacks an account of this phenomenon that can be situated within a ‘mainstream’ view of communication. I propose an independently motivated account where individuals reconstruct metalinguistic propositions by means of a pragmatic, Gricean reasoning process. (shrink)

The notion of natural kinds has been widely criticized in philosophy of science but also appears indispensable for philosophical engagement with classificatory practices. Rather than addressing this tension through a new definition of “natural kind”, this article suggests materiality as a substitute for naturalness in philosophical debates about scientific classification. It is argued that a theory of material kinds provides an alternative and more inclusive entry point for analyzing classificatory practices, which is specified through an account of “restricted malleability” of (...) materiality and further analyzed as (1) gradual, (2) multi-dimensional, (3) scalable, (4) interactive, and (5) purpose sensitive. (shrink)

Counterpossibles are counterfactuals that involve some metaphysical impossibility. Modal normativism is a non-descriptivist account of metaphysical necessity and possibility according to which modal claims, e.g. ‘necessarily, all bachelors are unmarried’, do not function as descriptive claims about the modal nature of reality but function as normative illustrations of constitutive rules and permissions that govern the use of ordinary non-modal vocabulary, e.g. ‘bachelor’. In this paper, I assume modal normativism and develop a novel account of counterpossibles and claims about metaphysical similarity (...) between possible and impossible worlds. I argue that considerations of metaphysical similarity between various impossible worlds and the actual world only require us to tacitly consider how the actual constitutive rules that govern the use of our terms change in order to accommodate the description of some hypothetical impossible scenario. I then argue for my account by raising worries for alternative epistemic and realist accounts of counterpossibles and showing how my account avoids those worries. (shrink)

In this paper I take second order-quantification to be a sui generis form of quantification, irreducible to first-order quantification, and I examine the implications of doing so for the debate over the existence of properties. Nicholas K. Jones has argued that adding sui generis second-order quantification to our ideology is enough to establish that properties exist. I argue that Jones does not settle the question of whether there are properties because—like other ontological questions—it is first-order. Then I examine three of (...) the main arguments for the existence of properties. I conclude that sui generis second-order quantification defeats the “one over many” argument and that, coupled with second-order predication, it also defeats the reference and quantification arguments. (shrink)

In a recent book, Anjan Chakravartty builds a case for a particular conception of the relationship of science to metaphysics. The main novel feature in his account of scientific ontology is his construction of a metaphysical distance measure. Some ontological claims are close to the science that informs those claims, and some are further away. The distance is a measure of the epistemic risk one takes in asserting the claim: the further from the empirical base, the greater the risk. But (...) conversely, claims far from the empirical base can serve explanatory and unificatory purposes regarding claims closer in. Since different philosophers have different attitudes towards epistemic risk, Chakravartty endorses a pluralism about scientific ontology. Chakravartty illustrates his arguments concerning scientific ontology by considering what we can infer from the Standard Model of particle physics concerning the ontological status of the structures and entities it describes. I argue that, while this case study initially appears to support Chakravartty’s arguments, on closer inspection it suggests a more deflationary approach to scientific ontology. (shrink)

The apparent chasm between two camps in metaphysics, analytic metaphysics and scientific metaphysics, is well recognized. I argue that the relationship between them is not necessarily a rivalry; a division of labour that resembles the relationship between pure mathematics and science is possible. As a case study, I look into the metaphysical underdetermination argument for ontic structural realism, a well‐known position in scientific metaphysics, together with an argument for the position in analytic metaphysics known as ontological nihilism. I argue that (...) we can ascribe the same schema to both arguments, which indicates that analytic metaphysics can offer an abstract model that scientific metaphysics may find useful. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine a case for fundamental indeterminacy (FI) by Elizabeth Barnes and offer my counterarguments. Barnes' account of FI includes both the characterization of FI and why we need to accept it. I argue that her reasons for accepting FI can be challenged even when we accept her characterization of FI. Her main claim is that finding a fundamental proposition that our fundamental theory is indeterminate about (FPF) gives us a reason to accept FI in metaphysics. I (...) challenge her claim by pointing out more plausible options to address FPFs. An FPF may either indicate that the theory is nonfundamental or lead us to accept the antirealist view; there is no room for FI in either option. One may insist on accepting FI, but I argue that it is not theoretically rewarding enough. Hence, Barnes' case for FI can be contested. (shrink)

© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] Time addresses an exciting topic: what bearing the phenomenology of our experience of time might have on some key disputes over the nature of temporal reality, centrally whether the character of that phenomenology favours an ‘A-theory’ of time, which holds that there is temporal passage, over a ‘B-theory’ or ‘static block’ view. Prosser defends the ‘B-theory’, arguing not (...) only that experience does not favour ‘A-theory’, but also that it could not do so: ‘The passage of time is just the wrong kind of phenomenon to have a selective influence on or connection to a specific mental state, and therefore is not the kind of phenomenon that could be the object of an experience’. He argues further that this makes ‘A-theory’ unintelligible.Prosser’s book... (shrink)

Philosophers sometimes give arguments that presuppose the following principle: two theories can fail to be empirically equivalent on the sole basis that they present different “thick” metaphysical pictures of the world. Recently, a version of this principle has been invoked to respond to the argument that composite objects are dispensable to our best scientific theories. This response claims that our empirical evidence distinguishes between ordinary and composite-free theories, and it empirically favors the ordinary ones. In this paper, I ask whether (...) this response to the dispensability argument is tenable. I claim that it is not. This is because it presupposes an indefensible thesis about when two empirical consequences are distinct or the same. My argument provides some insight into what our empirical consequences are, and I conclude that empirical evidence is radically metaphysically neutral. This gives us some insight into the significant content of our scientific theories—the content that a scientific realist is committed to—and I show how this insight relates to questions about theoretical equivalence more broadly. (shrink)

Recent contributions to the philosophy of the social sciences have motivated ontological commitments using appeals to the social sciences (_naturalized_ social ontologies). These arguments rely on social scientific realism about the social sciences, the view that our social scientific theories are approximately true. I apply a distinction formulated in metaontology between ontologically loaded and unloaded meanings of existential quantification to argue that there is a pragmatic approach to naturalized social ontology that is minimally realist (it treats existence claims as true (...) or false) but that is ontologically austere. I argue that the extant arguments may be construed in terms of this pragmatic approach. The result is an approach to social ontology that is deflationist about naturalized social ontology. (shrink)

This article addresses Simon Lohse’s and Daniel Little’s responses to my article “Is Social Ontology Prior to Social Scientific Methodology?.” In that article, I present a pragmatic and deflationary view of the priority of social ontology to social science methodology where social ontology is valued for its ability to promote empirical success and not because it yields knowledge of what furnishes the social world. First, in response to Lohse, I argue that my view is compatible with a role for ontological (...) theorizing in the social sciences. However, the view that results instrumentalizes social ontology. Second, in my response to Little, I argue that the same considerations I made in my article apply to naturalistic attempts to motivate a non-deflationary view, repeating some of the central issues of that article. (shrink)

Revisionary ontologies seem to go against our common sense convictions about which material objects exist. These views face the so-called Problem of Reasonableness: they have to explain why reasonable people don’t seem to accept the true ontology. Most approaches to this problem treat the mismatch between the ontological truth and ordinary belief as superficial or not even real. By contrast, I propose what I call the “uncompromising solution”. First, I argue that our beliefs about material objects were influenced by evolutionary (...) forces that were independent of the ontological truth. Second, I draw an analogy between the Problem of Reasonableness and the New Evil Demon Problem and argue that the revisionary ontologist can always find a positive epistemic status to characterize ordinary people’s beliefs about material objects. Finally, I address the worry that the evolutionary component of my story also threatens to undermine the best arguments for revisionary ontologies. (shrink)

This is a contribution to a symposium on Amie Thomasson’s Ontology Made Easy (2015). Thomasson defends two deflationary theses: that philosophical questions about the existence of numbers, tables, properties, and other disputed entities can all easily be answered, and that there is something wrong with prolonged debates about whether such objects exist. I argue that the first thesis (properly understood) does not by itself entail the second. Rather, the case for deflationary metaontology rests largely on a controversial doctrine about the (...) possible meanings of ‘object’. I challenge Thomasson's argument for that doctrine, and I make a positive case for the availability of the contested, unrestricted use of ‘object’. (shrink)

I develop an expressivist account of verbal disagreements as practical disagreements over how to use words rather than factual disagreements over what words actually mean. This account enjoys several advantages over others in the literature: it can be implemented in a neo-Stalnakerian possible worlds framework; it accounts for cases where speakers are undecided on how exactly to interpret an expression; it avoids appeals to fraught notions like subject matter, charitable interpretation, and joint-carving; and it naturally extends to an analysis of (...) metalinguistic negotiations. (shrink)

Verbal disputes are often seen as closely related to a lack of substantivity. However, a systematic and comprehensive investigation of how verbalness relates to substantivity is still missing. The present paper attempts to close this gap. In addition to offering different conceptions of verbalness, the paper further develops Sider’s (Writing the Book of the World, OUP, Oxford, 2011) notion of substantivity. Ultimately, I argue for a more careful choice of terminology when it comes to assessing a dispute as “(merely) verbal” (...) or “nonsubstantive”. While the paper shows that there is no strict logical relation between mere verbalness and nonsubstantivity construed along the lines set out by Sider, it also demonstrates that further notable notions of (mere) verbalness and substantivity are in fact closely intertwined. (shrink)

In recent work Huw Price has defended what he calls a global expressivist approach to understanding language and its relation to the physical world. Global expressivism rejects a representationalist picture of the language-world relation and thereby, by intention at least, also a certain metaphysical conception of what are commonly known as placement problems: how entities of the everyday, common sense world like mental states, meanings, moral values, modalities and so on fit into the natural world. Global expressivism upholds a commitment (...) to substantive enquiry into the naturalistic basis of thought about the world, but pursues this in a pragmatist or non-representationalist ’key’, thereby rendering—as it sees things—traditional metaphysical questions otiose. I am in broad sympathy with many of Price’s arguments and ideas. However, I believe the specific sub-variety of non-representationalism he develops actually fails to secure the anti-metaphysical results he seeks. My arguments have their starting point in the Carnap-Quine debate. Given Price’s view of this, which I endorse, I think it can be made clear that Quine’s view, or something very close to it, presents us with a coherent example of a non-representationalist metaphysical placement project. Though one might reasonably doubt the rationality of or motivation for such a view, Price’s own strongly naturalistic assumptions, as these are evinced in his so-called ’subject’ naturalism, make that move dialectically unavailable to him. I end with a brief sketch of an alternative non-representationalist and anti-metaphysical position. (shrink)

What exactly does conceptual analysis consist in? Is it empirical or a priori? How does it support philosophical theses? and What kinds of thesis are these? There is no consensus on these questions in contemporary philosophy. This study aims to defend conceptual analysis by showing that it comprises a number of different methods and by explaining their importance in philosophy. After setting out an initial dilemma for conceptual analysis, the study outlines a minimal ecumenical account of concepts, as well as (...) an account of concept possession and concept employment. On the basis of these accounts, the study then argues that there are both empirical and a priori forms of conceptual analysis, and that each can be defended as legitimate methods. The philosophical interest of conceptual analysis, however, resides in relying on all three types of method in the service of answering philosophical concerns. This is illustrated by three sample cases. (shrink)

I will defend explication, in a Carnapian sense, as a strategy for revisionary ontologists and radical sceptics. The idea is that these revisionary philosophers should explicitly commit to using expressions like “S knows that p” and “Fs exist” differently from how these expressions are used in everyday contexts. I will first motivate this commitment for these revisionary philosophers. Then, I will address the main worries that arise for this strategy: the unintelligibility worry and the topic shift worry. I will focus (...) on the latter worry and provide a solution that makes use of a distinction between practically and theoretically oriented beliefs. On my view, the revisionary philosophers who admit to departing from the everyday language can still criticize everyday knowledge and existence claims, by arguing that while the language embedded in these claims is suitable for beliefs-1, it is not suitable for beliefs-2. (shrink)

Functions play an important role in neo-pragmatism. This paper advances neo-pragmatism’s prospects by investigating how functions are to be understood on this account. It argues that prominent ways of understanding functions do not suit neo-pragmatists’ meta-semantic commitments or their preferred methodology. It then presents an account that fits both, based on Laura and François Schroeter’s theory of rationalizing self-interpretation. On this account, a term’s function is what it allows us to do that makes our tradition with the term rational.

Naturalized metaphysics aims to establish justified metaphysical claims, where metaphysics is meant to carry its usual significance, while avoiding the traditional methods of metaphysics—a priori reasoning, conceptual analysis, intuitions, and common sense—which naturalized metaphysics argues are not epistemically probative. After offering an explication of what it means to do metaphysics, this paper argues that naturalized metaphysics, at the outset, is hospitable to doing metaphysics. The underdetermination of metaphysics by science, however, changes the picture. Naturalized metaphysics has to break this underdetermination, (...) but the criticism of the traditional methods of metaphysics leaves no resources with which to do so. Naturalized metaphysics must therefore be more restrictive than originally intended to ensure that some metaphysical features avoid underdetermination. In this restrictive naturalized metaphysics, however, metaphysicians are only left the task of surveying the opinions of scientists which, it is argued, does not qualify as doing metaphysics. Thus, to fulfill its promise to save metaphysics, naturalized metaphysics displaces the metaphysician. Furthermore, the attempt to re-employ them via the principle of naturalistic closure is argued to fail. Metaphysicians should therefore not be happier with naturalized metaphysics than they are with the more explicitly eliminative trends in contemporary metametaphysics, such as neo-Carnapian deflationism, despite the promise of naturalized metaphysics, likely to Carnap’s dismay, to deliver justified claims about ultimate reality. (shrink)

In her paper “Neo-positivist metaphysics” (Philosophical Studies, 160(1), 53–78, 2012), Alyssa Ney promises a naturalized metaphysics that is acceptable even by positivists’ – and specifically Carnap’s – standards. This neo-positivist metaphysics takes its outset in the findings of our best science and relies on them to inform a metaphysics that can avoid the dependence on linguistic frameworks that is inherent to Carnapian deflationism. Neo-positivist metaphysics attempts to sidestep these problems by inheriting its semantic credentials directly from science itself. This paper (...) argues that such attempts are unsuccessful since science contains no resources with which to answer Carnap’s challenge either, and a science-based metaphysics is therefore just as vulnerable to Carnapian deflationism as traditional metaphysics. Consequently, neo-positivist metaphysics does not provide the promised metaphysics that can avoid Carnapian deflationism. While this conclusion focuses on Ney’s neo-positivist metaphysics, its scope includes any attempt to avoid Carnapian deflationism by a naturalized metaphysics that relies on strict deference to the findings of science. Substantial metaphysics – naturalized or not – is impossible unless or until Carnapian deflationism is refuted, and the resources for such a refutation cannot be found in naturalized metaphysics. (shrink)

Recent years have seen several studies of metaphysical disputes as disagreement phenomena employing the resources from the research on disagreement in social epistemology. This paper undertakes an analogous study of the metametaphysical disagreement over the substantiveness of metaphysical disputes between inflationists and deflationists. The paper first considers and questions the skeptical argument that the mere existence of the disagreement mandates the suspension of judgement about the substantiveness of metaphysical disputes. Rather, the paper argues that steadfastness in the face of this (...) disagreement is rational, at least for inflationists. Since inflationists are often metaphysicians who were called to this disagreement due to its apparent threat to their first order debates in metaphysics, they can therefore return to these debates in good faith. In contrast, deflationists have no such alternative occupation and the verdict of steadfastness will not alter their engagement in the inflationist/deflationist disagreement: they will continue their attempt to resolve the disagreement to their advantage. Thus, though the verdict of steadfastness is epistemically symmetric between inflationism and deflationism, it induces an asymmetry in the motivation to pursue the inflationist/deflationist disagreement which places the burden of advancing the dialectic of this disagreement with the deflationists while metaphysicians can continue their work as before. (shrink)

According to naturalized metaphysics, metaphysics should be informed by our current best science and not rely on a priori reasoning. Consequently, naturalized metaphysics tends to dismiss metaphysicians’ attempts to quarrel with science. This paper argues that naturalized metaphysics should instead welcome such conflicts between metaphysics and science. Naturalized metaphysics is not eliminative of metaphysics. So, if such conflicts are driven by the immediate absence in science of an answer to a metaphysical question, then the conflict should not be dismissed, but (...) instead be received as an occasion to do naturalized metaphysics. That conflicts between metaphysics and science might be beneficial for naturalized metaphysics is exemplified by the case of non-spatial theories of quantum gravity. These theories are criticized by metaphysicians who, often following David Lewis, argue that spatial distance is an indispensable fundamental element in any coherent metaphysics due to its role as the world-making relation. The resulting conflict, however, is found to be well-motivated since the non-spatial theories of quantum gravity offer no alternative world-making relation to spatial distance. Rather than dismissing this conflict, naturalized metaphysics should therefore receive the Lewisians’ resistance as a call to search for one. How this plays out as a negotiation between the scientific theory and the metaphysical question is exemplified in the last part of the paper where entanglement is proposed as an alternative world-making relation in loop quantum gravity. (shrink)

A central question for ontology is the question of whether numbers really exist. But it seems easy to answer this question in the affirmative. The truth of a sentence like ‘Seven students came to the party’ can be established simply by looking around at the party and counting students. A trivial paraphrase of is ‘The number of students who came to the party is seven’. But appears to entail the existence of a number, and so it seems that we must (...) conclude that numbers exist. This is sometimes called the puzzle of how we can get something from nothing. Most extant attempts to solve the puzzle take it for granted that is ontologically innocent, and focus their attention either on or on the transition from to. We argue that both attempts go wrong at the first step: the assumption that is ontologically innocent is undermined by a highly attractive and independently well-motivated degree-based account of number word constructions. Thus the degree-based account provides a straightforward linguistic resolution of the puzzle of how we can get something from nothing. But the paper also has a second aim. The semantics we present treats ‘seven’ as a referring expression that refers to a degree of a certain sort. But what are degrees? We consider various anti-platonist proposals that seek to account for degrees in terms of relations between concrete entities, and argue that they are incompatible with the Universal Density of Measurement hypothesis of Fox and Hackl. While the UDM cannot yet claim to be the consensus view among degree-based semanticists, our aim is to use it to illustrate how views about the nature of degrees can be evaluated by considering the properties degrees must have if they are to play the explanatory roles they are called upon to play in linguistics. In the present state of development of degree-based semantics there are difficult open questions about what these properties are. These questions need to be addressed if we are to develop a clear picture of what natural language semantics has to contribute to ontology and metaphysics. (shrink)

Abstract artifacts such as musical works and fictional entities are human creations; they are intentional products of our actions and activities. One line of argument against abstract artifacts is that abstract objects are not the kind of objects that can be created. This is so, it is argued, because abstract objects are causally inert. Since creation requires being caused to exist, abstract objects cannot be created. One common way to refute this argument is to reject the causal inefficacy of abstracta. (...) I argue that creationists should rather reject the principle that creation requires causation. Creation, in my view, is a non-causal relation that can be explained using an appropriate notion of ontological dependence. The existence and the creation of abstract artifacts depend on certain individuals with appropriate intentions, along with events of a certain kind that include but are not limited to creations of certain concrete objects. (shrink)

This essay defends the neo-Quinean approach to ontology against the criticisms of two neo-Carnapians, Huw Price and Amie Thomasson.

Relaxed naturalism and liberal naturalism both invite us to adopt a philosophy of nature that includes a range of non-scientific phenomena in its inventory while nevertheless keeping the supernatural at bay. This paper considers the question of how relaxed naturalism relates to liberal naturalism and what refinements are required if they are to succeed in their joint cause of developing a tenable alternative to scientific naturalism. Particular attention is given to what might be added to the naturalist’s toolbox when it (...) comes to identifying and dealing with supernatural excesses and clarifying how philosophers can do positive metaphysical work in support of the naturalistic project. (shrink)

Mirdamad, a prominent philosopher of the Late Medieval Period active in the Islamic world, regards existence as nothing in reality. In this paper, I employ methods devised by contemporary analytic...

While P.F. Strawson’s essay ‘Freedom and Resentment’ has had many commentators, discussions of it can be roughly divided into two categories. A first group has dealt with the essay as something that stands by itself in order to analyse Strawson’s main arguments and to expose its weaknesses. A second group of commentators has looked beyond ‘Freedom and Resentment’ by emphasizing its Humean, Kantian or Wittgensteinian elements. Although both approaches have their own merits, it is too often forgotten that Strawson was (...) an original thinker with his own views on the nature of philosophical problems and how to appropriately deal with them. The aim of this article is to remedy this forgetfulness and to make sense of ‘Freedom and Resentment’ from a Strawsonian perspective, by looking at Strawson’s own views on philosophical methodology. (shrink)

Michael Dummett offered a semantic characterisation of a variety of realism-antirealism debates. This approach has fallen out of fashion. This has been to the detriment of metaphysics. This paper offers an accurate characterisation of Dummett’s view, often lacking in the literature, and then defends it against a range of attacks (from Devitt, Miller and Williamson). This understanding of realism debates is resilient, and if we take it seriously the philosophical terrain looks importantly different. In particular, the philosophy of language has (...) a foundational role with respect to metaphysics. (shrink)

It is common for contemporary ontologists to claim that they are not concerned with what exists simpliciter, but rather with what exists ’fundamentally’, or what ’really’ exists. I argue that positions of this sort cannot satisfy reasonable constraints concerning the acquisition of language. I assess and dismiss possible responses to this complaint before commenting on the prospects for a metaphysics without bespoke existence claims.

In response to commentaries by Esa Díaz León, Jennifer Saul, and Ra- chel Sterken, I develop more fully my views on the role of structure in social and metaphysical explanation. Although I believe that social agency, quite generally, occurs within practices and structures, the relevance of structure depends on the sort of questions we are asking and what interventions we are considering. The emphasis on questions is also relevant in considering metaphysical and meta-metaphysical is- sues about realism with respect to (...) gender and race. I aim to demon- strate that tools we develop in the context of critical social theory can change the questions we ask, what forms of explanation are called for, and how we do philosophy. (shrink)

With metaphysical philosophy gaining prominence in the aftermath of the Quine-Carnap debate, not only has it become assumed that the Quinean critique leaves ontological pluralism behind as an untenable approach, but also that the same is true of deflationism more generally. Building on Quine’s criticisms against the analytic-synthetic distinction and the notion of quantifier variance, contemporary metaphysicians like van Inwagen and Sider continue to argue for the untenability of deflationary approaches to metaontology. In this paper I will argue that Quine’s (...) criticisms do not provide sufficient grounds for revitalizing metaphysics, as the aforementioned metaphysicians conceive them as doing, and that they also don’t eliminate all hope for Carnapian pluralism. Furthermore, Carnap’s initial position may even yield the most promising route for the pluralistically inclined. Moreover, pluralism is often conceived as being equivalent with the narrower notion of quantifier variance, often associated with Hirsch and Putnam. As this notion often is attributed not only to Carnap and other pluralists, but also is taken to be an essential feature of deflationism, explicating how their merits in fact don’t necessarily coincide with those of quantifier variance will clarify matters. I will conclude by noting how neither pluralism nor deflationism is committed to quantifier variance, and thus how arguments against the latter don’t entail a refutation of the former. (shrink)

Most of the most prominent discussions within metaphysics assume without argument that our metaphysical theorizing should be constrained by classical logic. I examine why this is the case and then argue that it should not be. That is, I argue that we should not take our metaphysical theorizing to be constrained by classical logic.

I distinguish Local Constructivism (humans play a constitutive role in constructing some of the objects we have epistemic access to) from Global Constructivism (humans play a constitutive role in constructing all of the objects we have epistemic access to). I explicate and clarify Local Constructivism and show how the metaphysical concerns which motivate endorsing Local Constructivism about some objects (e.g. social objects, modal objects) differ from the epistemic and semantic concerns which motive endorsing Global Constructivism. I, then, examine the criticisms (...) Realists typically present against Constructivism. I argue that, although these criticisms undermine Global Constructivism, Local Constructivism is immune to them. If one has anti-Realist inclinations, but wishes to avoid the morass anti-Realism usually falls into (aka: anti-Realist Boogeyman), one should endorse Local, rather than Global, Constructivism. (shrink)

This paper aims to make headway on two related issues—one methodological, the other substantive. The former concerns cost–benefit analyses when applied to metaphysical theory choice. The latter concerns material coincidence, i.e., multiple objects occupying the same space at the same time, such as the statue and the clay from which it’s made. The issues are entwined as many reject coincidence on the grounds that it’s costly. I argue this judgment is unjustified. More generally, I set out and defend a framework (...) for the use of cost–benefit analyses in metaphysics. The framework employs a fourfold division of pretheoretical costs and benefits, and theoretical costs and benefits. Yet these do not hold equal weight. Instead I argue that the appeal to theoretical benefits is illegitimate if the theory in question cannot first account for the relevant evidence or data, including, crucially, certain bits of pretheoretical or common knowledge. This is crucial because I not only argue that material coincidence is consistent with common sense, against what is widely believed, but that coincidence may even be a feature or implication of the common sense view. Put together, the result is that accepting an anti-coincidence theory for its putative theoretical virtues at the expense of common sense is an improper usage of the cost–benefit methodology. I instead conclude that material coincidence should be accepted with equanimity—which, after all, is free. (shrink)

Contra recent, inflationary views, the paper submits a deflationary approach to legal ontology. It argues, in particular, that to answer ontological questions about legal entities, we only need conceptual analysis and empirical investigation. In developing this proposal, it follows Amie Thomasson’s ‘easy ontology’ and her strategy for answering whether ordinary objects exist. The purpose of this is to advance a theory that, on the one hand, does not fall prey to sceptical views about legal reality (viz., that ontological truths about (...) legal entities are established by metaphysical principles); and, on the other, is compatible with common-sense jurisprudence (viz., that there in fact exist legal entities, and they all have important practical implications). While this methodology is common to legal philosophers interested in elucidating the ‘artifactual nature’ of law, the paper departs from their projects by taking a step forward in connecting this deflationary approach to legal ontology with an expressivist account of legal discourse, thus providing enough resources to satisfy the general ambition of jurisprudence, viz., to establish the conditions for the analysis of legal reality and its normative character. (shrink)

There are two ways of approaching an ontological debate: ontological realism recommends that metaphysicians seek to discover deep ontological facts of the matter, while ontological anti-realism denies that there are such facts; both views sometimes run into difficulties. This paper suggests an approach to ontology that begins with conceptual analysis and takes the results of that analysis as a guide for which metaontological view to hold. It is argued that in some cases, the functions for which we employ a part (...) of our conceptual scheme might give us reasons to posit ontological facts regarding certain objects. The proposed approach recommends ontological realism about an object just in case our conceptual scheme gives us reason to. This yields a mixed overall metaontological view that adopts ontological realism to some issues and ontological anti-realism to others, and that avoids the difficulties that typically arise for the two views. (shrink)

Easy Ontologists, most notably Thomasson (2015), argue that ontological questions are shallow. They think that these questions can either be answered by using our ordinary conceptual competence—of course tables exist!—or are meaningless, or else should be answered through conceptual re-engineering. Ontology thus is “easy”, requiring no distinctively metaphysical investigation. This paper raises a two-stage objection to Easy Ontology. We first argue that questions concerning which entities exist are inextricably bound up with “ontological category questions”, which are questions concerning the identity (...) of and differences between kinds of entities. We then argue that ontological category questions do not have trivial answers, are meaningful, and cannot be answered through conceptual re-engineering. Easy Ontology hence does not constitute a comprehensive ontological methodology. While some of ontology might be easy, category questions form a central part of ontology and are not answered easily. (shrink)

A belief is valuable when it “gets it right”. This “getting it right” is often understood solely as a matter of truth. But there is a second sense of “getting it right” worth exploring. According to this second sense, a belief “gets it right” when its concepts accurately match the way the world is objectively organized – that is, when its concepts are joint-carving, or have fidelity. In this paper, I explore the relationship between fidelity and epistemic value. While many (...) philosophers (especially metaphysicians) acknowledge fidelity's value, they overlook just how much it might disrupt our understanding of epistemic value. To tease out this disruption, I draw on the Jamesian balance between seeking the truth and avoiding the false. A similar balance must be struck both within the pursuit of fidelity itself (“seeking the joints” and “avoiding the gruesome”) as well as between the pursuit of fidelity and the pursuit of truth. I then give an argument against the claim that truth is the higher epistemic good. (shrink)

This paper reflects on metametaphysics and as such develops a metametameta-physical view: that quietist metametaphysics requires dialetheism, and in turn a paraconsistent logic. I demonstrate this using Carnap’s metametaphysical position in his 'Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology' as an example, with regard to how it exhibits self-reference and results in inconsistency. I show how applying Carnap’s position to itself produces a dilemma, both horns of which lead to a contradiction. Such inconsistency commonly arises from meta-theories with global scope, as the 'meta' (...) approach aims to transcend the scope of that which it is theorizing about, whilst the global nature will place itself back within the scope of that which it is theorizing about, which together result in the theory referring to itself whilst refuting itself. I argue that any global metametaphysical theory that draws a limit to thought will face self-reference problems leading to contradictory realms. My conclusion is conditional: If we want to meta-philosophize in such a way and treat quietist meta-theories as being true, then we need to be dialetheist and utilize a paraconsistent logic in order to accommodate the contradictions that result from such theorizing. (shrink)

Hylomorphically complex objects are things that change their parts or matter or that might have, or have had, different parts or matter. Often ontologists analyze such objects in terms of sets (or functions, understood set-theoretically) or other extensional entities such as mereological fusions or quantities of matter. I urge two reasons for being wary of any such analyses. First, being extensional, such things as sets are ill-suited to capture the characteristic modal and temporal flexibility of hylomorphically complex objects. Secondly, sets (...) are often appealed to because they seem to contain their members. But the idea that sets do contain their members, in the ordinary sense of containment, is a substantive metaphysical position that makes analyses that rely on that idea for their plausibility much more metaphysically committing than is generally thought. (shrink)

This is a contribution to the symposium on Tim Scanlon’s Being Realistic about Reasons. We have two aims here: First, we ask for more details about Scanlon’s meta-metaphysical view, showing problems with salient clarifications. And second, we raise independent objections to the view – to its explanatory productivity, its distinctness, and the argumentative support it enjoys.

Mark Johnston and Eric Olson have both pressed what Johnston has dubbed the personite problem. Personites, if they exist, are person-like entities whose lives extend over a continuous proper part of a person’s life. They are so person-like that they seem to have moral status if persons do. But this threatens to wreak havoc with ordinary moral thinking. For example, simple decisions to suffer some short-term hardship for long-term benefits become problematic. And ordinary punishment is always also punishment of the (...) innocent, since it punishes personites that didn’t exist when the crime was committed. An initially attractive way around the personite problem may be to simply deny that personites exist. But as I discuss in this talk, relating to contemporary discussions in metaontology, this response for principled reasons doesn’t work. The problems I discuss illustrate the significance of metaontological considerations for issues in ethics and metaethics, and generalize widely beyond the personite problem. (shrink)

That certain paper bills have monetary value, that Vladimir Putin is the president of Russia, and that Prince Philip is the husband of Queen Elizabeth II: such facts are commonly called ‘institutional facts’. IFF are, by definition, facts that exist by virtue of collective recognition. The standard view or tacit belief is that such facts really exist. In this paper we argue, however, that they really do not—they really are just well-established illusions. We confront realism about IFF with six criteria (...) of existence, three established and three less so but highly intuitive. We argue that they all tell against the existence of IFF. An obvious objection to IFF non-realism is that since people’s behaviour clearly reflects the existence of IFF, denying their existence leaves an explanatory gap. We reject this argument by introducing a variant of the so-called ‘Thomas Theorem,’ which says that when people collectively recognize a fact as existing, they largely behave accordingly, regardless of whether that fact really exists or not. (shrink)

Some metaphysicians believe that existence debates are easily resolved by trivial inferences from Moorean premises. This paper considers how the introduction of negative Moorean facts—negative existentials that command Moorean certainty—complicates this picture. In particular, it shows how such facts, when combined with certain plausible metaontological principles, generate a puzzle that commits the proponents of this method to a contradiction.