Some philosophers have argued that truth is a norm of judgement and have provided a variety of formulations of this general thesis. In this paper, I shall side with these philosophers and assume that truth is a norm of judgement. What I am primarily interested in here are two core questions concerning the judgement-truth norm: (i) what are the normative relationships between truth and judgement? And (ii) do these relationships vary or are they constant? I argue for a pluralist picture—what (...) I call Normative Alethic Pluralism (NAP)—according to which (i) there is more than one correct judgement-truth norm and (ii) the normative relationships between truth and judgement vary in relation to the subject matter of the judgement. By means of a comparative analysis of disagreement in three areas of the evaluative domain—refined aesthetics, basic taste and morality—I show that there is an important variability in the normative significance of disagreement—I call this the variability conjecture. By presenting a variation of Lynch’s scope problem for alethic monism, I argue that a monistic approach to the normative function of truth is unable to vindicate the conjecture. I then argue that normative alethic pluralism provides us with a promising model to account for it. (shrink)

According to strong pluralist theories of truth, ‘true’ designates different properties depending on which sentences it’s applied to. An influential objection to strong pluralism claims it can’t make sense of logically complex sentences whose components have different truth-properties. For example, if ‘true’ designates correspondents for ‘Tabby is a cat’, and it designates coherence for ‘Tabby is beautiful’, what does it designate for ‘Tabby is a beautiful cat’ (Tappolet 1997)? Will Gamester (2019) has proposed a novel pluralist theory meant to avoid (...) the problem. The theory construes ‘true’ as designating a different property for each possible logical structure, and he has challenged monists to identify shortcomings of the theory in virtue of its pluralism. This paper answers Gamester’s challenge and identifies three such shortcomings. (1) The theory can’t make sense of the idea that all true conjunctions share the property of having true conjuncts, in virtue of which they are true. (2) The theory imposes unmotivated syntactic constraints on the language in which the theory of truth is formulated. (3) Avoiding the second shortcoming requires arbitrary choices among equally good candidates for “the” logical form of sentences and hence the designation of ‘true’ as applied to them. (shrink)

When talking about truth, we ordinarily take ourselves to be talking about one-and-the-same thing. Alethic monists suggest that theorizing about truth ought to begin with this default or pre-reflective stance, and, subsequently, parlay it into a set of theoretical principles that are aptly summarized by the thesis that truth is one. Foremost among them is the invariance principle.

Traditional inflationary approaches that specify the nature of truth are attractive in certain ways; yet, while many of these theories successfully explain why propositions in certain domains of discourse are true, they fail to adequately specify the nature of truth because they run up against counterexamples when attempting to generalize across all domains. One popular consequence is skepticism about the efficaciousness of inflationary approaches altogether. Yet, by recognizing that the failure to explain the truth of disparate propositions often stems from (...) inflationary approaches' allegiance to alethic monism, pluralist approaches are able to avoid this explanatory inadequacy and the resulting skepticism, though at the cost of inviting other conceptual difficulties. A novel approach, alethic functionalism, attempts to circumvent the problems faced by pluralist approaches while preserving their main insights. Unfortunately, it too generates additional problems---namely, with its suspect appropriation of the multiple realizability paradigm and its platitude-based strategy---that need to be dissolved before it can constitute an adequate inflationary approach to the nature of truth. (shrink)

Philosophical theories of various sorts rely on there being robust boundaries between kinds of content. One way of drawing such boundaries is to place them between subject matters, like physics and aesthetics, and the domains of sentences falling within them. Yet contemporary literature exploring the nature of discourse domains is relatively sparse. The goal of this paper is to articulate the core features of discourse domains for them to provide the sought-after explanatory utility of establishing robust boundaries between discursive contents. (...) Analyzing the role that discourse domains have under alethic theories yields valuable information about the ways in which domains subject themselves to being defined and how alethic theories can explain the variability of truth-aptness or truth across sentences from distinct domains. The concluding argument is that because of certain issues with defining domains as unambiguous classes of sentences when individuated on the grounds of topical subject matters, philosophers should consider a commitment to indeterminism about the extensions of fundamental domains. According to this view, although domains can be defined as relatively well-individuated classes of sentences based on topical distinctions, the temporal development of our conceptual frameworks and the phenomenon of mixed content compromise our ability to definitively account for the domain membership of all truth-apt sentences. Such an indeterminacy argument is relevant for all who rely on there being robust boundaries between topically individuated discursive contents. (shrink)

Pettigrew offers new axiomatic constraints on legitimate measures of inaccuracy. His axiom called ‘Decomposition’ stipulates that legitimate measures of inaccuracy evaluate a credence function in part based on its level of calibration at a world. I argue that if calibration is valuable, as Pettigrew claims, then this fact is an explanandum for accuracy-rst epistemologists, not an explanans, for three reasons. First, the intuitive case for the importance of calibration isn’t as strong as Pettigrew believes. Second, calibration is a perniciously global (...) property that both contravenes Pettigrew’s own views about the nature of credence functions themselves and undercuts the achievements and ambitions of accuracy-rst epistemology. Finally, Decomposition introduces a new kind of value compatible with but separate from accuracy-proper in violation of Pettigrew’s alethic monism. introduction. (shrink)

Pluralism about truth is the view that there are many properties, not just one, in virtue of which things are true. Pluralists hope to dodge the objections that face traditional monistic substantive views of truth, as well as those facing deflationary theories of truth. More specifically, pluralists hope to advance an explanatorily potent understanding of truth that can capture the subtleties of various realist and anti-realist domains of discourse, all while avoiding the scope problem. I offer a new objection to (...) pluralism that challenges its fundamental commitment to there being a set of alethic properties in virtue of which claims are true. In its place I offer an alternative view that merges standard truthmaker theory with a primitivist conception of truth. This combination of views satisfies the theoretical desires that pluralists claim for themselves, but without taking on pluralism's host of challenges and problems. (shrink)

Whatever its ultimate philosophical merits, it is often thought that the growing block theory presents an intuitive picture of reality that accords well with our pre-reflective or folk view of time, and of the past, present, and future. This is partly motivated by the idea that we find it intuitive that, in some sense, the future is open and the past closed, and that the growing block theory is particularly well suited to accommodate this being so. In this paper, we (...) empirically investigate three claims. First, that people's intuitive or pre-reflective sense that the future is open is at least partly captured by there being truth-gaps for future contingents: what we call alethic openness. Second, that people, perhaps tacitly, believe that the fact that the future is alethically open is a reason to endorse the growing block theory; and third, that part of what explains why people tend to naively represent our world as a growing block is that they represent the future as alethically open. We found evidence in support of the first two claims. We consider the implications of these findings for several debates in the philosophy of time. (shrink)

It is widely held that metaphysical modality is the broadest non-epistemic, alethic modality, and that /a posteriori/ modal essentialist truths, like that gold has atomic number 79, enjoy the necessity of the broadest alethic modality. One prominent argument for these conclusions--given by Cian Dorr, John Hawthorne, and Juhani Yli-Vakkuri--rests upon an extremely dubious premise: that certain pairs of properties—e.g., being gold and being made of atoms containing 79 protons—are one and the very same property. The two properties are (...) seen to be distinct on independent philosophical grounds. Metaphysical modality is in fact a restricted alethic modality. In particular, mathematical modality is broader than metaphysical modality. Arguably, the broadest alethic modality is logical modality, which is distinct from metaphysical modality. Even if it is metaphysically necessary that gold have atomic number 79, there is no logical/analytical inconsistency in the supposition that it does not. (shrink)

Pragmatism and the correspondence theory of truth are longtime foes. Nevertheless, there is an argument to be made that pragmatists must embrace truth as correspondence. I show that there is a distinctive pragmatic utility to taking truth to be correspondence, and I argue that it would be inconsistent for pragmatists to accept the utility of the belief that truth is correspondence while resisting the premise that this belief is correct. -/- In order to show how pragmatists can embrace truth as (...) correspondence, I develop a kind of alethic pluralism, which treats pragmatist truth as theoretically fundamental to truth as correspondence. This theoretical fundamentality of pragmatist truth allows the pragmatist to conditionally accept truth as correspondence for certain discourses without falling prey to the typical pragmatist objections to correspondence. This pluralist account of truth thus allows pragmatists to concede that, for certain domains of discourse, truth is correspondence, without thereby betraying their pragmatist principles. (shrink)

Truthmaker monism is the view that the one and only truthmaker is the world. Despite its unpopularity, this view has recently received an admirable defence by Schaffer :307–324, 2010b). Its main defect, I argue, is that it omits partial truthmakers. If we omit partial truthmakers, we lose the intimate connection between a truth and its truthmaker. I further argue that the notion of a minimal truthmaker should be the key notion that plays the role of constraining ontology and that (...) truthmaker monism is not necessary for an appropriate solution to the problem of finding truthmakers for negative truths. I conclude that we should reject truthmaker monism once and for all. (shrink)

ABSTRACTEcumenical Alethic Pluralism is a novel kind of alethic pluralism. It is ecumenical in that it widens the scope of alethic pluralism by allowing for a normatively deflated truth property alongside a variety of normatively robust truth properties. We establish EAP by showing how Wright’s Inflationary Arguments fail in the domain of taste, once a relativist treatment of the metaphysics and epistemology of that domain is endorsed. EAP is highly significant to current debates on the nature of (...) truth insofar as it involves a reconfiguration of the dialectic between deflationists and pluralists. (shrink)

Alethic functionalism, as propounded by Michael Lynch, is the view that there are different ways to be true, but that these differences nevertheless contain enough unity to forestall outright pluralism. This view has many virtues. Yet, since one could conceivably apply Lynch’s “one and many” strategy to other debates, I try to show how his argumentative steps can be used to solve — not just the controversy pertaining to truth — but any controversy that surrounds a “What is X?” (...) question. (shrink)

This paper discusses the relation between Crispin Wright’s alethic pluralism and my global expressivism. I argue that on many topics Wright’s own view counts as expressivism in my sense, but that truth itself is a striking exception. Unlike me, Wright never seems to countenance an expressivist account of truth, though the materials needed are available to him in his approaches to other topics.

Priority monism is the view that the cosmos is the only independent concrete object. The paper argues that, pace its proponents, Priority monism is in conflict with the dependence of any whole on any of its parts: if the cosmos does not depend on its parts, neither does any smaller composite.

In this article, I am interested in four versions of what is often referred to as "the Humphrey objection". This objection was initially raised by Kripke against Lewis's modal counterpart theory, so this is where I will start the discussion. As we will see, there is a perfectly good answer to the objection. I will then examine other places where a similar objection can be raised: it can arise in the case of temporal counterpart theory (in fact, it can arise (...) in the case of all kinds of counterpart theories, independently on modal realism), and a very similar worry can also arise against modal realism itself or against an ersatzist theory of possible worlds itself. For similar reasons, in similar situations, a similar objection will arise. What is interesting is that it is not the case that a similar response can be given in all of these similar cases. So, in the end, we will see what dissimilarities there are and how and why they are relevant. In particular, we will see the differences there are between alethic modalities and temporal modalities. In the case of alethic modalities (metaphysical necessity and possibility), the objection can be answered by appealing to the notion of representation, while this does not work very well in the case of temporal modalities. (shrink)

I will defend two claims. First, Schaffer's priority monism is in tension with many research programs in quantum gravity. Second, priority monism can be modified into a view more amenable to this physics. The first claim is grounded in the fact that promising approaches to quantum gravity such as loop quantum gravity or string theory deny the fundamental reality of spacetime. Since fundamental spacetime plays an important role in Schaffer's priority monism by being identified with the fundamental (...) structure, namely the cosmos, the disappearance of spacetime in these views might undermine classical priority monism. My second claim is that priority monism can avoid this issue with two moves: first, in dropping one of its core assumptions, namely that the fundamental structure is spatio-temporal, second, by identifying the connection between the non-spatio-temporal structure and the derivative spatio-temporal structure with mereological composition. (shrink)

Argument that priority monism is best understood as being a contingent thesis.

Stephen Barker presents a novel approach to solving semantic paradoxes, including the Liar and its variants and Curry’s paradox. His approach is based around the concept of alethic undecidability. His approach, if successful, renders futile all attempts to assign semantic properties to the paradoxical sentences, whilst leaving classical logic fully intact. And, according to Barker, even the T-scheme remains valid, for validity is not undermined by undecidable instances. Barker’s approach is innovative and worthy of further consideration, particularly by those (...) of us who aim to find a solution without logical revisionism. As it stands, however, the approach is unsuccessful, as I shall demonstrate below. (shrink)

Russellian monists argue that non-structural properties, or a combination of structural and non-structural properties, necessitate phenomenal properties. Different Russellian monists offer varying accounts of the structural/non-structural distinction, leading to divergent forms of Russellian monism. In this paper, I criticise Derk Pereboom’s characterisation of the structural/non-structural distinction proposed in his Consciousness and the Prospects of Physicalism and further work. I argue that from Pereboom’s characterisation of structural and non-structural properties, one can formulate general metaphysical principles concerning what structural and non-structural (...) properties necessitate. These principles undermine the claim that non-structural properties – either alone or in combination with structural properties – necessitate phenomenal properties. Moreover, these principles are not affected by our supposed inability to conceive of non-structural properties in a manner conducive to the success of conceivability arguments. (shrink)

From the perspective of many philosophers of mind in these early years of the 21st Century, the debate between dualism and physicalism has seemed to have stalled, if not to have come to a complete standstill. There seems to be no way to settle the basic clash of intuitions that underlies it. Recently however, a growing number of proponents of Russellian monism have suggested that their view promises to show us a new way forward. Insofar as Russellian monism (...) might allow us to break out of the current gridlock, it's no wonder that it's become "hot stuff." To my mind, however, the excitement about Russellian monism is misplaced. Though some version of Russellian monism might well be true, I do not believe that it enables us to break free of the dualism/physicalism divide. As I will argue, once we properly understand what's required to flesh out an adequate monistic story, we will see that we are in an important way right back where we started. (shrink)

Note: The paper attached here is a "pre-review" version, not the final version that has now been published online first at the link below. -/- In “Nothing is True,” Will Gamester defends a form of alethic nihilism that still grants truth-talk a kind of legitimacy: an expressive role that is implemented via a pretense. He argues that this view has all of the strengths of deflationism, while also providing an elegant resolution of the Liar Paradox and its kin. For (...) the alethic nihilist, Liar and related sentences are not true, and that is the end of the story. No contradiction arises because it does not thereby follow that any of these sentences are also true, since nothing is. Gamester concludes that the simplicity of this response to the semantic paradoxes makes alethic nihilism an attractive approach. We disagree. In addition to providing insurmountable obstacles for his form of alethic nihilism, we contend that a certain form of non-nihilist deflationism is better placed to deal with the paradoxes and to account for truth-talk more generally. (shrink)

Between 1653 and 1655 Margaret Cavendish makes a radical transition in her theory of matter, rejecting her earlier atomism in favour of an infinitely-extended and infinitely-divisible material plenum, with matter being ubiquitously self-moving, sensing, and rational. It is unclear, however, if Cavendish can actually dispense of atomism. One of her arguments against atomism, for example, depends upon the created world being harmonious and orderly, a premise Cavendish herself repeatedly undermines by noting nature’s many disorders. I argue that her supposed difficulties (...) with atomism expose a deeper tension in her work between two fundamental metaphysical commitments each of which has substantial philosophical support: her monist theory of the material world (which maintains that there exists just one natural substance which is the single principal cause) and her occasional theory of causation (which requires multiple finite principal causes in nature -- causes that might be considered individual substances). Her monism undermines atomism while her theory of occasional cause seems to rest on a conception of nature that would be especially friendly to atomism. I argue further that we can solve this tension within a Cavendishian framework in such a way as to preserve her theory of causation and her monism, but that this solution depends upon our taking her monism in a particular (and weak) form. I finally note that we can best make sense of her unique and interesting form of monism by acknowledging her social-political motivations in addition to her motivations in natural philosophy. (shrink)

Monism is a metaphysical view according to which there is only one fundamental object. This paper will explore monism within the context of truthmaker theory, or Truthmaker Monism, a view rarely discussed in literature. Although few truthmaker theorists defend monism, at least explicitly, some theories seem to share the spirit of monism to some extent. Interestingly, they are proposed as solutions for the same problem, called the problem of negative truth. A close examination will show (...) that while each of these solutions can account for the problem, they are unsatisfactory for different reasons. This paper will suggest a novel solution to the problem of negative truth which preserves the advantages of existing solutions while avoiding the difficulties with which they are faced. (shrink)

Consequentialists often assume rational monism: the thesis that options are always made rationally permissible by the maximization of the selfsame quantity. This essay argues that consequentialists should reject rational monism and instead accept rational pluralism: the thesis that, on different occasions, options are made rationally permissible by the maximization of different quantities. The essay then develops a systematic form of rational pluralism which, unlike its rivals, is capable of handling both the Newcomb problems that challenge evidential decision theory (...) and the unstable problems that challenge causal decision theory. (shrink)

The intuitions at the core of environmental ethics and of other neglected value realms put pressure on traditional anthropocentric ethics based on monistic value theories. Such pressure is so severe that it has led many to give up on the idea of monistic value theories altogether. I argue that value monism is still preferable to value pluralism and that, indeed, these new challenges are opportunities to vastly improve impoverished traditional theories. I suggest an alternative monistic theory, Richness Theory, and (...) show how it provides an opportunity to capture the needs of both environmental ethics and of our traditional ethics. (shrink)

According to Russellian monism (RM), the quiddities which underlie the fundamental causal structure of the physical world are also responsible for the existence of phenomenal consciousness. This view has been argued to provide an attractive alternative to physicalism and dualism, but it is plagued by the so-called ‘combination problem’ – namely, the problem of explaining how the quiddities underlying the microphysical structure of a macroscopic conscious agent (e.g., a human being) combine together to constitute his or her phenomenal experiences. (...) In this paper, I will explore a type of monism that avoids the combination problem altogether. According to this view – which I shall call panquidditist monism – all causal roles, and not just the fundamental ones, stand in need of quiddities realizing them. Moreover, the quiddities that realize causal roles at one physical level should not in general be seen as grounded in, or otherwise derivative on, the quiddities that realize causal roles at lower levels. Crucial to the tenability of this view is a distinction between two varieties of grounding – one aiming to metaphysically explain the causal properties of various objects ‘from below’ (vertical grounding), the other aiming to metaphysically explaining them ‘from the inside’ (horizontal grounding). I will argue that, thanks to the distinction between vertical and horizontal grounds, panquidditist monism is well-placed to secure the advantages that RM promises – but, because of the combination problem, fails to deliver – vis-à-vis physicalism and dualism. (shrink)

Are the sculpture and the mass of gold which permanently makes it up one object or two? In this article, we argue that the monist, who answers ‘one object’, cannot accommodate the asymmetry of material constitution. To say ‘the mass of gold materially constitutes the sculpture, whereas the sculpture does not materially constitute the mass of gold’, the monist must treat ‘materially constitutes’ as an Abelardian predicate, whose denotation is sensitive to the linguistic context in which it appears. We motivate (...) this approach in terms of modal analyses of material constitution, but argue that ultimately it fails. The monist must instead accept a deflationary, symmetrical use of ‘materially constitutes’. We argue that this is a serious cost for her approach. (shrink)

Some alethic pluralists maintain that there are two kinds of truths operant in our alethic discourse: a realist kind and an anti-realist kind. In this paper, we argue that such a binary conception cannot accommodate certain social truths, specifically truths about race. Most alethic pluralists surprisingly overlook the status of racial truths. Douglas Edwards is, however, an exception. In his version of alethic pluralism—Determination Pluralism—racial truths are superassertible (anti-realist) true rather than correspondence (realist) true. We argue (...) that racial truths exhibit features of both superassertibility (anti-realism) and correspondence (realism). This suggests a fuzzy boundary between realist and anti-realist kinds of truth. There may be a continuum rather than a dichotomy of truths. We conclude by sketching one way for alethic pluralists to accommodate such a notion. (shrink)

Neutral monism is a position in metaphysics defended by Mach, James, and Russell in the early twentieth century. It holds that minds and physical objects are essentially two different orderings of the same underlying neutral elements of nature. This paper sets out some of the central concepts, theses and the historical background of ideas that inform this doctrine of elements. The discussion begins with the classic neutral monism of Mach, James, and Russell in the first part of the (...) paper, then considers recent neo-Russellian versions in the second half. The chances for a revival of neutral monism are probably slight; its key ideas and starting points lie far from those in contemporary philosophy of mind. A better route might be through the philosophy of science and a deeper understanding of causation. (shrink)

Deflationists believe that the question “What is truth?” should be answered not by means of a metaphysical inquiry into the nature of truth, but by figuring out what use we make of the concept of truth, and the word ‘true’, in practice. This article accepts this methodology, and it thereby rejects pluralism about truth that is driven by ontological considerations. However, it shows that there are practical considerations for a pluralism about truth, formulated at the level of use. The theory (...) expounded by this article states that truth is a dual-purpose tool; it can be used as a device for transferring justificatory burdens and, for select areas of discourse, it can also be used as a standard, a norm. This contrast in how truth is used introduces a bifurcation in our discourse that is reminiscent of metaphysical divides traced by more traditional versions of alethic pluralism. However, my pluralism “at the level of use” states that truth is plural solely at the level of use. It is unified at both the conceptual as well as the metaphysical level. At those levels, the theory takes its cue from deflationism. As such, this theory is offered as a midway point and as a potential way forward in the debate between deflationism and pluralism. (shrink)

Hilary Putnam spent much of his career criticizing the fact/value dichotomy, and this became apparent already during the phase when he defended internal realism. He later changed his epistemological and metaphysical view by endorsing natural realism, with the consequence of embracing alethic pluralism, the idea that truth works differently in various discourse domains. Despite these changes of mind in epistemology and in theory of truth, Putnam went on criticizing the fact/value dichotomy. However, alethic pluralism entails drawing distinctions among (...) discourse domains, especially between factual and nonfactual domains, and these distinctions are in tension with the rejection of the fact/value dichotomy, as this would in principle hinder factual domains as genuine. This issue raises, prima facie, some doubts about the effective compatibility of these views. (shrink)

Monism is the claim that only one object exists. While few contemporary philosophers endorse monism, it has an illustrious history – stretching back to Bradley, Spinoza and Parmenides. In this paper, I show that plausible assumptions about the higher-order logic of property identity entail that monism is true. Given the higher-order framework I operate in, this argument generalizes: it is also possible to establish that there is a single property, proposition, relation, etc. I then show why this (...) form of monism is inconsistent; because all propositions are identical, p is identical to ~p – and so they have the same truth-value. At least one of the assumptions that generate higher-order monism must be rejected. (shrink)

Let ‘monism’ be the view that there is only one basic object—the world. Monists face the question of whether there are also non-basic objects. This is in effect the question of whether the world decomposes into parts. Jonathan Schaffer maintains that it does, Terry Horgan and Matjaž Potrč that it does not. In this paper, I propose a compromise view, which I call ‘Kantian monism.’ According to Kantian monism, the world decomposes into parts insofar as an ideal (...) subject under ideal conditions would divide it into parts, but it does not decompose into parts in and of itself, that is, in an entirely mind-independent manner. After articulating Kantian monism more precisely (Section 1), I present a prima facie case for preferring it over more standard varieties of monism (Section 2). (shrink)

Some say the swamping problem confronts all who believe that true belief is the sole fundamental epistemic value. This, I say, is mistaken. The problem only confronts T-Monists if they grant two teleological claims: that all derived epistemic value is instrumental, and that it is the state of believing truly rather than the standard of truth in belief that is fundamentally epistemically valuable. T-Monists should reject and, and appeal to a non-teleological form of value derivation I call Fitting Response Derivation (...) that obviates swamping. Since, alas, simple reliabilists can’t apply this model to knowledge, the problem remains for them, and is local. (shrink)

Logical monism is the view that there is ‘One True Logic’. This is the default position, against which pluralists react. If there were not ‘One True Logic’, it is hard to see how there could be one true theory of anything. A theory is closed under a logic! But what is logical monism? In this article, I consider semantic, logical, modal, scientific, and metaphysical proposals. I argue that, on no ‘factualist’ analysis (according to which ‘there is One True (...) Logic’ expresses a factual claim, rather than an attitude like approval), does the doctrine have both metaphysical and methodological import. Metaphysically, logics abound. Methodologically, what to infer from what is not settled by the facts, even the normative ones. I conclude that the only interesting sense in which there could be One True Logic is noncognitive. The same may be true of monism about normative areas, like moral, epistemic, and prudential ones, generally. (shrink)

Scholars have often thought that a monistic reading of Aristotle’s definition of the human good – in particular, one on which “best and most teleios virtue” refers to theoretical wisdom – cannot follow from the premises of the ergon argument. I explain how a monistic reading can follow from the premises, and I argue that this interpretation gives the correct rationale for Aristotle’s definition. I then explain that even though the best and most teleios virtue must be a single virtue, (...) that virtue could in principle be a whole virtue that arises from the combination of all the others. I also clarify that the definition of the human good aims at capturing the nature of human eudaimonia only in its primary case. (shrink)

Mitchell & Gronenborn propose that we account for the presence of multiple models of protein structure, each produced in different contexts, through the framework of integrative pluralism. I argue that two interpretations of this framework are available, neither of which captures the relationship between a model and the protein structure it represents or between multiple models of protein structure. Further, it inclines us toward concluding prematurely that models of protein structure are right in their contexts and makes extrapolation of findings (...) from one context to another seem unwarranted. Instead, protein structure determination ought to be understood as modestly monistic. There is one model for every protein in each physicochemical context, and models of the same protein produced in different contexts are compatible with one another. ‘Integrating’ multiple models amounts to extrapolating from one context to another; this is possible because the effect of context on protein folding is relatively weak and predictable. Modest monism better describes the practice of protein structure determination than integrative pluralism and enables greater attention to how context affects protein folding. (shrink)

An old question in Spinoza scholarship is how finite, non-eternal things transitively caused by other finite, non-eternal things (i. e., the entities described in propositions like E1p28) are caused by the infinite, eternal substance, given that what follows either directly or indirectly from the divine nature is infinite and eternal (E1p21–23). In “Spinoza’s Monism I,” “Spinoza’s Monism I,” in the previous issue of this journal. I pointed out that most commentators answer this question by invoking entities that are (...) indefinite and sempiternal, but argued that perhaps we should not be so quick to assume that in Spinoza’s system, an infinite and eternal substance could cause such indefinite, sempiternal entities. But if such eternal-durational causation is denied, then it seems harder to see how Spinoza’s system could be coherent: if Spinoza holds that the infinite, eternal substance cannot cause anything that is not infinite and not eternal, then how can he also hold that all things are modes immanently caused by substance (E1p15, E1p18, E1p25)? In this essay, I explain how Spinoza’s system could be understood in light of a denial of eternal-durational causation. On the interpretation I offer, God is the cause of all things and all things are modes because the essences of all things follow from the divine nature and all essences enjoy infinite, eternal reality as modes immanently caused by the infinite, eternal substance. The same non-substantial essences can also be conceived as enjoying non-infinite, non-eternal reality, but so conceived, they are enduring, finite (or sempiternal, indefinite) entities that cannot be conceived as modes caused by and inhering in the one infinite, eternal substance. I conclude by pointing out that if we take this interpretive route, we do have to understand Spinoza as committed to acosmism, or a denial of the reality of the world – at least the world of enduring, finite things. (shrink)

I use the principle of truth-maker maximalism to provide a new solution to the semantic paradoxes. According to the solution, AUS, its undecidable whether paradoxical sentences are grounded or ungrounded. From this it follows that their alethic status is undecidable. We cannot assert, in principle, whether paradoxical sentences are true, false, either true or false, neither true nor false, both true and false, and so on. AUS involves no ad hoc modification of logic, denial of the T-schema's validity, or (...) obvious revenge. (shrink)

Freud introduces his dualistic theory of the life and death drives in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Much of that essay is devoted to the justification of the death drive, while little is said in defense of the introduction of “life drives” and “Eros,” which he claims are simply an extension of his libido theory from the psychological into the biological realm. In this essay, I argue that Eros is, on the contrary, fundamentally incompatible with Freud’s metapsychology. I first show that (...) Freud’s theory of society permits the production and preservation of social bonds only through the restraint of sexual aims rather than, as the theory of Eros would require, through the satisfaction of sexual drives. I then demonstrate that Eros is incompatible with three key elements of Freud’s metapsychology: the theories of the drives, the pleasure principle, and the principle of constancy. Finally, I argue that the death drive is indistinguishable from the early and late theories of the principle of constancy. Consequently, it is the death drive, and not Eros, that is merely an extension of the original libido theory. Because Eros is incompatible with the very foundations of Freud’s metapsychology, his drive theory can only consistently be interpreted as a monism of the death drive. (shrink)

During his Jena period, Fichte endorses a curious dictum: ‘the kind of philosophy one chooses depends on the kind of person one is’. How can Fichte’s dictum support a vindication of German idealism over Spinozism, which he also calls ‘dogmatism’? I will show that the answer to this seemingly straightforward question reveals a rather complex series of metametaphysical objections that shape the development of the entire German idealist tradition. Ultimately, as I will suggest, the series of metametaphysical questions that shape (...) the German idealist tradition must culminate in the question of how to understand the relation between philosophy and its presuppositions. I will conclude by briefly considering a hermeneutical response to this question. (shrink)

In Truth and Objectivity, Crispin Wright argues that because truth is a distinctively normative property, it cannot be as metaphysically insubstantive as deflationists claim.1 This argument has been taken, together with the scope problem,2 as one of the main motivations for alethic pluralism.3 We offer a reconstruction of Wright’s Inflationary Argument (henceforth IA) aimed at highlighting what are the steps required to establish its inflationary conclusion. We argue that if a certain metaphysical and epistemological view of a given subject (...) matter is accepted, a local counterexample to IA can be constructed. We focus on the domain of basic taste and we develop two variants of a subjectivist and relativist metaphysics and epistemology that seems palatable in that domain. Although we undertake no commitment to this being the right metaphysical cum epistemological package for basic taste, we contend that if the metaphysics and the epistemology of basic taste are understood along these lines, they call for a truth property whose nature is not distinctively normative—contra what IA predicts. This result shows that the success of IA requires certain substantial metaphysical and epistemological principles and that, consequently, a proper assessment of IA cannot avoid taking a stance on the metaphysics and the epistemology of the domain where it is claimed to be successful. Although we conjecture that IA might succeed in other domains, in this paper we don’t take a stand on this issue. We conclude by briefly discussing the significance of this result for the debate on alethic pluralism. (shrink)

Priority monism is the view that the cosmos is the basic concrete entity on which each of its parts depend. Kovacs has recently argued that none of the classical notions of dependence could be used to spell out priority monism. I argue that four notions of dependence – namely rigid existential dependence, generic existential dependence, explanatory dependence, and generalised explanatory dependence – can indeed be used to spell out priority monism, and specify the conditions under which this (...) is possible. (shrink)

Russellian monism—an influential doctrine proposed by Russell (The analysis of matter, Routledge, London, 1927/1992)—is roughly the view that physics can only ever tell us about the causal, dispositional, and structural properties of physical entities and not their categorical (or intrinsic) properties, whereas our qualia are constituted by those categorical properties. In this paper, I will discuss the relation between Russellian monism and a seminal paradox facing epiphenomenalism, the paradox of phenomenal judgment: if epiphenomenalism is true—qualia are causally inefficacious—then (...) any judgment concerning qualia, including epiphenomenalism itself, cannot be caused by qualia. For many writers, including Hawthorne (Philos Perspect 15:361–378, 2001), Smart (J Conscious Stud 11(2):41–50, 2004), and Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson (The philosophy of mind and cognition, Blackwell, Malden, 2007), Russellian monism faces the same paradox as epiphenomenalism does. I will assess Chalmers’s (The conscious mind: in search of a fundamental theory. Oxford University Press, New York, 1996) and Seager’s (in: Beckermann A, McLaughlin BP (eds) The Oxford handbook of philosophy of mind. Oxford University Press, New York, 2009) defences of Russellian monism against the paradox, and will put forward a novel argument against those defences. (shrink)

Alethism is the view that successful remembering only requires an accurate representation of a past event. It opposes the truth-and-authenticity view, according to which successful remembering requires both an accurate representation of a past event and an accurate representation of a past experience of that event. Alethism is able to handle problematic cases faced by the truth-and-authenticity view, but it faces an important challenge of its own: If successful remembering only requires accurately representing past events, then how is it possible (...) that our memories are also experienced as originating in past experiences of those events? I call this the puzzle of alethic memory. I argue that alethism can be reconciled with the claim that memories are experienced as originating in past experiences of those events—what I call the experience of first-handedness—if we conceive of the phenomenology of remembering in metacognitive terms. According to the metacognitive approach that I favor, the phenomenology of remembering is partly explained by what memory represents and partly explained by the existence of a metacognitive feeling that accompanies memory representations. I argue that accounting for the feeling of first-handedness in terms of the metacognitive feeling that accompanies memory representations allows us to solve the puzzle of alethic memory. (shrink)

According to “existence monism,” there is only one concrete particular, the cosmos as a whole (Horgan and Potrč 2000, 2008). According to “priority monism,” there are many concrete particulars, but all are ontologically dependent upon the cosmos as a whole, which accordingly is the only fundamental concrete particular (Schaffer 2010a, 2010b). In essence, the difference between them is that existence monism does not recognize any parts of the cosmos, whereas priority monism does – it just insists (...) that the parts are ontologically dependent upon the whole in this case. Brentano never maintained either of these views. But in the last two years of his life, he seems to have held the following approximation: there is only one physical substance, namely, the material universe as a whole. This is twice removed from existence or priority monism: first, it allows for a plurality of mental substances (souls); secondly, it allows for a plurality of physical accidents, which in Brentano’s reistic ontology are also concrete particulars. Still, the view that the only physical substance is the universe as a whole is quite radical and finds little precedent in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

Neutral monism aims at solving the hard problem of consciousness by positing entities that are neither mental nor physical. Benovsky has recently argued for the slightly different account that, rather than being neutral, natural entities are both mental and physical by having different aspects, and then argued in favour of an anti-realist interpretation of those aspects. In this essay, operating under the assumption of dual-aspect monism, I argue to the contrary in favour of a realist interpretation of these (...) aspects by showing that the anti-realist interpretation collapses into neutral monism and that the realist interpretation is an interesting alternative. I close with a discussion of the realist interpretation of the aspects and its relation with panpsychism. (shrink)

Steinberg has recently proposed an argument against Schaffer’s priority monism. The argument assumes the principle of Necessity of Monism, which states that if priority monism is true, then it is necessarily true. In this paper, I argue that Steinberg’s objection can be eluded by giving up Necessity of Monism for an alternative principle, that I call Essentiality of Fundamentality, and that such a principle is to be preferred to Necessity of Monism on other grounds as (...) well. (shrink)