Recently, I was reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: Background Source Materials, and read selections from Wolff, Baumgarten, Crusius, and Kant's own teacher, Martin Knutzen. It was dope - real philosophical comfort food - and inspired this piece, written in the style of one of their textbooks.

This paper provides an annotated list of printed editions of Aristotle’s Metaphysica Nova, i.e. of the Arabic-Latin 13th-century version of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, which circulated within the Latin translation of Averroes’ Commentarium Magnum (Tafsīr mā baʿd al-ṭabīʿat). It is shown that this version – the impact of which was second to none –was never printed without at least one Greek-into-Latin version. From the 1473 editio princeps to the 1562 Iunctasedition, complementary material from the Greek into Latin and from the Arabic (...) into Latin Aristotelian traditions was increasingly added. Links to relevant digital reproductions are also provided. (shrink)

Y a-t-il des Idées et peut-on démontrer qu’elles existent ? Parmi les protagonistes anciens de la controverse qui a opposé partisans et adversaires des Idées, Aristote mérite une attention toute particulière. De fait, si – au moment où Aristote intervient dans le débat autour de l’hypothèse des Idées – ce débat a déjà une histoire, c’est avec lui que cette histoire atteint une maturité qui est à la fois d’ordre doctrinal et doxographique. De fait, non seulement Aristote est le premier (...) à avoir défini certaines au moins des propriétés de ce qui est et se dit en commun de plusieurs, mais encore a-t-il pris soin d’inscrire ces définitions dans la continuité de l’héritage socratique dont il s’est explicitement revendiqué tout en dénonçant sa dérive aux mains des successeurs de Socrate. L’objectif principal du cycle de conférences a été d’étudier les objections qu’Aristote a formulées à l’encontre des partisans des Idées en prenant comme fil conducteur la notion de substance que sa discussion des Formes platoniciennes tantôt présuppose, tantôt mobilise explicitement. Pour ce faire, nous avons procédé à une lecture détaillée d’un certain nombre de documents, tirés aussi bien de ses écrits d’école que des vestiges de ses traités perdus, où Aristote rejette la notion d’un universel substantiel (autant dire, en l’occurrence, séparé) et s’efforce de mettre à mal les arguments que ses partisans avançaient pour prouver son existence. (shrink)

The article studies historically and systematically one of the most important aspects of Suárez’s metaphysics: the actualism, which consists in a reinterpretation of the Aristotelian doctrine of potency and act, which rejects the potency in its own sense and replaces it by the idea of an actuated potency (i.e., possessing an own being).

This paper addresses the ontological status of the ontological categories as defended within E.J. Lowe’s four-category ontology (kinds, objects, properties/relations, and modes). I consider the arguments in Griffith (2015. “Do Ontological Categories Exist?” Metaphysica 16 (1):25–35) against Lowe’s claim that ontological categories do not exist, and argue that Griffith’s objections to Lowe do not work once we fully take advantage of ontological resources available within Lowe’s four-category ontology. I then argue that the claim that ontological categories do not exist (...) has no undesirable consequences for Lowe’s brand of realism. (shrink)

First two paragraphs of the article, in lieu of an abstract: “What I am going to discuss in terms of response and responsivity is not just a special1kind of behavior with respect to the Other. Responding has rather to be understood as the genuine way in which we encounter the alien as alien. It will be shown that the experience of the Other, i.e., what Husserl calls Fremderfahrung, requires a new sort of responsive phenomenology. This kind of responsive phenomenology goes (...) beyond the traditional form of intentional phenomenology just as much as it leaves behind every sort of hermeneutics. Responding means more than intending or understanding. [note 1] In what follows I shall unfold some of the main features to be ascribed to responsive phenomenology, and in doing so I shall proceed in the following way. After having made some general remarks about the actual and the historical background of the alien, I shall first say something about the different meanings of the alien (Fremde) and about the place of the alien in our experience. The second part leads us to a turning-point where responsivity diverges from the basic underlying presuppositions to the phenomenology of intentional acts and to the hermeneutic interpretation of texts. In a third step I shall outline the key concepts of demand and response. I shall conclude by presenting some features of what I call logic of response.” Note 1: N.B. This text was first published as a Japanese version in Metaphysica: The Journal of Philosophy and Ethics (Dept. of Philosophy, Faculty of Letters, Osaka) 27 (1996), 1-15. A German version was published under the title “Antwort auf das Fremde: Grundzüge einer responsive Phänomenologie” in B. Waldenfels & I. Datmann (Eds.). Der Anspruch des Anderen: PerspekJiven phtinomenologischer Ethik. München: W. Fink., 1998. The English translation is based on a first draft made by Robb E. Eason, C. Edward Emmer, and Evan M. Selinger and revised by the author. (shrink)

Schon am Anfang seiner Lehrtätigkeit war Kant kritisch gegenüber den gängigen Definitionen der Philosophie, weil er bereits eine eigene Reform der Metaphysik entworfen hatte. Um diese These zu zu stützen, beschäftigt sich der Beitrag mit Kants Behandlung von Martin Knutzens Definition der Philosophie und dem dritten Teil von Kants Schrift Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicae nova dilucidatio (1755), die zwei neue metaphysische Grundsätze enthält. Mit ihrer innovativen Theorie von Zeit und Raum liefern «der Satz der Aufeinanderfolge» und «der Satz des Zugleichseins» (...) eine neue Begründung der Psychologie und Kosmologie, die eine Alternative zur Theorie des physischen Einflusses sowie zu Leibniz’ vorherbestimmter Harmonie darstellen. Kants Theorie einer allgemein begründeten Harmonie wird somit als ein Versuch vorgestellt, die Grundsätze der Metaphysik zu erneuern, um die Bestimmung der Philosophie als Wissenschaft von den Gründen der Dinge im Vergleich zum zeitgenössischen Rationalismus besser zu rechtfertigen. (shrink)

Die 1755 verfasste Schrift Principiorum primorum cognitionis metaphysicae nova dilucidatio enthält eine Bestimmung der Willensfreiheit, die ein konsequentes Ergebnis der relevanten Erneuerung im Rahmen der Ontologie der ersten Philosophie Kants darstellt. Mein Beitrag betrifft insbesondere die in der Schrift geführte Auseinandersetzung mit Crusius, dessen Wertschätzung im Vergleich mit der Wolff’schen Schule Kant nicht daran hindert, zwei Hauptlehren seines Ansatzes zu kritisieren. Erstens sieht Kant eine Beziehung zwischen dem Freiheitsbegriff und dem Satz des zureichenden Grundes vor, die wichtige Elemente der Ethik (...) von Crusius in Frage stellt. Zweitens wendet er sich gegen Crusius’ Theorie der Spontaneität, indem er dessen Verteidigung der Willkürfreiheit als Gleichgültigkeit wie beim Gleichgewicht kritisiert. (shrink)

Wenn überhaupt in einem Gebiet Wahrheit und Existenz unabhängig von unseren Erkenntnisfähigkeiten sind, dann in der Metaphysik – etwa bei der Frage, ob es Gott gibt oder eine Seele, die unseren Tod überdauert. Die metaphysica specialis schreit geradezu nach metaphysischem Realismus und dem zugehörigen Wahrheitsbegriff. Von diesem Ausgangspunkt gerät man allerdings schnell in Verlegenheit, wenn man fragt: Nach welchen Kriterien sollen wir uns richten, wenn wir uns über Gott oder Unsterblichkeit ein Urteil bilden wollen? Mit den Mitteln der Naturwissenschaft (...) und deren rationaler Methodologie (in der es um Empirie, Einfachheit, Sparsamkeit usw. geht) kommen wir bei Themen wie Gott oder Unsterblichkeit immer nur bis zum Patt. Genauso steht es bei der Frage, ob wir in unseren Entscheidungen frei sind. Urteilsenthaltung können wir uns nicht erlauben, dafür sind die metaphysischen Fragen zu wichtig; Auslosen kommt auch nicht infrage. Statt erkenntnistheoretisch zu kapitulieren, schlage ich programmatisch vor, die Erkenntnislehre auf weichere Weise weiterzubetreiben. Emotion, Intuition, Moral – das sind einige der zusätzlichen außerrationalen Hilfsmittel, mit deren Hilfe wir weiterkommen können. Ich zeige, dass diese Hilfsmittel respektabler und gewichtiger sind, als kühle, rationale Erkenntnistheoretiker zugeben wollen. Diese Hilfsmittel führen zu guten Postulaten aus Unvernunft (und zwar nicht nur in der Metaphysik). Wie schlimm es für den Realismus ist, dass diese Postulate immer noch falsch sein könnten, diese Frage werde ich im vorliegenden Aufsatz nicht mehr klären. (shrink)

In this essay, our goal is to discover science in Martin Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics, lecture notes for his 1935 summer semester course, because, after all, his subject is metaphysica generalis, or ontology, and this could be construed as a theory of the human brain. Here, by means of verbatim quotes from his text, we attempt to show that indeed these lectures can be viewed as suggestion for an objective scientific theory of human perception, the human capacity for deciphering (...) phenomena, ie. hermeneutics in its broadest sense. His added notes from the 1953 edition, all of which are comments, not corrections, imply that he never abandoned these thoughts on metaphysics, despite all of his utterances about a need to overcome it, and their popular interpretations to that effect. In his presentation, he further develops the colorful and intuitive style, an hermeneutic language, that he had created in his earlier work Being and Time. Of human existence he speaks in such expressions as being-there -- ``Dasein" -- and being-in-the-world, the latter term no longer explicit in the 1935 lectures. The lectures can be read as a pre-scientific analysis of how man, being-there, perceives his environment, artfully managing to deal with the manifold challenges posed by the phenomenal structures of the universe. Man attentively recognizes and deciphers their pre-linguistic contents and, while trying to make sense of it all, puts into words his awareness. There are numerous passages in Heidegger's work where he in fairly concrete terms provides us with hints for a perceptive science that, as it turns out and is demonstrated below in this essay, can be explained in terms of recent advances in neuroscience. It would be implausible, even unthinkable, unimaginable, for there not to be found essential agreement between on one hand his philosophical insights gained by hermeneutics of Dasein, into how our brain functions to let us know what's happening & on the other hand, scientific discoveries obtained through anatomy, EEG, fMRI, TMS, electrode implants, etc, of brain structures & functions employed in perception of the momentary scene. A nexus between science and philosophy is provided in Heidegger's definitive treatment of the Logos, here interpreted as a structural version of Platonic forms (Burchard, 2014). This allows for neurolinguistic brain functions to serve as meta-context for Heidegger's being-in-the-world. The logical functions of Dasein's anatomical brain are performed by the logos machine, formerly the human soul, using top-down processing based on a global context, the noumenal cosmos which humans maintain internally. Heidegger's 1942/43 winter semester lectures Parmenides extend in unbroken fashion his 1935 work, proving that he never abandoned, as is widely claimed, his metaphysical avenue of thought. (shrink)

Sprachliche Ausdrücke, mit deren Hilfe wir Spiele beschreiben und vorantreiben, sind in ihrer Verwendungsweise so vielfältig wie kaum irgendwelche anderen Ausdrücke. Und sie haben eine Eigenschaft, die man mit dem Thema Spiel eher nicht in Verbindung bringen würde: Sie eignen sich dazu, auf substantive Weise Metaphysik zu treiben oder wieder ingangzubringen. Diese Art der Starthilfe hat die jahrtausendealte Metaphysik (metaphysica specialis) neuerdings nötig. Seit knapp hundert Jahren steht sie im Verdacht, auf nichts besseres hinauszulaufen als leeres, unverständliches Wortgeklingel. Wer (...) diesen sprachphilosophischen Verdacht auszuräumen wünscht, tut gut daran, unverdächtige Redebereiche zu bemühen. In der Tat, mithilfe unserer höchst robusten, völlig alltäglichen Rede vom Spielen und beim Spielen können wir tiefe metaphysische Möglichkeiten verständlich machen, etwa die Möglichkeit einer Wirklichkeit jenseits oder oberhalb des Bereichs derjenigen Wirklichkeit, die wir Natur oder physisches Universum nennen. Dazu betrachte ich ein philosophisches Gedankenspiel (das den Matrix-Filmen zugrundeliegt und all unsere Wissensansprüche zu unterminieren scheint): Wir sind Gehirne im Tank, d.h. wir haben keinen vollständigen menschlichen Körper, sondern nur ein Gehirn, das in einem Tank mit Nährflüssigkeit schwebt; die Nerven-Enden dieser Gehirne sind mit einem Supercomputer verbunden, der uns die Illusion verschafft, dass alles in Ordnung sei. Hiergegen hat Hilary Putnam folgende sprachphilosophische Schwierigkeit aufgeworfen: Wie soll ein Gehirn im Tank seine eigene Situation treffend auf den Punkt bringen, wenn doch seine Ausdrücke "Tiger", "Gehirn", "Tank" usw. allesamt nicht mit echten Tigern, Gehirnen usw. verknüpft sind, sondern mit Nullen und Einsen im Computer? Putnam trieb diese Schwierigkeit bis an den Punkt, an dem sich zweifelsfrei beweisen lässt, dass wir keine Gehirne im Tank sein können. Und da hatte er meiner Ansicht nach recht. Wie ich meine, sollten wir uns nicht darüber den Kopf zerbrechen, ob wir ein Gehirn im Tank sind, sondern darüber, ob wir in einer analogen Situation stecken, um eine Ebene nach oben verschoben. Um die Metaphern dieser Formulierung des Problems auszupacken, setze ich Spielvokabeln ein. Wegen ihrer atemberaubenden Flexibilität brauchen sie (im Unterschied zur naturwissenschaftlichen Sprache) bei Übersetzung aus der Tanksprache in unsere Sprache nicht verändert zu werden; solche Ausdrücke heißen semantisch stabil. Mit ihrer Hilfe können wir gravierende metaphysische Möglichkeiten aufwerfen, z.B.: "Jemand, der nicht aus Materie besteht und nicht in meinem physischen Universum vorkommt, treibt mit mir von außerhalb seine Machtspielchen". Damit beziehen wir uns vielleicht auf die außerirdische Programmiererin der Simulation, in der wir möglicherweise doch stecken. Weniger respektlos formuliert, wäre das die Frage eines allmächtigen Schöpfergottes außerhalb unserer physikalischen Raumzeit: Metaphysik pur. (shrink)

After an initial premise of historical contextualization, the article presents Suárez’s theory of matter, contained above all in the Disputatio metaphysica XIII, as a renewal and conceptual and terminological improvement of the Scotist theory of prime matter exposed in Lectura II, d. 12. Based on the Scotist idea of matter as aliquid (something) endowed with a positive entitas in so far as founded on the theological notion of creation, Suárez elaborates a new ontological statute of matter, of a non-Aristotelian (...) nature, on new theoretical bases: the hipostatization of the prime matter, the immediate inhesion of the quantity on matter, the loss of unity of the material substance (and the appeal of the mode of substantial union to remedy it) and the distinction between entitative extension and quantitative extension. (shrink)

This is a supplement to our book "Le tribolazioni del filosofare. Comedia metaphysica ne la quale si tratta de li errori & de le pene de l’Infero". It features an entirely new canto of the poem (originally thought to be lost) along with an extensive commentary. The canto covers the first ring of the circle of the Sullen, which hosts the Adverse to the Possible, and deals with several philosophical questions concerning the metaphysics of modality.

At the opening of Spinoza’s Ethics, we find the three celebrated definitions of substance, attribute, and God: E1d3: By substance I understand what is in itself and is conceived through itself, i.e., that whose concept does not require the concept of another thing, from which it must be formed [Per substantiam intelligo id quod in se est et per se concipitur; hoc est id cujus conceptus non indiget conceptu alterius rei, a quo formari debeat]. E1d4: By attribute I understand what (...) the intellect perceives of a substance, as constituting its essence [Per attributum intelligo id, quod intellectus de substantia percipit, tanquam ejusdem essentiam constituens]. E1d6: By God I understand a being absolutely infinite, that is, a substance consisting of an infinity of attributes, of which each one expresses an eternal and infinite essence We are accustomed to think of these paramount definitions as a fixed and settled formulation of the core of Spinoza’s metaphysics, but if we look at the development of Spinoza’s thought, the picture we get is quite different. In the early drafts of the Ethics and in his early works, Spinoza seems to have experimented with various conceptualizations of the relations between substance, attribute, and God. Some of Spinoza’s works make barely any use of the notions of substance and attribute, and the testimony of Spinoza’s letters suggests that, at a certain stage in his philosophical development, the concept of attribute may have been put on the back burner, if not completely dropped. Indeed, another closely related concept—accident [accidens]—was fated to be pulled out of the system (and for good reasons ). The final version of the Ethics makes hardly any use of this notion, but Spinoza’s letters show that in early drafts of the Ethics he used the term ‘accident’ to refer to what cannot be or be conceived without substance. In this paper I will attempt to provide a brief outline of the genealogy of Spinoza’s key metaphysical concepts. This genealogy, like any other, can help us to reexamine and reconsider what seems to us natural, stable and obvious. In the first part of the paper, I rely on Spinoza’s letters to trace the development of his definitions of substance and attribute in the early drafts of the Ethics. The letters, whose dates are more or less established, also provide a temporal grid for our subsequent discussions. The second part surveys Spinoza’s discussion and conceptualization of substance and attributes in the Treatise on the Emendation of the Intellect, the Theological-Political Treatise (1670), and briefly, Spinoza’s 1663 book on Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy, and its appendix on Metaphysical Thoughts, the Cogitata Metaphysica. The third part of the paper is dedicated to Spinoza’s understanding of substance and attribute in the Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being. I conclude with some remarks on the stability of Spinoza’s final position on the issue, as expressed in the published version of the Ethics . (shrink)

With the third volume, it is invited to enter the intellectual environment of Aristotle. The most relevant sources are given in full (with English translation), so that the commentary is also a reader documenting the disputationes metaphysicae of the 4th century BC. For the undeniable contradictions in the Metaphysics, a new genetic explanation is offered.

This essay focuses on the relation between man and the world in Kant’s anthropology. Within Baumgarten’s Metaphysica, used as a manual by Kant for his lessons, empirical psychology is situated between cosmology and rational psychology. However, this view is untenable for Kant, at least after the first Critique. Consequently, whereas Baumgarten explains, for instance, obscure ideas referring to the bodily position in the world, Kant’s pragmatic approach excludes this. Yet, the concept of «Welt» retains paramount importance within Kant’s Anthropology. (...) The two parts of the work are thus harmonically linked: the first offers an account of a largely pathological human psychology; the second a way out of the pathology through the construction of a social and historical human world. Accordingly, anthropology responds to the «Weltbegriff» of philosophy and helps to correct the deviations from the final rational destination of mankind. (shrink)

In 1597 Francisco Suárez published a comprehensive treatise on beings of reason (entia rationis) as part of his Disputationes metaphysicae. Subsequent scholastic philosophers vigorously debated various aspects of Suárez’s theory. The aim of this paper is to identify some of the most controversial points of these debates, as they developed in the first half of the seventeenth century. In particular, I focus on the intension and the extension of ‘ens rationis’, its division (into negations, privations and relations of reason) and (...) its causes. Additionally, I will discuss how Suárez’s views sparked a number of debates within the classical view, debates which ultimately led to the emergence of various alternative theories, especially among the Jesuits. These non-classical views radically revise the previous classical conception of beings of reason. (shrink)

Dialectica: Mathematica and Physica, Truth and Justice, Trick and Life. Mathematica as the Constructive Metaphysica and Ontology. Mathematica as the constructive existential method. Сonsciousness and Mathematica: Dialectica of "eidos" and "logos". Mathematica is the Total Dialectica. The basic maternal Structure - "La Structure mère". Mathematica and Physica: loss of existential certainty. Is effectiveness of Mathematica "unreasonable"? The ontological structure of space. Axiomatization of the ontological basis of knowledge: one axiom, one principle and one mathematical object. The main ideas and (...) concepts of the ontological construction/ "Point with a vector germ" and "heavenly triangle". "Ordo geometricus" and "Ordo onto-topological". Architecture of the onto-topological basis of knowledge: general framework structure, carcass and foundation. The absolute space and the absolute field. The absolute (natural) system of coordinates of Universum. Eidos of "idea of ideas", the symbol and the "formula of Justice". (shrink)

Il discorso moderno e contemporaneo sulla soggettività prende le mosse dall'opera di René Descartes (1596-1650), universalmente considerato l'iniziatore della filosofia moderna. Improntata ad un severo meccanicismo, la filosofia di Descartes nasce come un tentativo di sostituzione della fisica aristotelica nel curriculum universitario dell’epoca. La fisica, secondo l'ordine degli studi delle università a cavallo fra ‘500 e ‘600, costituito dalle discipline filosofiche e letterarie del trivio e del quadrivio, e da quelle superiori di medicina, diritto e teologia, doveva servire quale premessa (...) per una teoria dell’uomo e dell’essere – trattata seguendo il De anima e la Metaphysica di Aristotele – volta a fornire agli studi superiori strumenti concettuali adeguati ai loro fini. […]. (shrink)

This work sheds light on the presence of Aristotelian elements in Augustine’s early works, which was more substantial than what it is usually believed. In fact, the young African rhetorician did not only know Aristotle’s Categoriae, which he read when he was a student in Carthage, but also other works by him, such as his De interpretatione, already translated into Latin at Augustine’s time, as well as Aristotelian-inspired works. That is the case of Themistius’s paraphrases of Aristotle’s Analytica and his (...) commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysica, which Augustine knew well, especially with regard to book IV. Moreover, Augustine knew the De mundo by Apuleius, who perhaps was also the author of a Peri hermeneias, and who translated during the second century several Aristotelian-inspired works on various natural topics. Moreover, Augustine read the summaries of Plotinus’s Enneades, translated into Latin by Marius Victorinus, and Cicero’s Hortensius, which constitutes a commentary on Aristotle’s De interpretatione. (shrink)

El artículo presenta la obra principal del pensamiento kantiano como una propedéutica de la metafísica, es decir, como una disquisición previa y metódica que procura sentar las bases para la construcción de un sistema metafísico. Por ello, se indica en principio la evolución del concepto de metafísica. Posteriormente, se contextualiza la situación difícil que vivía esta disciplina en la época del filósofo. Luego, se aborda el proyecto de su filosofía trascendental. Por último, se menciona la polémica sobre las interpretaciones más (...) relevantes de la Crítica de la razón pura en el siglo XX. (shrink)

Elephants need no less than twenty-two months. But what are elephants in comparison with reason, whose incubation took more than twenty-three centuries, beginning with the dawn of western philosophy in the sixth century BCE and ending in Leibniz’s formulation of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Carraud’s fascinating book tells the story of the very last stages of this Heideggerian plot, which is also the story of the rise and fall of the efficient cause in early modern philosophy and of the (...) rehabilitation of the final cause. The chronological frame of the book is roughly the century between Suarez’s Disputationes metaphysicae and Leibniz’s De rerum originatione radicali and Les 24 thèses métaphysiques. (shrink)

Este livro é inestimável como uma sinopse de algumas das obras de um dos maiores filósofos dos últimos tempos. Há muito valor em analisar suas respostas às confusões básicas da filosofia, e em tentativas geralmente excelentes de conectar o pensamento clássico chinês com a filosofia moderna. Eu tenho uma visão moderna de Wittgensteiniano para colocá-lo em perspectiva. Aqueles que querem uma estrutura completa até o momento para o comportamento humano do ponto de vista moderno de dois sistemas podem consultar meus (...) livros Talking Monkeys 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle 2nd ed (2019), Suicídio pela Democracia 4a ed (2019), Estrutura Lógica do Comportamento Humano (2019), A Estrutura Lógica da Consciência (2019), Entendendo as Conexões Entre Ciência, Filosofia, Psicologia, Religião, Política e Economia (2019), Delírios Utópicos Suicidas no século XXI (2019), Observações sobre Impossibilidade, Incompletude, Paraconsistência, Indecidabilidade, Alealeitividade, Computabilidade, Informática, Paradoxo e Incerteza em Chaitin, Wittgenstein, Hofstadter, Wolpert, Doria, Doria, da Costa , Godel, Searle, Rodych Berto, Floyd, Moyal-Sharrock e Yanofsky (2019) e outros. (shrink)

I criticize Bourget’s intuitive and empirical arguments for thinking that all possible conscious states are underived if intentional. An underived state is one of which it is not the case that it must be realized, at least in part, by intentional states distinct from itself. The intuitive argument depends upon a thought experiment about a subject who exists for only a split second while undergoing a single conscious experience. This, however, trades on an ambiguity in "split second." Meanwhile, Bourget's empirical (...) argument is question-begging. My critique also has implications for debates about the essential temporality and unity of consciousness experience, and, phenomenal atomism. (shrink)

The standard philosophical analysis of counterfactual conditionals—the Lewis-Stalnaker analysis—analyzes the truth-conditions of counterfactuals in terms of nearby possible worlds. This paper demonstrates that this analysis is false. §1 shows that it is a serious epistemic and metaphysical possibility that our “world” is a massive computer simulation, and that if the Lewis-Stalnaker analysis of counterfactuals is correct, then it should extend seamlessly to the case that our world is a computer simulation, in the form of a possible-simulation semantics. §2 then shows, (...) however, that a Lewis-Stalnaker-style possible-simulation semantics clearly fails as an analysis of the truth-conditions of counterfactuals in two types of simulated worlds: Humean Simulations and Necessitarian simulations. §3 then considers and answers several objections to the argument. Finally, §4 draws several skeptical, but compelling lessons about counterfactuals from the argument. (shrink)

A major criticism of David Lewis’ counterfactual theory of causation is that it allows too many things to count as causes, especially since Lewis allows, in addition to events, absences to be causes as well. Peter Menzies has advanced this concern under the title “the problem of profligate causation.” In this paper, I argue that the problem of profligate causation provides resources for exposing a tension between Lewis’ acceptance of absence causation and his modal realism. The result is a different (...) problem of profligate causation—one that attacks the internal consistency of Lewisian metaphysics rather than employing common sense judgments or intuitions that conflict with Lewis’ extensive list of causes. (shrink)

It is a commonsense thesis that unactualized possibilities are not parts of actuality. To keep his modal realism in line with this thesis, David Lewis employed his indexical account of the term “actual.” I argue that the addition of counterpart theory to Lewis’s modal realism undermines his strategy for respecting the commonsense thesis. The case made here also reveals a problem for Lewis’s attempt to avoid haecceitism.

This essay offers an original interpretation and defense of the doctrine of flux, as it is presented in Plato’s Theaetetus. The methodology of the paper’s analysis is in the style of rational reconstruction, and it is highly analytic in scope, in the sense that I will focus on the text itself, and only on certain parts of it too, while ignoring the rest of Plato’s extensive corpus, and without worrying about whether, how, and to what extent the interpretation of the (...) view coheres well with the other elements of the secret doctrine view discussed in the dialogue, as well. In the first part of the essay, I’ll offer my interpretation of the doctrine. Then, in the second part of the essay, I’ll examine two potential criticisms of the doctrine, including Socrates’s infamous linguistic paradox, and show how my interpretation of Heraclitean flux metaphysics is able to circumvent both. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is exegesis. I explicate Nicolas Malebranche's (1674, 1678, 1688, 1714) concept of intelligible extension. I begin by detailing how the concept matured throughout Malebranche's work, and the new functions it took on within his metaphysical system. I then examine Gustav Bergmann's “axiomatic” interpretation, as well as the criticism of it offered by Daise Radner. I argue that Radner's criticism of the interpretation is only partly successful; some of her objections can be met; others cannot. I (...) then develop a novel interpretation of the concept, given insights from this dispute. I call it the “programmatic interpretation.” I argue that this interpretation coheres well with Malebranche's famous Vision in God thesis, as well as many of his other commitments. I conclude by considering a certain pertinent objection to my proposal, summarizing the dialectic, and forcefully restating my case. (shrink)

The many-worlds view is one of the most discussed “interpretations” of quantum mechanics. As is well known, this view has some very controversial and much discussed aspects. This paper focuses on one particular problem arising from the combination of quantum mechanics with Special Relativity. It turns out that the ontology of the many-worlds view – the account of what there is and what branches of the universe exist – is relative to inertial frames. If one wants to avoid relativizing ontology, (...) one has to argue either that there is an additional source of branching due to Special Relativity and thus additional branches or worlds. Or one has to argue that there are not only many worlds but also many universes ; there is thus not only one tree of many world-branches but many frame-specific trees, a “forest” of many world-trees. The main problem here is how one can understand all or any of this. (shrink)

This brief paper argues that Kripke’s thesis of the necessity of origin has some implausible consequences.

If ordinary particulars are bundles of properties, and if properties are said to be universals, then three well-known objections arise : no particular can change, all particulars have all of their properties essentially (even the most insignificant ones), and there cannot be two numerically distinct but qualitatively indiscernible particulars. In this paper, I try to make a little headway on these issues and see how the objections can be met, if one accepts a certain view about persistence through time and (...) across possible worlds – namely, four-dimensionalism and its modal analogue. The paper is especially devoted to the second and third of the three objections. (shrink)

Meta-ontology (in van Inwagen's sense) concerns the methodology of ontology, and a controversial meta-ontological issue is to what extent ontology can rely on linguistic analysis while establishing the furniture of the world. This paper discusses an argument advanced by some ontologists (I call them unifiers) against supporters of or coincident entities (I call them multipliers) and its meta-ontological import. Multipliers resort to Leibniz's Law to establish that spatiotemporally coincident entities a and b are distinct, by pointing at a predicate F (...) () made true by a and false by b . Unifiers try to put multipliers in front of a dilemma: in attempting to introduce metaphysical differences on the basis of semantic distinctions, multipliers either (a) rest on a fallacy of verbalism, entailed by a trade-off between a de dicto and a de re reading of modal claims, or (b) beg the question against unifiers by having to assume the distinction between a and b beforehand. I shall rise a tu quoque, showing that unifiers couldn't even distinguish material objects (or events) from the spatiotemporal regions they occupy unless they also resorted to linguistic distinctions. Their methodological aim to emancipate themselves from linguistic analysis in ontological businesses is therefore problematic. (shrink)

In this paper I consider an objection that friends of the Metaphysic of Temporal Parts (MTP) press against other solutions to the problem of temporary intrinsics and turn it against the MTP itself. I do not argue that the MTP must be false, nor do I argue that there are no arguments in favor of the MTP. Rather, the conclusion I draw is conditional: if the MTP provides an adequate response to the problem of temporary intrinsics, then the MTP provides (...) no reason to reject our commonsense view of the nature of material objects. (shrink)

Many common arguments for physicalism begin with the principle that the cosmos is “causally closed.” But how good are the arguments for causal closure itself? I argue that the deductive, a priori arguments on behalf of causal closure tend to beg the question. The extant inductive arguments fare no better. They commit a sampling error or a non-sequitur, or else offer conclusions that remain compatible with causal openness. In short, we have no good arguments that the physical world is causally (...) closed. (shrink)

Imagine a sculptor who molds a lump of clay to create a statue. Hylomorphism claims that the statue and the lump of clay are two different colocated objects that have different forms, even though they share the same matter. Recently, there has been some discussion on the requirements of consistency for hylomorphist theories. In this paper, we focus on an argument presented by Maegan Fairchild, according to which a minimal version of hylomorphism is inconsistent. We argue that the argument is (...) unsound or, at best, it just points to a well-known problem for hylmorphist theories. Additionally, we explore some general consequences of this fact. (shrink)

In his Moderate Realism and Its Logic (Yale, 1996), Donald Mertz argues that the traditional ontology of nonpredicable substances and predicable universals is beset by “intractable problems,” “harbors an insidious error,” and constitutes a “stumbling block” for the ontologist. By contrast, a onecategory ontology consisting of relation instances (and combinations thereof) is sustainable, and indeed the only way of avoiding commitment to bare particulars. The success of the project turns on Mertz’s claim that every relation instance has a linking aspect, (...) so that (in a sense) even Socrates is a predicate. I argue that, ironically, it is this very feature of a relation instance that undermines Mertz’s entire theory of predication, effectively preventing any connections from being formed between the instances that allegedly compose an ordinary individual such as Socrates. (shrink)

S. C. Gibb holds that some mental events enable physical events to take place by acting as ‘double preventers’ which prevent other mental events from effecting change in the physical domain. She argues that this enables a dualist account of psychophysical interaction consistent with the causal relevance of mental events, their distinctness from physical events, the causal closure of the physical and the exclusion of systematic overdetermination. While accepting the causal powers metaphysic, this paper argues that: Closure is maintained only (...) on the assumption of an implausible pre-ordained harmony between preventing and double-preventing mental events. Distinctness is preserved only at the cost of positing brute unexplained powers of mental and physical events to causally interact with each other. Exclusion is systematically violated in a substantial number of everyday cases. The case for Relevance made by the Double Prevention model is accordingly too weak to sustain a dualist approach to mental causation. (shrink)

The topic of this paper is whether there is metaphysical vagueness. It is shown that it is important to distinguish between the general phenomenon of indeterminacy and the more narrow phenomenon of vagueness (the phenomenon that paradigmatically rears its head in sorites reasoning). Relatedly, it is important to distinguish between metaphysical indeterminacy and metaphysical vagueness. One can wish to allow metaphysical indeterminacy but rule out metaphysical vagueness. As is discussed in the paper, central argument against metaphysical vagueness, like those of (...) Gareth Evans and Mark Sainsbury, would if successful rule out metaphysical indeterminacy. One way to argue specifically against the possibility of metaphysical vagueness might be thought to be to argue for a specific theory of the nature of vagueness according to which vagueness is a semantic phenomenon. But it is shown that there are complications also pertaining to arguments with that structure. Toward the end of the paper, I discuss Trenton Merricks’ well-known argument against a semantic view on vagueness and for a metaphysical view. (shrink)

How can a metaphysics of abstract entities be built upon a metaphysics of time? In this paper, I address the question of how to accommodate abstract entities in a presentist world. I consider both the traditional metaontological approach of unrestricted fundamental quantification and then ontological pluralism. I argue that under the former we need to impose two constraints in the characterization of presentism in order to avoid undesired commitments to abstract entities: we have to characterize presentism as a thesis only (...) about the concrete, and we also need to avoid the widely held distinction between tensed and tenseless senses of existence. Under ontological pluralism, instead, I argue that we can naturally accommodate any view of abstract objects in a presentist world. (shrink)

Trenton Merricks argues for and defends a novel version of primitivism about truth : being true is a primitive monadic but non-intrinsic property. This examination consists of the following triad: a critical discussion of Merricks’ argument for his view, a rejection of his objection against Paul Horwich’s minimalist theory of truth, and a direct objection against his view on the grounds that it entails being true is a mysterious and suspicious property. The conclusion is that Merricks’ primitivism should be rejected.

In the region where some cat sits, there are many very cat-like items that are proper parts of the cat (or otherwise mereologically overlap the cat) , but which we are inclined to think are not themselves cats, e.g. all of Tibbles minus the tail. The question is, how can something be so cat-like without itself being a cat. Some have tried to answer this “Problem of the Many” (a problem that arises for many different kinds of things we regularly (...) encounter, including desks, persons, rocks, and clouds) by relying on a mereological maximality principle, according to which, something cannot be a member of a kind K if it is a large proper part of, or otherwise greatly mereologically overlaps, a K. It has been shown, however, that a maximality constraint of this type, i.e. one that restricts mereological overlap, is open to strong objections. Inspired by the insights of, especially, Sutton and Madden, I develop a type of functional-maximality principle that avoids these objections (and has other merits), and thereby provides a better answer to the Problem of the Many. (shrink)

Tropes, as distinguished from other possible kinds of entities such as universals, states of affairs, events and bare particulars, are best-suited to play the role of causal relata.

Much attention has been given to the question of ontic vagueness, and the issues usually center around whether certain paradigmatically concrete entities – cats, clouds, mountains, etc. – are vague in the sense of having indeterminate spatial boundaries. In this paper, however, I wish to focus on a way in which some abstracta seem to be locationally vague. To begin, I will briefly cover some territory already covered regarding certain types of “traditional” abstracta and the ways they are currently alleged (...) to be vague. I then wish to discuss two types of “nontraditional” abstracta and the sense in which I think some of these objects are locationally vague. I will next reexamine some of the traditional abstracta and discuss whether any of these objects are locationally vague in the novel way suggested for the nontraditional sorts. I’ll finish by discussing objections, and conclude with some remarks about characterizing the abstract/concrete distinction. (shrink)

Certain realists about properties and relations identify them with universals. Furthermore, some hold that for a wide range of meaningful predicates, the semantic contribution to the propositions expressed by the sentences in which those predicates figure is the universal expressed by the predicate. I here address ontological issues raised by predicates first introduced to us via works of fiction and whether the universal realist should accept that any such predicates express universals. After assessing arguments by Braun, D. and Sawyer, S. (...) for fictional universal anti-realism, I propose a novel, Kripke-inspired argument for the same conclusion. I ultimately defend the claim that while this argument presents the strongest case for fictional universal anti-realism, it is nonetheless unsound. I conclude that nothing stands in the way of accepting that some fictional predicates express fictional universals. (shrink)

According to Kim, events are constituted by objects exemplifying property(ies) at a time. In this paper I wish to defend Kim's theory of events from one source of criticism, extending it by taking into account a number of ideas developed by Davidson. In particular, I shall try to avoid events proliferation – one of the most serious problems in Kim's theory – by using a suggestion Kim himself advances, that is, by taking adverbs and the like to be events' rather (...) than properties' modifiers. Keywords: events, properties, adverbs, modifiers. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue in favor of necessitarianism, the view that dispositions, when stimulated, necessitate their manifestations. After introducing and clarifying what necessitarianism does and does not amount to, I provide reasons to support the view that dispositions once stimulated necessitate their manifestations according to the stimulating conditions and the relevant properties at stake. In this framework, I will propose a principle of causal relevance and some conditions for the possibility of interference that allow us to avoid the use (...) of ceteris paribus clauses. I then defend necessitarianism from recent attacks raised by, among others, Mumford and Anjum, noting that the antecedent strengthening test is a test for causal relevance that raises no difficulties for necessitarianism. (shrink)