Many philosophers still believe that metaphysically analytic sentences exist, where a sentence is understood to be metaphysically analytic if and only if it is true solely in virtue of its meaning. I provide two arguments against this claim and hence conclude that metaphysically analytic sentences do not exist. Still, some philosophers, however, hold out hope that epistemically analytic sentences exist, where a sentence is epistemically analytic if and only if an agent's understanding the sentence suffices for the agent to be (...) justified in believing that this sentence is true. One such philosopher is Paul Boghossian, whose so-called analytic theory of the a priori is intended to show how epistemically analytic sentences can explain our a priori knowledge of the truths about logic. His theory, however, relies on the dubious Argument by Implicit Definition. I provide an objection to this argument and hence conclude that Boghossian's analytic theory of the a priori fails to vindicate the notion of epistemic analyticity. Still, I concede that just because Boghossian's attempt to do so fails, it does not follow that the notion of epistemic analyticity cannot, in another way, be vindicated. (shrink)

The relevance of analytic metaphysics has come under criticism: Ladyman & Ross, for instance, have suggested do discontinue the field. French & McKenzie have argued in defense of analytic metaphysics that it develops tools that could turn out to be useful for philosophy of physics. In this article, we show first that this heuristic defense of metaphysics can be extended to the scientific field of applied ontology, which uses constructs from analytic metaphysics. Second, we elaborate on a parallel by French (...) & McKenzie between mathematics and metaphysics to show that the whole field of analytic metaphysics, being useful not only for philosophy but also for science, should continue to exist as a largely autonomous field. (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 interview Prof. Brian Leftow answers questions concerning the causes of the emergence of Analytic Philosophical Theology within the analytic tradition; the advantages of maintaining the traditional picture of perfect being theology with regards to divine attributes; his conception about the origin of necessary truths; the problem of evil; and the importance for universities of investing in research on philosophical theology.

Second scholasticism, ​analytical metaphysics, and Christian apologetics are the three topics characteristic of the lifelong efforts of the eminent Czech philosopher Stanislav Sousedík, who celebrated his 90th birthday in 2021. To honour this anniversary, a conference named accordingly was organized in Prague. The papers presented at this event — further elaborated by their authors and supplemented with Sousedík’s remarkable “Brief Autobiography” — constitute the gist of this book: a collective homage to Professor Sousedík and an attempt to promote and develop (...) his intellectual legacy. (shrink)

The essays in this special issue focus on connecting the relevant aspects of Lowe’s metaphysics to issues in philosophical theology. In this regard, the essays focus on Trinity, divine causal agency, atonement, embodied existence, physicalism vs. dualism, natural science, and theological claims.

An invited talk delivered at the Logos Institute of Analytic Theology at the University of St Andrews. The topic was on the coherence of the doctrine of the Incarnation. I sought to introduce my solution to the logical challenge against the doctrine of the incarnation and also my own metaphysical model of the incarnation (called the transformational model). This talk summarises my article on this topic published previously in IJPR (termed 'On the metaphysics of the incarnation'). Handouts for the (...) talk are included in the file. (shrink)

We argue that Maclaurin and Dyke's recent critique of non-naturalistic metaphysics suffers from difficulties analogous to those that caused trouble for earlier positivist critiques of metaphysics. Maclaurin and Dyke say that a theory is naturalistic iff it has observable consequences. Depending on the details of this criterion, either no theory counts as naturalistic or every theory does.

Paul Boghossian (1997) has argued that there is much to be said on behalf of the notion of analyticity so long as we distinguish epistemic analyticity and metaphysical analyticity. In particular, (1) epistemic analyticity isn’t undermined by Quine’s critique of the analytic-synthetic distinction, (2) it can explain the a prioricity of logic, and (3) epistemic analyticity can’t be rejected short of embracing semantic irrealism. In this paper, we argue that all three of these claims (...) are mistaken. (shrink)

Книга представляет собой первый на русском языке систематический обзор главных тем аналитической метафизики, ставшей в последние десятилетия одной из центральных и наиболее быстро развивающихся философских дисциплин в аналитической традиции. В ней затронуты проблемы универсалий, возможных миров, причинности, законов природы, материальной композиции, времени, тождества личности, свободы воли и многие другие. По каждой из проблем представлен обзор наиболее известных и влиятельных философских теорий: реализма, номинализма, модальных реализма и абстракционизма, мереологического универсализма, эндурантизма и пердурантизма, компатибилизма и инкомпатибилизма и других. Книга предполагает некоторое первоначальное (...) знакомство с философией и может быть использована в качестве учебного пособия для студентов философских факультетов высших учебных заведений. (shrink)

The concepts of particular and universal have grown so familiar that their significance has become difficult to discern, like coins that have been passed back and forth too many times, worn smooth so their values can no longer be read. On the Genealogy of Universals seeks to overcome our sense of over-familiarity with these concepts by providing a case study of their evolution during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, a study that shows how the history of these (...) concepts is bound up with the origins and development of analytic philosophy itself. Understanding how these concepts were taken up, transfigured, and given up by the early analytic philosophers, enables us to recover and reanimate the debate amongst them that otherwise remains Delphic. This book begins from the early, originating texts of analytic philosophy that have hitherto baffled commentators, including Moore's early papers, and engages afresh with the neglected contributions of philosophical figures that historians of analytic philosophy have mostly since forgotten, including Stout and Whitehead. This sheds new light upon the relationships of Moore to Russell, Russell to Wittgenstein, and Wittgenstein to Ramsey. (shrink)

/Analyticity theorists/, as I will call them, endorse the /doctrine of analyticity in ontology/: if some truth P analytically entails the existence of certain things, then a theory that contains P but does not claim that those things exist is no more ontologically parsimonious than a theory that also claims that they exist. Suppose, for instance, that the existence of a table in a certain location is analytically entailed by the existence and features of certain particles in that (...) location. The doctrine implies that the table's existence requires nothing more of the world than that those particles exist and bear the features in question. Analyticity theorists have alleged that this idea may be used to defend controversial existence claims against a battery of objections. I argue that this style of defense fails, because the doctrine faces counter-examples. An existence claim may be analytically entailed by some truth and still report a substantial further fact. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview of the history of the notion of essence in 20th century analytic philosophy, focusing on views held by influential analytic philosophers who discussed, or relied on essence or cognate notions in their works. It in particular covers Russell and Moore’s different approaches to essence before and after breaking with British idealism, the (pre- and post-)logical positivists’ critique of metaphysics and rejection of essence (Wittgenstein, Carnap, Schlick, Stebbing), the tendency to loosen the notion of logical necessity (...) to accommodate certain metaphysical truths in Wittgenstein and others, Quine’s logical rehabilitation of metaphysics and criticism of de re modality, the modal view of essence promoted by the development of quantified modal logic (C. I. Lewis, Barcan Marcus, Kripke) and direct reference theory (Barcan Marcus, Kripke, Putnam), and the emergence of the notion of metaphysical necessity (Kneale, Kripke), and finally Fine’s re-establishment of a Neo-Aristotelian, hyperintensional notion of essence in contemporary metaphysics. (shrink)

It is sometimes argued that, given its detachment from our current most successful science, analytic metaphysics has no epistemic value because it contributes nothing to our knowledge of reality. Relatedly, it is also argued that metaphysics properly constrained by science can avoid that problem. In this paper we argue, however, that given the current understanding of the relation between science and metaphysics, metaphysics allegedly constrained by science suffers the same fate as its unconstrained sister; that is, what is currently thought (...) of as scientifically respectful metaphysics may end up also being without epistemic value. The core of our claim is that although much emphasis is put on the supposed difference between unconstrained analytic metaphysics, in opposition to scientifically constrained metaphysics, it is largely forgotten that no clear constraining relation of metaphysics by science is yet available. (shrink)

Analytic theology has sometimes been criticized as ahistorical. But what this means, and why it is problematic, have often been left unclear. This essay explicates and supports one way of making that charge while simultaneously showing this ahistoricity, although widespread within analytic theology, is not essential to it. Specifically, some analytic theologians treat problematic doctrines as metaphysical puzzles, constructing speculative accounts of phenomena such as the Trinity or Incarnation and taking the theoretical virtues of such accounts to be sufficient (...) in themselves to defend traditional doctrines with no need for additional, historical premises. But due to the different epistemic structures of metaphysical and theological puzzles, I argue that importing this methodology into philosophical theology results in invalid or question-begging arguments, and it is unclear how a virtue-centric methodology could be repaired without collapsing into a more historical methodology, which some of the best (but unfortunately not all) analytic theologians follow. (shrink)

This paper develops and articulates a metaphysics of intersectionality, the idea that multiple axes of social oppression cross-cut each other. Though intersectionality is often described through metaphor, theories of intersectionality can be formulated using the tools of contemporary analytic metaphysics. A central tenet of intersectionality theory, that intersectional identities are inseparable, can be framed in terms of explanatory unity. Further, intersectionality is best understood as metaphysical and explanatory priority of the intersectional category over its constituents, akin to metaphysical (...) priority of the whole over its parts. (shrink)

Prima facie it would seem that the traditional scholastic debates about entia rationis (“beings of reason”) may be easily brought into dialogue with debates about nonexistent objects in contemporary analytical metaphysics. It turns out, however, that the scholastic debates about beings of reason are placed within a very different ontological framework or paradigm, so that bringing scholastic and analytical authors into common discussion about this topic is not trivial. In this paper I make the first step toward establishing such discussion (...) by describing the ontological framework presupposed by the scholastic debates about beings of reason, and by identifying the roles that beings of reason were supposed to play in it. (shrink)

Analytical descriptivism purports to identify the meaning of ethical sentences with that of the descriptive sentences that capture the clauses of mature folk morality. The paper questions the plausibility of analytical descriptivism by examining its implications for the semantics, epistemology and metaphysics of morals. The discussion identifies some of the reasons why the analytical descriptivist fails to deliver a reductionist account of normativity.

The traditional picture of the development of analytical philosophy, represented especially by such thinkers as G. Frege, G. E. Moore, B. Russell or R. Carnap, whose attitude was generally anti-metaphysical, can, on closer study, be shown to be incomplete. This article treats of the Cracow circle – a group of Polish philosophers among whom are, above all, to be counted J. Salamucha, J. M. Bocheński, J. F. Drewnowski, and B. Sobociński, who were, at the beginning of the twentieth century, (...) fascinated by the development of modern formal logic and its application to philosophical thinking. They also attempted to apply it to Catholic philosophy. The result of their endeavours were many remarkable works introducing not only a defence of the use of modern philosophical approaches in Christian thought, but also the reconstruction, by means of formal logic, of significant proofs given by Scholastic authors. (shrink)

I consider the claim that analytic statements are "true in virtue meaning", giving the claim a ground-theoretic interpretation.

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

The aim of the Analytic of Concepts is to derive and deduce a set of pure concepts of the understanding, the categories, which play a central role in Kant’s explanation of the possibility of synthetic a priori cognition and judgment. This chapter is structured around two questions. First, what is a pure concept of the understanding? Second, what is involved in a deduction of a pure concept of the understanding? In answering the first, we focus on how the categories differ (...) from the pure forms of sensibility and examine whether they are known only to be the pure forms of human thinking or rather the forms of discursive cognition as such. In answering the second, we draw a distinction between the application and the exemplification of the categories and use it to identify different ways of understanding Kant’s project in the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories. These questions connect because the answer to the first determines how we should understand the kind of entitlement which is to be established in the Deduction. (shrink)

Metaethical non-analytical naturalism consists in the metaphysical thesis that normative properties are identical with or reducible to natural properties and the epistemological thesis that we cannot come to a complete understanding of the nature of normative properties via conceptual analysis alone. In On What Matters, Derek Parfit (2011) argues that non-analytical naturalism is either false or incoherent. In § 1, I show that his argument for this claim is unsuccessful, by showing that it rests on a tacit assumption about (...) the nature of normative thought that non-analytical naturalists need not accept. In § 2, I show that escaping Parfit’s argument in this way is no ad hoc maneuver; as I demonstrate, the idea that non-analytical naturalists can exploit to escape Parfit’s argument is a familiar one. (shrink)

This entry considers the philosophical subject called 'metaphysics'. There have been many conceptions of metaphysics, and metaphysics has faced severe criticism throughout the history of philosophy and continues to do so. Besides discussing some major trends in analytic metaphysics - understood as 'metaphysics done by analytic philosophers' - we consider some of the criticisms and possible responses.

In his groundbreaking book, Thin Objects, Linnebo (2018) argues for an account of neo-Fregean abstraction principles and thin existence that does not rely on analyticity or conceptual rules. It instead relies on a metaphysical notion he calls “sufficiency”. In this short discussion, I defend the analytic or conceptual rule account of thin existence.

This paper introduces the philosophy of Grace Andrus de Laguna in order to renew interest in it. I show that, in the 1910s and 1920s, she develops ideas and arguments that are also found playing key roles in the development of analytic philosophy decades later. Further, I describe her sympathetic, but acute, criticism of pragmatism and Heideggerian ontology, and situate her work in the tradition of American, speculative philosophy. Before 1920, we will see, de Laguna appeals to multiple realizability to (...) undermine reductionism in science, to support perspectival, scientific realism and, with help from a private language argument, to favour the view that mental states are classified by behavioural, teleological roles over what came to be called ‘type physicalism’. Her view of speech, mostly developed in the 1920s, tells us that its primary role is coordinating group behaviour rather than expressing thoughts. Belief is understood in terms of its causal role, including its causal relations to other kinds of mental states, when coordinating group behaviour. Thought is similarly understood. In developing her theory of mind, de Laguna rejects the pragmatist claims that belief can be reduced to dispositions to behaviour and that thought’s function is to address specific, rather than general, problems. She also favours meaning holism and rejects the analytic–synthetic distinction. In later work, de Laguna argues that individuals’ activity of self-maintenance brings universals, conceived of as irreducible potentialities, into being and makes them increasingly determinate. Further, she identifies the existence of all individuals with forms of self-maintenance and takes the existence of people to include maintenance of the cultural world. Such a unified treatment of existence, she holds, permits making its evolution intelligible. Heidegger’s view of being is rejected for not permitting this. All de Laguna’s work, we will see, fits a vision of philosophy as the systematic, imaginative and naturalistic examination of being as well as a source of criticism of science. (shrink)

This is a metaphysical and conceptual analysis of the concepts ‘change’ and ‘continuity’. The Buddhists are in agreement with Heraclitus that all are flowing and nothing remains. However, the Buddhists have a much more elaborate theory about change and continuity, and this theory is a key element in the entire Buddhist system of related doctrines, viz., that of karma and rebirth, the possibility of Liberation and others. Simply put, the Buddhist emphasizes that change is there in every aspect of (...) reality. According to a later developed form of the Buddhist teaching, change is absolutely pervasive, and even these particles are subject to change as they are nothing more than putative objects which are conceptualized to be such and such, and without the conceptualization they are ‘nothing’ at all.. Hence it seems that continuity is not possible. But in fact according to the later theory, change is not only possible, it is accepted as part and parcel of everyday life. The fact that nothing at all remains the same does not imply that continuity is not possible, since continuity does not always have to be that of an inherently existing object. A changing object can be continued also, in roughly the same sense as we say that an event, like a drama, continues even though everything in it is changing. The thread that ties the disparate elements of the event together in this case lies within our own conceptual imputation. This does not imply that everything is subjective, since the distinction between subject and object presupposes the idea of an absolutely existing individual self, which all Buddhist schools rejects. So in this later theory, absolute change is not possible because there is, ultimately speaking nothing to change, and when there is no change there is no continuation either. This is not to deny the empirical fact of changes and continuities that are present to us; things are there and they are indeed changing. What is being denied here is the belief that that there are essences to things which endure through all the changes. Since things are empty they can change, and continuity is only possible, not because there is something that exists and endures, but because there is change. A drama that does not move cannot be continued. The foregoing discussions of the Buddhist theories have many implications for the dialog between science and religion. One point is that science still seems to subscribe to the object/subject distinction. But if change and continuity are not real in the ultimate sense, then perhaps the distinction should be reconsidered. Another point concerns how to find continuity amidst all the change. But perhaps in some important sense continuity depends on us. (shrink)

Scholarly debates on the Critique of Pure Reason have largely been shaped by epistemological questions. Challenging this prevailing trend, Kant's Reform of Metaphysics is the first book-length study to interpret Kant's Critique in view of his efforts to turn Christian Wolff's highly influential metaphysics into a science. Karin de Boer situates Kant's pivotal work in the context of eighteenth-century German philosophy, traces the development of Kant's conception of critique, and offers fresh and in-depth analyses of key parts of the Critique (...) of Pure Reason, including the Transcendental Deduction, the Schematism Chapter, the Appendix to the Transcendental Analytic, and the Architectonic. The book not only brings out the coherence of Kant's project, but also reconstructs the outline of the 'system of pure reason' for which the Critique was to pave the way, but that never saw the light. (shrink)

The paper examines the plausibility of analytical dispositionalism about practical reason, according to which the following claims are conceptual truths about common sense ethical discourse: i) Ethics: agents have reasons to act in some ways rather than others, and ii) Metaphysical Modesty: there is no such thing as a response independent normative reality. By elucidating two uncontroversial assumptions which are fundamental to the common sense commitment to ethics, I argue that common sense ethical discourse is most plausibly construed as (...) committed to the denial of metaphysical modesty, and thereby as committed to the existence of a response independent normative reality. (shrink)

This paper aims to support the claim that analytic metaphysics should be more cautious regarding the constraints that truthmaking considerations impose on metaphysical theories. To this end, I reply to Briggs and Forbes (2017), whoargue that certain truthmaking commitments are incurred by a Humean metaphysics and by the Growing-Block theory. First, I argue that Humean Supervenience does not need to endorse a standard version of truthmaker maximalism. This undermines Briggs and Forbes’s conclusion that Humean Supervenience and the Growing-Block theory (...) are incompatible. Second, I argue that the Growing-Block theory does not commit us to any weaker version of truthmaker maximalism, which also undermines Briggs and Forbes’s conclusion. Finally, I point out other reasons to think that any version of truthmaker maximalism is disputable, undermining a fortiori Briggs and Forbes’s conclusion and supporting the moral that metaphysical theories—or at least Humean Supervenience, the Growing-Block theory, and presentism—are little constrained by truthmaking commitments. (shrink)

In his influential Naming and Necessity lectures, Saul Kripke made new sense of modal statements: “Kant might have been a bachelor”, “Königsberg is necessarily identical with Kaliningrad”. Many took the notions he introduced-metaphysical necessity and rigid designation -- to herald new metaphysical issues and have important consequences. In fact, the Kripkean insight is at bottom semantic, rather than metaphysical: it is part of how proper names work that they purport to refer to individuals to whom modal properties (...) can be ascribed. We can see this by reflecting on analytic truths that ground modal claims like the two examples above. (shrink)

Introduction Reza Davari Ardakni, the Iranian contemporary philosopher, distinguishes development from Western modernity; in that it considers modernity as natural and organic changes that Europe has gone through, but sees development as a planned design for implementing modernity in other countries. As a result, the closedness of development concerns only the developing countries, not Western modern ones. Davari emphasizes that the Western modernity has a universality that pertains to a unique reason and a unified world. The only way of thinking (...) in this world is a philosophical thought based on human self-centered reason, and given the pervasiveness of Western civilization. Therefore, Davari does not consider Westernization as mere imitation of Western customs and methods, but rather as a way of existence in the world. Westernization is a subjective view of the world and beings. Westernization is not optional, enabling non-Western people to avoid it. According to the Westernization scenario, the world today is entirely Westernized, and Davari considers Westernization as the inevitable fate of the people of this era, seeing two alternatives for them, both of which ultimately lead to the same destination, which is to embrace development; either they seize the power of science and technology and join the process of global modernization and participate in it, or they become subdued by this process and accept it without participation. Davari regards the first type of Westernization as active and the second type as passive. Problematique Therefore, underdevelopment is not a concept of the ancient world, nor even of a world between the ancient and the modern, or on the threshold of modernization. Underdevelopment is a condition of suspension and timelessness and being exposed to modernization. To escape the paradox of underdevelopment, which is the inevitable historical fate of non-modernized societies, Davari sees no way out other than embracing development. In other words, Westernized societies, which have become confused due to modernization, have no escape route other than turning to development. Therefore, some critics of Davari accuse the theory of Westernization of being a theoretical rupture. M. T. Tabatabaei, by rejecting the theoretical rupture in the theory of Westernization, believes that in the argument of Davari, we are only faced with a shift from a philosophical to an intellectual level. Tabatabaei, by avoiding providing a philosophical response to the critics of the theoretical rupture, believes that the introduction of active Westernization and collaboration in science and technology as a solution to escape from underdevelopment conditions, is only a shift from a philosophical level to an intellectual level and does not involve a rupture. Therefore, it seems that the philosophical issue of how or the possibility of escaping from underdevelopment conditions is still an open non answered problem. In this study, seeking a philosophical answer to this problem, an attempt has been made to summarize Davari's definitions of development, underdevelopment, participation in the world of science, and the role of humanities and social sciences in development, using his writings and speeches. It is proposed that a way to escape from the clesedness of development based on Davari's views, is to make use of analytical method with emphasizing on concepts and theories of the philosophy and metaphysics of science. Argument According to Davari, the social and human sciences that are responsible for development planning in underdeveloped societies must consider the characteristics of underdevelopment in order to facilitate the transition to more favorable conditions. Davari identifies the following conditions for successful development: 1) replacing tradition with science as the organizing and coordinating principle in society, 2) recognizing the universality of philosophy and science of the Western modernity and the impossibility of blindly imitation and adopting it, 3) inevitability of actively engaging and interacting with development, 4) recognizing the internal dynamics of scientific progress and avoiding authoritarian control, and 5) promoting free participation in the scientific paradigms. Therefore, Davari suggests the following steps towards development: 1) recognizing and understanding the problems of society and the local ecosystem, 2) understanding the philosophical and cultural foundations of Western civilization, 3) understanding the historical context and paradigms of science, 4) understanding the philosophical and metaphysical foundations of science, 5) recognizing the intellectual and philosophical capacities of our own community, and 6) reflecting our own philosophical and metaphysical assumptions in the scientific world in a way that is compatible with scientific methods. Given the motivations for change in science at both the global and national levels, including the emergence of heterodox or indigenous sciences, and the inevitable nature of development, Davari points to the possibility of a path between absolute rejecting or accepting the mainstream social and human sciences. However, this path is challenging and contingent upon the aforementioned conditions and steps of transition. Conclusion It is necessary to seek this path within the realm of the philosophy and metaphysics of science, particularly in the origins and foundations of the social and human sciences. Research in the metaphysics and philosophy of the social sciences provides the opportunity for active scientific engagement in the scientific paradigms and a reconsideration of the foundations of science, allowing for different philosophical foundations while are compatible with scientific methods. Successfully finding a path between absolute rejecting or accepting the existing social sciences will lead to an internal transformation within the field of science and, in fact, will advance the boundaries of knowledge. Therefore, it is possible, while adhering to the conditions of transition and actively participating in the world of science and technology, and accepting the unity of modernity and avoiding selectivity and imitation, to search for a way to overcome the closedness of development through a reconsideration of the philosophical and metaphysical foundations of science, while recognizing our own intellectual heritage and critically assessing Western science and technology. (shrink)

The metaphysics of gender and race is a growing area of concern in contemporary analytic metaphysics, with many different views about the nature of gender and race being submitted and discussed. But what are these debates about? What questions are these accounts trying to answer? And is there real disagreement between advocates of differ- ent views about race or gender? If so, what are they really disagreeing about? In this paper I want to develop a view about what the debates (...) in the metaphysics of gender and race are about, namely, a version of metaphysical deflationism, according to which these debates are about how we actually use or should use the terms ‘gender’ and ‘race’ (and other related terms), where moral and political considerations play a central role. I will also argue that my version of the view can overcome some recent and powerful objections to metaphysical deflationism of- fered by Elizabeth Barnes (2014, 2017). (shrink)

According to Amie Thomasson's Modal Normativism (MN), knowledge of metaphysical modality is to be explained in terms of a speaker’s mastery of semantic rules, as opposed to one’s epistemic grasp of independent modal facts. In this chapter, I outline (MN)'s account of modal knowledge (§1) and argue that more than semantic mastery is needed for knowledge of metaphysical modality. Specifically (§2), in reasoning aimed at gaining such knowledge, a competent speaker needs to further deploy essentialist principles and information. (...) In response, normativists might contend that a competent speaker will only need to appeal to specific independence counterfactuals, on analogy with quasi-realism about morality. These conditionals fix the meaning of our terms at the actual world, independently of the particular context in which a statement is evaluated. However, I show that this strategy causes several problems for the account (§3). While those problems might perhaps be avoided by endorsing a certain picture of modal metaphysics (Modal Monism), such a picture involves notorious issues that normativists will have to address (§4). It is thus doubtful that (MN) can explain knowledge of metaphysical modality. Still, it may explain some modal knowledge without committing to Modal Monism. As I show (§5), semantic mastery may suffice for gaining knowledge of logical-conceptual modality or analyticity. (shrink)

This paper defends the traditional view that the laws of nature are contingent, or, if some of them are necessary, this is due to analytic principles for the individuation of the law-governed properties. Fundamentally, I argue that the supposed explanatory purposes served by taking the laws to be necessary --showing how laws support counterfactuals, how properties are individuated, or how we have knowledge of properties--are in fact undermined by the continued possibility of the imagined scenarios--this time, described neutrally--which seemed to (...) disprove the claim to necessity in the first place. I speculate that this will be true for any proposed necessary a posteriori truths, and is a basis for rejecting their supposed metaphysical significance. (shrink)

According to the deductive-nomological account of ground, a fact A grounds another fact B in case the laws of metaphysics determine the existence of B on the basis of the existence of A. Accounts of grounding of this particular variety have already been developed in the literature. My aim in this paper is to sketch a new version of this account. My preferred account offers two main improvements over existing accounts. First, the present account is able to deal with necessitarian (...) as well as non-necessitarian cases of grounding by acknowledging the existence of two types of metaphysical laws. I will argue that we should assume that metaphysical laws come in the necessitarian as well as in the non-necessitarian varietyclosely paralleling the distinction between strict and non-strict laws in the philosophy of science. The second main improvement of the present account is that this account is able to provide an explanation of why the laws of metaphysics have a direction built into them. I will argue that we should characterize metaphysical laws with the help of Theodore Sider’s (2011) notion of structure, which is a descendent of David Lewis’s (1983) notion of naturalness. According to the account of metaphysical laws developed in this paper, metaphysical laws express in their antecedents either perfectly structural truths or more structural truths than in their consequents. Since on Sider’s account structural features of reality are fundamental features of reality, the account is able to explain as to why the laws of metaphysics take us from the fundamental to the derivative. (shrink)

A naturalistic impulse has taken speculative analytic metaphysics in its critical sights. Importantly, the claim that it is desirable or requisite to give metaphysics scientific moorings rests on underlying epistemological assumptions or principles. If the naturalistic impulse toward metaphysics is to be well-founded and its prescriptions to have normative force, those assumptions or principles should be spelled out and justified. In short, advocates of naturalized or scientific metaphysics require epistemic infrastructure. This paper begins to supply it. The author first sketches (...) her conception of suitably naturalized or scientific metaphysics. She then lays out a number of candidate epistemic principles centring around the notion of theoretical constraint. The author offers several arguments for the principles, based on statistical likeliness, agreement, falsity avoidance, and methodological efficiency and inefficiency. Finally, she shows how scientific metaphysics satisfies the epistemic principles and is therefore preferable to its traditional rivals. (shrink)

Functionalism is often used to identify mental states with physical states. A particularly powerful case is Lewis's analytical functionalism. Kripke's view seriously challenges any such identification. The dispute between Kripke and Lewis's views boils down to whether the term ‘pain’ is rigid or nonrigid. It is a strong intuition of ours that if it feels like pain it is pain, and vice versa, so that ‘pain’ should designate, with respect to every possible world, all and only states felt as pain. (...) Hence, in order to settle the dispute, we need to check which of the two – Kripke's use of ‘pain’ as rigid, or Lewis's use of ‘pain’ as nonrigid – better meets this intuition. I show that, despite crucial differences in both their semantic and metaphysical assumptions, surprisingly, both views meet this intuition equally well. Thus it appears that this question of rigidity cannot, in principle, be solved, and so, at least with respect to this particular dispute, the jury is still out on whether mental states are identical to physical states. (shrink)

In this state-of-the-field article, I examine some of the problems plaguing present-day analytic Hegel studies and try to find out what can be done to remedy the situation as scholars collectively (and finally) begin grappling with the metaphysico-logical core of Hegel’s thought. In so doing, I go over the various currents of Hegelian interpretation and describe some of the limitations behind the usual analytic approaches which have often tended to downplay key aspects of Hegel’s thought, like his dialectical logic, and (...) which have also partly helped create enthusiasm for metaphysically deflationary approaches to Hegel’s thought. I then propose three practical directives for the betterment of the field in terms of future research, ones which essentially advocate for the generalized adoption of a more historicist approach to certain matters, one that is not mutually exclusive with the overarching scholarly desire to extract something that is philosophically relevant or contemporarily useful from Hegel’s thought, which is what seems to drive analytic Hegel studies in general. (shrink)

While some philosophers and increasing numbers of scientists are striving to revive speculative metaphysics as a condition for further advancing science, solving the central problems of contemporary philosophy and confronting the major problems facing society, even philosophers decrying the increasingly marginal status of philosophy continue to ignore or denigrate their efforts. It is argued that this lack of appreciation and the associated misrepresentations of speculative metaphysics stems from the failure to appreciate work in this area as an ongoing tradition among (...) historians and historically oriented philosophers of science and philosopher scientists. Most importantly, it stems from ignorance of Whitehead's defence of speculative metaphysics against analytic philosophy and the impact of this defence on the tradition of speculative metaphysics. Whitehead's metaphilosophy is analysed as a successful refutation of the assumptions on which Russell's early analytic approach to philosophy was based, assumptions which came to inform the whole tradition of analytic philosophy. The paper concludes by indicating the importance of Whitehead's defence of speculative metaphysics not only for philosophy, but also for the future of society. (shrink)

This project investigates naturalized metaphysics as a recent trend in analytic metaphysics originating in the naturalist attitude of James Ladyman and Don Ross in their seminal work Everything must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized (2007). The primary focus, however, will be the more recent article “Neo-Positivist Metaphysics” (2012) by Alyssa Ney that originates in this tradition. The project will conclude that naturalized metaphysics is an unsuccessful attempt at an answer to the question ’how is metaphysics possible’. More precisely, the project will establish (...) that any answer to this question must instruct how to succeed at attempts at assertions about the Kantian thing in itself. This requirement is the result of an argument that no other conception of ’reality’ is robust enough to accommodate an ambitious metaphysics. Subsequently, it will be argued that naturalized metaphysics is conceived by its proponents as an attempt at such an answer, but that naturalized metaphysics does not provide the required instruction. This problem occurs because of Carnap’s challenge to metaphysics. Carnap observes that no assertion can be made outside a linguistic framework which has the consequence that metaphysical assertions must be about the conceptual conventions of the linguistic framework rather than the thing in itself. It is the view of Ney and the other proponents of naturalized metaphysics that metaphysics is possible as a naturalized metaphysics; a metaphysics that appropriately defers or yields to the findings of science. The project argues that this requirement does nothing to ensure that Carnap’s challenge is avoided. The challenge is equally significant to naturalized and non-naturalized metaphysics, so long as both require that successful attempts at metaphysics must be assertions about the thing in itself. -/- The project concludes that until or unless Carnap’s challenge is refuted, naturalized metaphysics remain impossible, just like the metaphysics it is supposed to replace. (shrink)

Remhof contends that Nietzsche is a metaphysician. According to his Meta-Metaphysical Argument, Nietzsche’s texts satisfy the criteria for an adequate conception of metaphysics. According to his Constructivist Argument, Nietzsche adopts a metaphysical position on which concepts’ application conditions constitute the identity conditions of their objects. This article critically appraises these arguments. I maintain that the criteria advanced in the Meta-Metaphysical Argument are collectively insufficient for delineating metaphysics as a distinct field of inquiry and that the Constructivist Argument (...) attributes a position to Nietzsche that remains vulnerable to his evaluative and psychological indictments of two-world metaphysics. I conclude by discussing how these objections might help non-metaphysical readers of Nietzsche resist Remhof’s interpretation. (shrink)

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 claim that common sense regards free will and moral responsibility as compatible with determinism has played a central role in both analytic and experimental philosophy. In this paper, we show that evidence in favor of this “natural compatibilism” is undermined by the role that indeterministic metaphysical views play in how people construe deterministic scenarios. To demonstrate this, we re-examine two classic studies that have been used to support natural compatibilism. We find that although people give apparently compatibilist responses, (...) this is largely explained by the fact that people import an indeterministic metaphysics into deterministic scenarios when making judgments about freedom and responsibility. We conclude that judgments based on these scenarios are not reliable evidence for natural compatibilism. (shrink)

In the presentation I will analyse Kant’s conception of modalities and consider its relevance to his critical metaphysics. With his Tables of Judgements and of Categories Kant makes an important division between two kinds of modality, of which the former is only logical and the latter transcendental, i.e., objective. Only judgements that are necessary in both ways are properly metaphysical. This distinction is important for Kant’s distinction between Transcendental Analytic and Transcendental Dialectic, i.e., between acceptable and unacceptable metaphysics. I (...) submit that not only is Kant’s theory of modality useful for properly understanding his arguments in the Dialectic, but that only by distinguishing between the two types of modality can one can make sense of his theory that the ideas of reason are simultaneously inevitable and erroneous. This modal analysis thus offers a new and important point of view to Kant’s metaphysics and its critique. (shrink)

Although implementation is ubiquitous in computer science, there is no systematic philosophical analysis of its metaphysical structure. In this article, I argue that the conceptual resources of analytical metaphysics can be very helpful in laying the foundations for a metaphysics of implementation and, by extension, of computer science. More specifically, I hold that implementation is a form of metaphysical grounding, and I show that, by combining the properties of grounding with the specific constraints of computer science, one can (...) clarify what a metaphysics of computer science could look like. In sections 2 and 3 of the article, I discuss various meanings of implementation, while in section 4, I submit my central claim that implementation is a form of metaphysical grounding. I substantiate this claim by showing that implementation and grounding share the same formal properties. If this is correct, then issues of ontological dependence, metaphysical explanation, hyperintensionality, and foundedness, typically associated with grounding, can be re-formulated in computer science using the concept of implementation. This is what I do in sections 5.1-5.4. I conclude with some general remarks about the future development of computer science's metaphysics. (shrink)

Considering the importance of possible-world semantics for modal logic and for current debates in the philosophy of modality, a phenomenologist may want to ask whether it makes sense to speak of “possible worlds” in phenomenology. The answer will depend on how "possible worlds" are to be interpreted. As that latter question is the subject of the debate about possibilism and actualism in contemporary modal metaphysics, my aim in this paper is to get a better grip on the former question by (...) exploring a Husserlian stance towards this debate. I will argue that the phenomenologist’s way to deal with the problem of intentional reference to mere possibilia is analogous to the actualist’s idea of how “possible worlds” are to be interpreted. Nevertheless, I will be pointing to a decisive difference in the metaphilosophical preconditions of what I call "phenomenological actualism" and analytical versions of actualism. (shrink)

This book explores Iris Murdoch as a philosopher who, through her distinctive methodology, exploits the advantages of having a mind on the borders of literature and politics in her early career writings (pre-The Sovereignty of Good). By focusing on a single decade of Murdoch’s early career, Jamieson tracks connections between her views on the state of literature and politics in postwar Britain and her approach to the philosophy of mind and moral philosophy. Furthermore, this close study reveals that, far from (...) a stylistic quirk, Murdoch’s use of metaphors, analogies, and other literary devices is internal to her methodology. Finally, rather than asking what Murdoch’s views are, this work will ask “what is Murdoch trying to achieve with her writings and public lectures, and how does she go about this?” By answering the latter question, we will have a new strategy for interpreting her writings more generally. The book contributes to the growing body of scholarship focusing on Iris Murdoch’s philosophical writings, and on women in the history of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

This article introduces a non‐cognitivist account of metaphysical explanation according to which the core function of judgements of the form ⌜x because y⌝ is not to state truth‐apt beliefs. Instead, their core function is to express attitudes of commitment to, and recommendation of the acceptance of certain norms governing interventional conduct at contexts.