In his recent book Constructing the World, David Chalmers defends A Priori Scrutability, the thesis that there is a compact class of truths such that for any truth p, a Laplacian intellect could know a priori that if the truths in that class hold, then p. In this paper, I develop an objection to Chalmers’ thesis that focuses on his treatment of a so-called that’s-all truth. My objection draws on Theodore Sider’s discussion of border-sensitive properties, and also on the (...) causal phenomenon of double prevention. (shrink)

What is the aim of philosophy? There may be too many philosophical branches, traditions, practices, and programs to admit of a single overarching aim. Here I focus on a fairly traditional philosophical project that has recently received increasingly sophisticated articulation, especially by Frank Jackson (1998) and David Chalmers (2012). In §1, I present the project and suggest that it is usefully thought of as ‘total axiomatics’: the project of attempting to axiomatize the total theory of the world. In §2, I (...) raise a problem for the project that I call the ‘problem of multiple axiomatizations.’ I consider some initially alluring but ultimately unpromising approaches to this problem in §3. In §4, I defend a surprising approach to the problem, according to which competing axiomatizations of the total theory of the world are effectively evaluated for their aesthetic virtues. (shrink)

According to a radical account of quantum metaphysics that I label ‘high-dimensionalism’, ordinary objects are the ‘shadows’ of high-dimensional fundamental ontology. Critics—especially Maudlin —allege that high-dimensionalism cannot provide a satisfactory explanation of the manifest image. In this paper, I examine the two main ideas behind these criticisms: that high-dimensionalist connections between fundamental and non-fundamental are 1) inscrutable, and 2) arbitrary. In response to the first, I argue that there is no metaphysically significant contrast regarding the scrutability of low- and (...) high-dimensionalist connections. In response to the second, I argue that the arbitrariness of high-dimensionalist connections has been overstated, and what arbitrariness there is afflicts low-dimensionalist connections too. Thus, the debate should not be focused on whether high-dimensionalism can provide a satisfactory explanation of the manifest image—as it has been in recent literature—but rather on the broader question of whether there is good all-things-considered reason to prefer low-dimensionalist theories. (shrink)

Inspired by Rudolf Carnap's Der Logische Aufbau Der Welt, David J. Chalmers argues that the world can be constructed from a few basic elements. He develops a scrutability thesis saying that all truths about the world can be derived from basic truths and ideal reasoning. This thesis leads to many philosophical consequences: a broadly Fregean approach to meaning, an internalist approach to the contents of thought, and a reply to W. V. Quine's arguments against the analytic and the a (...) priori. Chalmers also uses scrutability to analyze the unity of science, to defend a conceptual approach to metaphysics, and to mount a structuralist response to skepticism. Based on the 2010 John Locke lectures, Constructing the World opens up debate on central philosophical issues involving language, consciousness, knowledge, and reality. This major work by a leading philosopher will appeal to philosophers in all areas. This entry contains uncorrected proofs of front matter, chapter 1, and first excursus. (shrink)

The problem of intentional inexistence arises because the following (alleged) intuitions are mutually conflicting: it seems that sometimes we think about things that do not exist; it seems that intentionality is a relation between a thinker and what such a thinker thinks about; it seems that relations entail the existence of what they relate. In this paper, I argue for what I call a radical relationist solution. First, I contend that the extant arguments for the view that relations entail the (...) existence of their relata are wanting. In this regard, I defend a kind of pluralism about relations according to which more than one kind of relation involves non-existents. Second, I contend that there are reasons to maintain that all thoughts are relations between thinkers and the things they are about. More accurately, I contend that the radical relationist solution is to be preferred to both the intentional content solution (as developed by Crane) and the adverbial property solution (as developed by Kriegel). Finally, I argue that once the distinction between thinking “X” and thinking about X has been drawn, the radical relationist solution can handle issues like ontological commitment, substitutivity failure, scrutability, and non-specificity. (shrink)

Maybe the most important argument in David Chalmers’s monumental book Constructing the World is the one he calls the ‘Frontloading Argument’, which is used in Chapter 4 to argue for the book’s central thesis, A Priori Scrutability. And, at first blush, the Frontloading Argument looks very strong. I argue here, however, that it is incapable of securing the conclusion it is meant to establish.

This is a review of David Chalmers's /Constructing the World/. The short, short version: there are issues, but you should definitely read the book.

A critical notice of David J. Chalmers, Constructing the World (Oxford University Press,2012).

O argumento zumbi negativo parte das premissas de que p ∧ ¬q é idealmente negativamente concebível, de que o que é idealmente negativamente concebível é possível e de que o fisicalismo é incompatível com a possibilidade de p ∧ ¬q para concluir que o fisicalismo é falso. No argumento, p é a conjunção das verdades e leis físicas fundamentais e q é uma verdade fenomenal qualquer. Uma sentença φ é idealmente negativamente concebível sse um raciocinador ideal não acredita que ¬φ (...) em reflexão priori. Uma versão da tese da escrutabilidade pressuposta pelo argumento afirma que, para todo φ que sobrevém em p, o raciocinador ideal acredita que p → φ em reflexão a priori. Nesse artigo, argumento que, dado algumas interpretações relevantes da noção de probabilidade (pr(.)), o raciocinador ideal acredita verdadeiramente, para todo φ, que p → pr(φ) = x em reflexão a priori. Mas então, dependendo do valor de pr(q) e das correlações entre q e outras sentenças, o raciocinador ideal também acredita (provavelmente, verdadeiramente) que p → q em reflexão a priori. Então, para alguns qs relevantes, p ∧ ¬q não é idealmente negativamente concebível e o argumento zumbi tem uma premissa falsa. A escolha de um q adequado dependeria de informação empírica, o que faria o argumento zumbi não ser nem conclusivo, nem a priori. ENGLISH: The negative zombie argument has as premises that p∧¬q is ideally negatively conceivable, that what is ideally negatively conceivable is possible, and that Physicalism is incompatible with p∧¬q being possible and as conclusion that Physicalism is false. In the argument, p is the conjunction of the fundamental physical truths and laws and q is an arbitrary phenomenal truth. A sentence φ is ideally negatively conceivable if and only if an ideal reasoner does not believe that ¬φ on a priori reflection. The argument presupposes a version of the scrutability thesis stating that, for all φ that supervene on p, the ideal reasoner believes that p → φ on a priori reflection. In this paper, I argue that, given relevant interpretation of probabilities, the ideal reasoner believes truly, for all φ, that p → pr(φ) = x on a priori reflection. But then, depending on the value of pr(q) and the correlations between q and other sentences, the ideal reasoner also believes (probably, truly) that p → q on a priori reflection. For some relevant qs, p∧¬q is not ideally negatively conceivable and the zombie argument has a false premise. The choice of an adequate q depends on empirical information, what makes the zombie argument neither conclusive nor a priori. (shrink)

This highly technical book is densely packed with arguments and is an important addition to the literature. Even if one ultimately disagrees with Chalmers there is much to be gained in his exhaustive study, and he goes out of his way to show how one can accept limited or modified versions of scrutability. It is impossible for me to do justice to his argumentative rigor and comprehensive coverage of possible views in the space I have here. In the end (...) I find much of what Chalmers says convincing but something of a Pyrrhic victory. (shrink)

An attractive picture of the world is that some features are metaphysically fundamental and others are derivative, with the derivative features grounded in the fundamental features. But how do we have justified beliefs about which features are fundamental? What is the epistemology of fundamentality? I sketch a response in this paper. The guiding idea is that the same properties cause the same experiences. I argue that a probabilistic connection between epistemic fundamentality and metaphysical fundamentality is sufficient for justified beliefs about (...) the metaphysically fundamental. (shrink)

This is a Festschrift in honour of Valtteri Arstila, a professor of theoretical philosophy at the University of Turku. The book is structured in three sections. The first two—‘Mind and Action’ and ‘Time and Temporal Experience’—include papers focussed on issues particularly close to Arstila's own research specialisation. The final section contains papers on various further philosophical issues. The first section, ‘Mind and Action’, collects together contributions on a variety of topics such as consciousness, content, agency and normativity; encompassing approaches from (...) within analytic philosophy, phenomenology and the history of philosophy. The second section, ‘Time and Temporal Experience’, collects together papers on topics including the nature of time itself; of our experience of time and of historicity and temporality more broadly; approaching these issues from a variety of perspectives including historical approaches. The final section brings together papers that touch on issues within philosophy of science, logic, philosophy of language, political philosophy and more besides. (shrink)