Showing papers in "Dialectica in 2005"

Is Structural Realism the Best of Both Worlds

Abstract: In a recent series of papers, John Worrall has defended and elaborated a philosophical position - traced back to Poincar6 - which he calls structural realism. This view stands in between scientific realism and agnostic instrumentalism and intends to accommodate both the intuitions that underwrite the ‘no miracles’ argument for scientific realism and the existence of scientific revolutions which lead to radical theoretical changes. Structural realism presents itself as the best of both worlds. In this paper I critically examine the epistemic status of structural realism, and argue that it is not the best of both worlds. Yet, I stress that it reveals an insight which, properly understood, can cast new light on the debates over scientific realism.

The Cornucopia of Formal-Ontological Relations

Abstract: The paper presents a new method for generating typologies of formal-ontological relations. The guiding idea is that formal relations are those sorts of relations which hold between entities which are constituents of distinct ontologies. We provide examples of ontologies (in the spirit of Zemach’s classic “Four Ontologies” of 1970), and show how these can be used to give a rich typology of formal relations in a way which also throws light on the opposition between threeand four-dimensionalism. There are many candidate formal-ontological relations, for instance: identity and difference, parthood and overlap, inherence and dependence, participation and location. Our task in what follows is to provide a principle for generating the complete family of such relations. This will mean providing an account of what formal-ontological relations are, and of how they differ from relations of other types (for instance from static material relations such as lies on and fits into, from material relational events such as kisses and thumps, from comparative relations such as is taller than and is further from Witwatersrand than, and from family relations such as is the brother of and is consanguineous with). The starting point for our endeavours is a philosophical position which we call realist perspectivalism (Grenon 2003a; Smith and Brogaard 2003). This consists in the view that any given domain of reality can be viewed from a number of different ontological perspectives, all of which can have equal claim to veridicality. Compare the way in which medical science is divided into anatomy and physiology: the former tells us about the structures of the human

Philosphical ‘Intuitions’ and Scepticism about Judgement

Abstract: 1. What are called 'intuitions' in philosophy are just applications of our ordinary capacities for judgement. We think of them as intuitions when a special kind of scepticism about those capacities is salient. 2. Like scepticism about perception, scepticism about judgement pressures us into conceiving our evidence as facts about our internal psychological states: here, facts about our conscious inclinations to make judgements about some topic rather than facts about the topic itself. But the pressure should be resisted, for it rests on bad epistemology: specifically, on an impossible ideal of unproblematically identifiable evidence. 3. Our resistance to scepticism about judgement is not simply epistemic conservativism, for we resist it on behalf of others as well as ourselves. A reason is needed for thinking that beliefs tend to be true. 4. Evolutionary explanations of the tendency assume what they should explain. Explanations that appeal to constraints on the determination of reference are more promising. Davidson's truth-maximizing principle of charity is examined but rejected. 5. An alternative principle is defended on which the nature of reference is to maximize knowledge rather than truth. It is related to an externalist conception of mind on which knowing is the central mental state. 6. The knowledge-maximizing principle of charity explains why scenarios for scepticism about judgement do not warrant such scepticism, although it does not explain how we know in any particular case. We should face the fact that evidence is always liable to be contested in philosophy, and stop using talk of intuition to disguise this unpleasant truth from ourselves.

The A‐Theory of Time, The B‐Theory of Time, and ‘Taking Tense Seriously’

Abstract: The paper has two parts: First, I describe a relatively popular thesis in the philosophy of propositional attitudes, worthy of the name ‘taking tense seriously’; and I distinguish it from a family of views in the metaphysics of time, namely, the A-theories (or what are sometimes called ‘tensed theories of time’). Once the distinction is in focus, a skeptical worry arises. Some A-theorists maintain that the difference between past, present, and future, is to be drawn in terms of what exists: growing-block theorists eschew ontological commitment to future entities; presentists, to future and past entities. Others think of themselves as A-theorists but exclude no past or future things from their ontology. The metaphysical skeptic suspects that their attempt to articulate an ‘eternalist’ version of the A-theory collapses into merely ‘taking tense seriously’– a thesis that does not imply the A-theory. The second half of the paper is the search for a stable eternalist A-theory. It includes discussion of temporary intrinsics, temporal parts, and truth.

Naturalism; Or, Living Within One's Means

Abstract: L'A. developpe sa propre conception du naturalisme qui ne se reduit pas a l'experimentation empirique des hypotheses vraisemblables. Appliquant une methode de deduction fondee sur l'acceptation d'une theorie scientifique, et non pas sur la seule hypothese, l'A. conclut a la primaute de la structure theorique sur l'ontologie, et a la transcendance de la verite

Intuition, Entitlement and the Epistemology of Logical Laws

Abstract: The essay addresses the well-known idea that there has to be a place for intuition, thought of as a kind of non-inferential rational insight, in the epistemology of basic logic if our knowledge of its principles is non-empirical and is to allow of any finite, non-circular reconstruction. It is argued that the error in this idea consists in its overlooking the possibility that there is, properly speaking, no knowledge of the validity of principles of basic logic. When certain important distinctions are observed, for instance that between recognising that Modus Ponens is sound and recognising that it is proof against the competent discovery of basic counterexamples, the case for thinking that there is indeed no space for genuine recognition of the validity of Modus Ponens becomes increasingly impressive. It is argued however that, the impossibility of knowledge notwithstanding, we are, in an important sense, entitled to take it that Modus Ponens is sound and that this notion of entitlement can help break the trichotomy - intuition, inference, experience - which imprisons our ordinary thinking about logical knowledge.

The A-theory of time, the B-theory of time, and 'taking tense seriously'. Commentary

Abstract: The paper has two parts: First, I describe a relatively popular thesis in the philosophy of propositional attitudes, worthy of the name 'taking tense seriously'; and I distinguish it from a family of views in the metaphysics of time, namely, the A-theories (or what are sometimes called 'tensed theories of time'). Once the distinction is in focus, a skeptical worry arises. Some A-theorists maintain that the difference between past, present, and future, is to be drawn in terms of what exists: growing-block theorists eschew ontological commitment to future entities; presentists, to future and past entities. Others think of themselves as A-theorists but exclude no past or future things from their ontology. The metaphysical skeptic suspects that their attempt to articulate an 'etemalist' version of the A-theory collapses into merely 'taking tense seriously' - a thesis that does not imply the A-theory. The second half of the paper is the search for a stable etemalist A-theory. It includes discussion of temporary intrinsics, temporal parts, and truth.

Intentionality as the Mark of the Dispositional

Abstract: summary Martin and Pfeifer (1986) have claimed “that the most typical characterizations of intentionality … all fail to distinguish … mental states from … dispositional physical states.” The evidence they present in support of this thesis is examined in the light of the possibility that what it shows is that intentionality is the mark, not of the mental, but of the dispositional. Of the five marks of intentionality they discuss a critical examination shows that three of them, Brentano's (1874) inexistence of the intentional object, Searle's (1983) directedness and Anscombe's (1965) indeterminacy, are features which distinguish T-inten Tional/dispositional The other two are either, as in the case of Chisholm's (1957) permissible falsity of a propositional attitude ascription, a feature of linguistic utterances too restricted in its scope to be of interest, or, as in the case of Frege's (1892) indirect reference/Quine's (1953) referential opacity, evidence that the S-intenSional locution is a quotation either of what someone has said in the past or might be expected to say, if the question were to arise at some time in the future.

Laws and cause

Abstract: L'A. defend la these du monisme anormal, selon lequel un enonce vrai, singulier et causal, concernant deux evenements mentaux presuppose une loi qui regit ces deux evenements des lors qu'ils sont decrits de facon appropriee. L'A. etablit des relations conceptuelles entre les notions d'evenement, loi et objet, afin d'expliquer pourquoi l'identite entre entites mentales et physiques n'implique pas l'identite entre le vocabulaire mental et le vocabulaire physique

Truthmakers and the Converse Barcan Formula

Abstract: The paper criticizes the truthmaker principle that every truth is made true by something. If we interpret ‘something’ as quantifying into sentence position, we can interpret the principle as a harmless logical truth, but that is not what advocates of the principle intend. They interpret ‘something’ as quantifying into name position, and the principle as requiring the existence of truthmaking individuals. The paper argues that we have no reason to believe the principle on this interpretation. Moreover, the converse Barcan formula is inconsistent with the existence of truthmaking individuals for contingent truths. Considerations about our ability to count possible truthmaking individuals are used to argue that we should prefer the converse Barcan formula.

Intuition Pumps and the Proper Use of Thought Experiments

Abstract: I begin with an explication of "thought experiment". I then clarify the role that intuitions play in thought experiments by addressing two important issues: (1) the informativeness of thought experiments and (2) the legitimacy of the method of thought experiments in philosophy and the natural sciences. I defend a naturalistic account of intuitions that provides a plausible explanation of the informativeness of thought experiments, which, in turn, allows thought experiments to be reconstructed as arguments. I also specify criteria for distinguishing bad "intuition pumps" from legitimate thought experiments. These criteria help us to avoid being seduced by the dangerous suggestive power of misleading intuitions.

Naming the Stages

Abstract: Standard lore has it that a proper name, or a definite description on its de re read- ing, is a temporally rigid designator. It picks out the same entity at every time at which it picks out an entity at all. If the entity in question is an enduring continuant (a 3D object that persists through time by being fully present at different times) then we know what this means, though we are also stuck with a host of metaphysical puzzles concerning endurance itself. If the entity in question is a perdurant (a 4D worm that persists through time by having different parts at different times) then the rigidity claim is trivial, though one is left wondering how it is that different speakers ever manage to pick out one and the same entity when a host of suitable, overlapping candidates are available. But what if the entity in question is neither a continuant nor a perdurant? What if the things we talk about in ordinary language are time-bound entities that cannot truly be said to persist through time, or stage sequences whose unity resides exclu- sively in our minds—like the "wave" at the stadium or the characters of a cartoon? In such cases the rigidity claim can't be right and a counterpart-theoretic semantics seems required. Is that bad? I say it isn't. And it had better not be, if that turns out to be the best metaphysical option we have.

Change, Temporal Parts, and the Argument from Vagueness

Abstract: The so-called ‘argument from vagueness’ is among the most powerful and innovative arguments offered in support of the view that objects are four-dimensional perdurants. The argument is defective – I submit – and in a number of ways that are worth looking into. But each ‘defect’, each gap in the argument, corresponds to a model of change that is independently problematic and that can hardly be built into the common-sense picture of the world. So once all the gaps of the argument are filled in, the three-dimensionalist is left with the burden of a response that cannot rely on a passive plea for common sense. The argument is not a threat to common sense as such; it is a threat to the three-dimensionalist faithfulness to common sense.

Relations, monism, and the vindication of Bradley's regress

Abstract: This article articulates and defends F. H. Bradley's regress argument against external relations using contemporary analytic techniques and conceptuality. Bradley's argument is usually quickly dismissed as if it were beneath serious consideration. But I shall maintain that Bradley's argument, suitably reconstructed, is a powerful argument, plausibly premised, and free of such obvious fallacies as petitio principii. Thus it does not rest on the question-begging assumption that all relations are internal, as Russell, and more recently van Inwagen, maintain. Bradley does not attack external relations in order to affirm a doctrine of internal relations, and his monism is not derived from the internality of all relations, but from the self-contradictory nature of all relations. For Bradley, it is the “relational situation”as such that is ontologically defective.

Through thick and thin: good and its determinates

Abstract: What is the relation between the concept good and more specific or ‘thick’ concepts such as admirable or courageous? I argue that good or more precisely good pro tanto is a general concept, but that the relation between good pro tanto and the more specific concepts is not that of a genus to its species. The relation of an important class of specific evaluative concepts, which I call ‘affective concepts’, to good pro tanto is better understood as one between a determinable and its determinates, whereas concepts such as courageous can be analysed in terms of affective concepts and purely descriptive concepts.

Abstraction and Identity

Abstract: and want to settle cross-sortal identity claims of the form: Both abstraction principles, however, are silent with regard to this identity - a special instance of the Caesar Problem . In what follows, we outline two distinct strategies to resolve the C-R problem . The first strategy decides such cross-abstraction identities in terms of whether or not the equivalence relations appearing on the right hand side of the abstraction principles are identical, while the second strategy settles such identities by appeal to the relevant equivalence classes. We then focus our discussion on the latter approach and offer three ways of implement- ing this strategy. Ultimately, we argue that this strategy fails, as each attempt to appeal to equivalence classes faces unsurmountable difficulties.

The Origins of Modal Error

Abstract: Modal intuitions are the primary source of modal knowledge but also of modal error According to the theory of modal error in this paper, modal intuitions retain their evidential force in spite of their fallibility, and erroneous modal intuitions are in principle identifiable and eliminable by subjecting our intuitions to a priori dialectic After an inventory of standard sources of modal error, two further sources are examined in detail The first source - namely, the failure to distinguish between metaphysical possibility and various kinds of epistemic possibility - turns out to be comparatively easy to untangle and poses little threat to intuition-driven philosophical investigation The second source is the local (ie, temporary) misunderstanding of one's concepts (as opposed to outright Burgean misunderstanding) This pathology may be understood on analogy with a patient who is given a clean bill of health at his annual check-up, despite his having a cold at the time of the check-up: although the patient's health is locally (temporarily) disrupted, his overall health is sufficiently good to enable him to overcome the cold without external intervention Even when our understanding of certain pivotal concepts has lapsed locally, our larger body of intuitions is sufficiently reliable to allow us, without intervention, to ferret out the modal errors resulting from this lapse in understanding by means of dialectic and/or a process of a priori reflection This source of modal error, and our capacity to overcome it, has wide-ranging implications for philosophical method - including, in particular, its promise for disarming skepticism about the classical method of intuition-driven philosophical investigation itself Indeed, it is shown that skeptical accounts of modal error (eg, the accounts given by Hill, Levin, and several others) are ultimately self-defeating

On Explaining Knowledge of Necessity

Abstract: Moderate rationalists maintain that our rational intuitions provide us with prima facie justification for believing various necessary propositions. Such a claim is often criticized on the grounds that our having reliable rational intuitions about domains in which the truths are necessary is inexplicable in some epistemically objectionable sense. In this paper, I defend moderate rationalism against such criticism. I argue that if the reliability of our rational intuitions is taken to be contingent, then there is no reason to think that our reliability is inexplicable. I also suggest that our reliability is, in fact, necessary, and that such necessary reliability neither admits of, nor requires, any explanation of the envisaged sort.

'Holmes' and Holmes: A Millian analysis of names from fiction

Abstract: In this paper, I defend a view of names from fiction compatible with the Millian theory of proper names. Unlike other attempts at providing a Millian analysis of names from fiction, my approach gives semantic recognition to our pre-theoretic intuitions without postulating meta-physically dubious entities. The intuitively correct treatment of typical examples, including true negative existential statements, is obtained by appealing only to independently motivated results in the semantics for natural languages.

Joint attention, triangulation and radical interpretation: A problem and its solution

Abstract: By describing the aim of triangulation as locating the objects of thoughts and utterances, Davidson has given in the double role of accounting for both the individuation of content and the sense in which content necessarily is public. The focus of this article is on how triangulation may contribute to the individuation of content. I maintain that triangulation, interpreted in terms of joint attention, may serve to break into the intentional circle of meaning and belief, yet without forcing us to renounce the claims concerning the interdependence of meaning and belief and the irreducibility of meaning.

Where are particulars and universals

Abstract: Soulevant la question de la distinction physique, psychologique et logique entre les particuliers et les universaux en reference a Russell et a Ramsey, l'A. mesure la validite de la conception aristotelicienne de la distinction particulier-universel fondee sur l'idee de la localisation des entites. Examinant le probleme d'une definition paradigmatique du particulier et de l'universel a partir des concepts d'espace et de temps chez Lewis, Armstrong et Frege, l'A. etudie la position naturaliste concernant les nombres, l'esprit et leurs proprietes, d'une part, et montre que les solutions au probleme de la spatialisation des universaux singuliers et des universaux multiple implique la these du monisme, d'autre part

Contextualism, Scepticism, and the Problem of Epistemic Descent

Abstract: Perhaps the most dominant anti-sceptical proposal in recent literature - advanced by such figures as Stewart Cohen, Keith DeRose and David Lewis - is the contextualist response to radical scepticism. Central to the contextualist thesis is the claim that, unlike other non-contextualist anti-sceptical theories, contextualism offers a dissolution of the sceptical paradox that respects our common sense epistemological intuitions. Taking DeRose's view as representative of the contextualist position, it is argued that instead of offering us an intuitive response to scepticism, contextualism is actually committed to a revisionist stance as regards our everyday usage of epistemic terms. In particular, it is argued that the thesis fails to present a satisfactory explication of a notion - that of epistemic descent' - that is pivotal to the anti-sceptical import of the account. On the positive side, however, it is claimed that although the contextualist response to scepticism is ultimately unsatisfying, DeRose's theory does contain within it the framework for a completely different - and far more persuasive - account of the phenomenology' of scepticism which runs along non-contextualist lines.

Higher‐Order Quantification and Ontological Commitment

Abstract: George Boolos's employment of plurals to give an ontologically innocent interpretation of monadic higher-order quantification continues and extends a minority tradition in thinking about quantification and ontological commitment. An especially prominent member of that tradition is Stanislaw Lesniewski, and shall first draw attention to this work and its relation to that of Boolos. Secondly I shall stand up briefly for plurals as logically respectable expressions, while noting their limitations in offering ontologically deflationary accounts of higher-order quantification. Thirdly I shall focus on the key idea of ontological commitment and investigate its connection with the idea of truth-making. Fourthly I shall consider how different interpretations of quantification may sideline Boolos's work, but finally I shall largely support his analysis of quantification involving nominal expressions, while arguing, in the spirit of Arthur Prior, that non-nominal quantification is non-committing.

To Be Is to Be an F

Abstract: I defend the view that our ontology divides into categories, each with its own canonical way of identifying and distinguishing the objects it encompasses. For instance, I argue that natural numbers are identified and distinguished by their positions in the number sequence, and physical bodies, by facts having to do with spatiotemporal continuity. I also argue that objects belonging to different categories are ipso facto distinct. My arguments are based on an analysis of reference, which ascribes to reference a richer structure than it is normally taken to have.

Natural Kinds and Manifest Forms of Life

Abstract: Summary In this paper I try to make sense of and give provisional answers to question like: Are there interesting theories about natural kinds (distinguishing them form other kinds)? Are some classifications or categorisations more natural than others? Does it matter whether or not there are natural kinds? To get an initial feel for the subject let's consider some suggestions from the literature as to what might count as a candidate for a natural kind or natural kind term.

Ramsey's Representation Theorem

Abstract: This paper reconstructs and evaluates the representation theorem presented by Ramsey in his essay 'Truth and Probability', showing how its proof depends on a novel application of Holder's theory of measurement. I argue that it must be understood as a solution to the problem of measuring partial belief, a solution that in many ways remains unsurpassed. Finally I show that the method it employs may be interpreted in such a way as to avoid a well known objection to it due to Richard Jeffrey.

Dispositional belief, assent and acceptance

Abstract: I discuss Ruth Marcus's conception of beliefs as dispositional states related to possible states of affairs. While I agree with Marcus that this conception accounts for the necessary distinction between belief and linguistic assent, I argue that the relationship between dispositional beliefs and our assent attitudes is more complex, and should include other mental states, such as acceptances, which, although they contain voluntary elements, are further layers of dispositional doxastic attitudes.

Explicit intensionalization, anti-actualism, and how Smith's murderer might not have murdered Smith

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to provide a non-contradictory interpretation of sentences such as "Smith's murderer might not have murdered Smith". An anti-actualist, two-dimensional framework including partial functions provides the basis for my solution. I argue for two claims. (1) The modal profile of the proposition (truth-condition) expressed by "The F might not have been an F" (where "F" is an empirical predicate) is complex: at any world where there is a unique F the proposition is true; at any world without a unique F the proposition has no truth-value; hence, at no world is it false. It remains an open semantic and epistemological question which of the first two kinds of world the actual world is. (2) The semantic method should be based on explicit intensionalization in lieu of actualism. Actualism accords a privileged role to the actual world. Explicit intensionalization places all possible worlds, including the actual one, on an equal footing. Syntactically, a lambda-bound world variable replaces the (explicit or implicit) actual-world constant or operator, while the other world variable is existentially bound.

Duhem and Quine

Abstract: The rejection of the idea that the so-called Duhem-Quine thesis in fact expresses a thesis upheld by either Duhem or Quine invites a more detailed comparison of their views It is suggested that the arguments of each have a certain impact on the positions maintained by the other In particular, Quine's development of his notion of ontological commitment is enlisted in the interpretation of Duhem's position It is argued that this counts against the instrumentalist construal usually put on what Duhem says about approximation and historical continuity