Simple Metaphysics and “Ontology Dependence

Five principles that Simple Metaphysics is committed to are described. Among them is the independence criterion for existence. It’s argued that “ontological independence” from linguistic and psychological processes is our criterion for what exists and it’s explained how such a criterion can be applied to adjudicate ontological claims. Indications are given for why the recent use of “ontological dependence” to describe a noncausal explanatory ontological relationship between kinds of things that exist should be resisted by simple metaphysicians: the candidate objects that are to be treated as ontologically dependent don’t exist. The simple metaphysician, however, takes seriously the claim that why certain statements are true and others are not is something in need of (noncausal) explanation. The nature of this kind of explanation is sketched.

Relative Identity: Ontology and Names

This paper outlines an alternative to orthodox notions of ontology and reference. Taking as a starting point, Geach’s theory of Relative Identity (RI), this paper considers what kind of ontological framework and theory of names the defender of RI is committed to. The following conclusions are reached:

1. That RI is incompatible with an ontology of absolute objects, and implies that objects be ‘relative’.
2. That ‘relative objects’ cannot be named by singular terms (like proper names), and require a new and more complex account of reference. The paper introduces a theory of ‘relative objects’; a novel anti-realist approach to ontology. Additionally, an equally novel account of proper names is sketched, taking them to be incomplete expressions, which need completion by the addition of some sortal term before they can refer. These new theories form a coherent picture, which provides an interesting alternative to philosophical orthodoxy.

Another Error in the Error Theory?

According to moral error theory, roughly, moral discourse is infected with error. Establishing the error theory requires establishing both the claim that moral discourse carries a non-negotiable commitment to a certain thesis T, and the claim that thesis T is flawed. This paper only concerns the first and so-called non-negotiable commitment claim. It formulates a hitherto unrecognized objection to the standard way of arguing this claim, viz., the conceptual entailment claim according to which moral discourse conceptually entails thesis T. It also argues two points. (i) The new objection does not suffer from the same flaw shared by existing attempts to sink the conceptual entailment claim, which is that of assuming at least one essential but potentially questionable substantial philosophical thesis. (ii) The new objection can be formulated in such a strong way that it by itself provides sufficient reason to abandon the conceptual entailment claim. Thus the upshot of the paper is that advocates of the error theory are required to argue their non-negotiable commitment claim in terms other than conceptual entailment.

Varieties of Inference

This paper is about two problematic distinctions—one in epistemology: the distinction between inferential and non-inferential justification—and one in philosophy of mind: the distinction between personal and sub-personal levels of psychological explanation. My main thesis is that inferential integration is a distinctive type of epistemic good—specifically, that there’s an epistemically significant difference between mental states or processes that exhibit a non-negligible degree of ‘top-down’ inferential integration with our full propositional attitudes, and mental states or processes that don’t. That difference is significant for the following reason: top-down integration expands the reach of our rational agency—by providing it with ‘back-door access’ to our beliefs and other attitudes—and, in doing so, it increases the efficiency with which we execute certain projects that are constitutive of that agency; in particular, the project whose aim it is for us to 'get things right': to represent (important aspects of) the world correctly rather than incorrectly. This, I argue, allows us to recognize a new class of unjustified justifiers, and, correspondingly, a new kind of epistemic structure—one that doesn’t fit neatly on either side of the traditional inferential/non-inferential divide. And that’s a welcome consequence.

Is the functionalist account of truth too good to be true?,

Alethic functionalism, in the hands of Michael Lynch, is the view that there are different ways to be true, but that these differences nevertheless betray enough unity to forestall outright pluralism. In this way, truth is said to both “one and many”—to use Lynch’s (2009) succinct formula. On this view, truth consists of a handful of consensual truisms that remain constant whilst ranging over a variety of discursive domains. Lynch (2004) openly imports this functionalist strategy from philosophy of mind. However, insofar as the realizers he is ranging over are existing theories of truth, Lynch is putting functionalism to the service of a much broader task. The question becomes, then, whether there is any principled way to stop one from making a similar functionalist move to resolve other longstanding philosophical disagreements. I do not think there is, and so will criticize Lynch’s position mainly by way of a reductio ad absurdum. Detaching Lynch’s argumentation from its original context, I want to show how it invariably yields a solution to any philosophical controversy—not just that pertaining to the nature of truth. On the proviso that no such panacea is or ought to be in the offing, I conclude that such ubiquitous applicability should prompt a recoil, a healthy suspicion that something is amiss with Lynch’s functionalist proposal.

Getting Straight on Epistemic Modals

John Hawthorne has proposed that the troublesome “third party assessment cases” used to argue for relativism about epistemic modals are really cases where the modal is a “danger modal.” I concur with Hawthorne that in these cases the modal is not epistemic, but argue that many of them involve circumstantial modals. This follows from a well known observation made by Hacking, which I suggest has been misunderstood. However, current work on the topic presupposes that these examples are epistemic. This faulty presupposition rests on inadequate attention to the difference between modal terms like ‘it’s possible that,’ ‘might,’ etc., which are in the indicative mood and specific utterances or inscriptions of those terms. Furthermore, once proper attention is paid to this difference, the third party assessment cases turn out to be special cases of a much more general problem, namely how modal bases become associated with particular utterances or inscriptions of modal terms.

In Defence of Narrow Perceptual Content

Externalists contend that the representational content attributed to perceptual states is wide in the sense that it is individuated by the distal causes of perception in the subject’s normal environment. Internalists argue that the attributed content is instead narrow and individuated by internal properties of the subject. Perhaps the biggest difficulty facing Internalism is the claim by some Externalists that empirical Psychology, and vision science in particular, is Externalist in nature. Burge (1986) has argued that Marr’s computational theory of vision is Externalist. Utilising a Twin Earth scenario, Burge argued that microphysical duplicates would be ascribed different perceptual contents. Perceptual content, on this view, is individuated in part by the distal causes of perceptual states and Burge argues that Marr’s theory attributes this kind of content. Segal (1989) has replied that Marr’s theory is consistent with Internalism. Segal showed how Burge’s argument fails because the Externalist conclusion is not the only one that can be drawn from the example. According to Segal, the content ascribed can be neutral concerning the specific environment of the subject and is shared by microphysical duplicates. However, Egan (2009) has recently defended the view that perceptual content is wide and that there is no neutral narrow content available to account for all the properties a perceptual mechanism can represent in different environments. I will argue that narrow content can be defended against the objections raised by showing how Egan’s case misses its target. First, Egan fails to adequately capture the sense in which a neutral narrow content might account for the representational contents of a mechanism in different environments. The key issue centres on the kind of mechanism used in Egan’s example and the kind of content that it should be ascribed. By appealing to a distinction noted by Evans (1982) and Bermudez (2009), regarding personal and subpersonal content, I will argue that such a mechanism is a good candidate for carrying subpersonal content and as such will likely be narrow. This proposal shows how neutral narrow content can be defended by noting the difference between personal level contents that have phenomenal character and subpersonal level contents that feed into personal level processes.

Understanding’s Tethers

It seems natural to assume that understanding, like knowledge, requires truth. But natural science affords understanding and uses models and thought experiments that are not, and do not purport to be true. To accommodate science, we need a theory of understanding that recognizes the epistemic functions of representations that are not true. I contend that models and thought experiments are felicitous falsehoods. I argue that they afford insight into the phenomena they concern by exemplifying features they share with those phenomena. In effect they show rather than say something about those phenomena.