Pub Date : 2020-09-24DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197510940.003.0011
Michael Della Rocca
The biggest source of resistance to the Parmenidean Ascent is the implausibility of its radically monistic conclusions. Philosophers have been taught to avoid at almost any cost any such implausible or counterintuitive results. Thus, to complete the defense of the Parmenidean Ascent, it is necessary to weaken the hold of the method of intuition and the related reliance on common sense. This chapter outlines various forms of the method of intuition to be found in thinkers as diverse as Bealer, Lewis, Sider, and also Rawls with his method of reflective equilibrium. The method of intuition is shown to be both unduly conservative and also arbitrary with regard to which opinions are favored. The chapter then explores the historical factors behind the rise of the method of intuition. Here the focus is on the reaction against Bradley by the early analytical philosophers, Moore and Russell, who question-beggingly reject Bradley’s commitment to the PSR.
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Pub Date : 2020-09-24DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197510940.003.0006
Michael Della Rocca
In its most general form, the explanatory demand with regard to meaning addresses the question: what is it for representation or aboutness or meaning to be present? This question can focus on linguistic meaning in particular or on aboutness in general, including non-linguistic aboutness. Through a detailed analysis of leading theories—including those of Grice, Searle, Soames, Descombes, Horwich, Putnam, Kripke, Lewis, and Davidson—it is shown how the failure to meet the explanatory demand with regard to meaning is pervasive. A Bradleyan regress argument is then deployed to make a Parmenidean Ascent: there is no differentiated meaning, instead all is meaning. This ascent is intimated—perhaps unwittingly—in the classic arguments of Quine’s “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” and Davidson’s “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme.” The chapter closes with a Parmenidean Ascent with regard to truth that follows from the Parmenidean Ascent with regard to meaning.
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Pub Date : 2020-09-24DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197510940.003.0005
Michael Della Rocca
Chapter 5 begins by showing how the explanatory demand with regard to knowledge—what is it in virtue of which a given state is a state of knowledge?—drives so much work in epistemology. As in the cases of the chapters on substance and action, this chapter argues that leading theories of knowledge all fail to meet this explanatory demand. Theories examined include contextualist and non-contextualist theories, as well as knowledge-first theories. Authors criticized include Goldman, Dretske, DeRose, Lewis, Stanley, and Williamson. With the help of another Bradleyan regress argument, the underlying problem in each case is revealed to be the presupposition that one is dealing with differentiated or relational knowledge. As before, the way out of these difficulties is to make a Parmenidean Ascent with regard to knowledge: all is knowledge and there is no differentiated knowledge.
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Pub Date : 2020-09-24DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197510940.001.0001
Michael Della Rocca
The central aim of The Parmenidean Ascent is to reveal the power of an extreme monism of a Parmenidean variety in a more uncompromising manner than has been attempted for many a year. For the Parmenidean monist, there are no distinctions whatsoever, and indeed distinctions are unintelligible. The book not only defends—against the tide of much recent scholarship—the attribution of such a sweeping monism to Parmenides, it also embraces this monism in its own right and expands these monistic results to many of the most crucial areas of philosophy. The topics that come in for this rationalistic, monistic treatment include being, action, knowledge, meaning, truth, and metaphysical explanation. There is thus no differentiated being, no differentiated action, knowledge, etc. Rather all is being, just as all is action, knowledge, etc. The motive force behind this argument is a combination of a detailed survey of the failures of leading positions (both historical and contemporary) to meet a demand for the explanation of a given phenomenon, and a powerful rationalist, Bradleyan argument against the reality of relations. The result is a rationalist rejection of all distinctions and a skeptical denial of the intelligibility of ordinary, relational notions of being, action, knowledge, etc. A further significant upshot is the rejection of any distinction between philosophy itself and the study of its history. Throughout the book, attention is paid to philosophical methods, including especially the method, so popular today, of relying on intuitions and common sense. The historically minded and rationalist approach throughout this book goes a long way toward demonstrating the ultimate bankruptcy of this prevalent methodology.
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