Intrinsic properties are those which cannot be had or lacked in virtue of other things. Being a square is intrinsic, in this sense, whereas being next to a square is not. But what, exactly, counts as an “other thing” in this context? As it turns out, this is a surprisingly difficult question. I provide a critical assessment of three existing proposals (in terms of identity, mereology, and ontology), before developing my own, alternative account. Along the way, we highlight ways in which this project intersects with other philosophical issues, including debates over the nature of existence, the essentiality of origins, and the truth of priority monism.
{"title":"Intrinsic Properties and the Problem of “Other Things”","authors":"Ryan Wasserman","doi":"10.1111/rati.12425","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rati.12425","url":null,"abstract":"Intrinsic properties are those which cannot be had or lacked in virtue of other things. Being a square is intrinsic, in this sense, whereas being next to a square is not. But what, exactly, counts as an “other thing” in this context? As it turns out, this is a surprisingly difficult question. I provide a critical assessment of three existing proposals (in terms of identity, mereology, and ontology), before developing my own, alternative account. Along the way, we highlight ways in which this project intersects with other philosophical issues, including debates over the nature of existence, the essentiality of origins, and the truth of priority monism.","PeriodicalId":46553,"journal":{"name":"Ratio","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-09-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142221977","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We argue that we should be sceptical towards the claim that there is such a thing as the standing to blame someone privately, understood in terms of holding the attitude of blame. Key features of the idea about standing to blame do not apply to private blame. For example, we argue that private blame is not the exercise of some normative power, and it is not even pro tanto wrong for a hypocrite to privately blame a blameworthy agent. Thus, contrary to the prevailing sentiment, it is doubtful that there are conditions of standing for private blame. Importantly, our conclusions leave the idea of standing to blame intact when it comes to overt blame, which is understood as something voluntary.
{"title":"Rejecting norms of standing for private blame","authors":"Marta Johansson Werkmäster, Jakob Werkmäster","doi":"10.1111/rati.12420","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rati.12420","url":null,"abstract":"We argue that we should be sceptical towards the claim that there is such a thing as the standing to blame someone privately, understood in terms of holding the attitude of blame. Key features of the idea about standing to blame do not apply to private blame. For example, we argue that private blame is not the exercise of some normative power, and it is not even pro tanto wrong for a hypocrite to privately blame a blameworthy agent. Thus, contrary to the prevailing sentiment, it is doubtful that there are conditions of standing for private blame. Importantly, our conclusions leave the idea of standing to blame intact when it comes to overt blame, which is understood as something voluntary.","PeriodicalId":46553,"journal":{"name":"Ratio","volume":"67 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141864873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The system‐property or ‘cybernetic’ theory of goals and goal‐directedness became popular in the twentieth century. It is a theory that has reductionist and behaviourist roots. There are reasons to think that the system‐property theory needs to be formulated in terms of counterfactuals. However, it proves to be difficult to formulate a counterfactual analysis of goal‐directedness that is counterexample‐free, non‐circular, and non‐trivial. These difficulties closely mirror those facing reductionists about dispositions, though the parallels between the two debates have been overlooked in the literature. After outlining those parallels, the paper considers what goal theorists might learn from the dispositions debate. In particular, the paper discusses the need for a realist, non‐reductionist account of goal‐directedness, and explores the idea that properties of goal‐directedness are themselves dispositions or ‘powers’ of a certain sort.
{"title":"The property of goal‐directedness: Lessons from the dispositions debate","authors":"Matthew Tugby","doi":"10.1111/rati.12417","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rati.12417","url":null,"abstract":"The system‐property or ‘cybernetic’ theory of goals and goal‐directedness became popular in the twentieth century. It is a theory that has reductionist and behaviourist roots. There are reasons to think that the system‐property theory needs to be formulated in terms of counterfactuals. However, it proves to be difficult to formulate a counterfactual analysis of goal‐directedness that is counterexample‐free, non‐circular, and non‐trivial. These difficulties closely mirror those facing reductionists about dispositions, though the parallels between the two debates have been overlooked in the literature. After outlining those parallels, the paper considers what goal theorists might learn from the dispositions debate. In particular, the paper discusses the need for a realist, non‐reductionist account of goal‐directedness, and explores the idea that properties of goal‐directedness are themselves dispositions or ‘powers’ of a certain sort.","PeriodicalId":46553,"journal":{"name":"Ratio","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141608900","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
I am persuaded that the anti‐reductionist stance of the Mistake‐Making Theoretical Framework is fundamentally sound and will prove heuristically fruitful. But the very success of this framework generates a challenge. Many biologically informed metaphysicians have drawn striking conclusions from the fact that biology cannot be reduced to physics and chemistry. One such conclusion is John Dupré's “disunity of the sciences” thesis which follows upon the alleged “disorder of things.” These conclusions threaten to undermine assumptions underpinning the Mistake‐Making Theoretical Framework. In this paper I argue that metaphysicians need to find a middle path between an unattainable reductionism one the one hand and the unwelcome disunity thesis on the other. This is no easy task, as a survey of various proposals makes clear. I argue that adverting to the long‐discredited Aristotelian notion of Prime Matter is the most economical way of achieving unity without reduction.
{"title":"Prime matter emergentism: Unity without reduction","authors":"Stephen Boulter","doi":"10.1111/rati.12415","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rati.12415","url":null,"abstract":"I am persuaded that the anti‐reductionist stance of the Mistake‐Making Theoretical Framework is fundamentally sound and will prove heuristically fruitful. But the very success of this framework generates a challenge. Many biologically informed metaphysicians have drawn striking conclusions from the fact that biology cannot be reduced to physics and chemistry. One such conclusion is John Dupré's “disunity of the sciences” thesis which follows upon the alleged “disorder of things.” These conclusions threaten to undermine assumptions underpinning the Mistake‐Making Theoretical Framework. In this paper I argue that metaphysicians need to find a middle path between an unattainable reductionism one the one hand and the unwelcome disunity thesis on the other. This is no easy task, as a survey of various proposals makes clear. I argue that adverting to the long‐discredited Aristotelian notion of Prime Matter is the most economical way of achieving unity without reduction.","PeriodicalId":46553,"journal":{"name":"Ratio","volume":"129 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141516920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper defends the view that the limits of compromise are identical with the moral principles that set limits to human action more generally. Moral principles that prohibit lying, stealing, or killing, for example, sometimes make it morally impermissible to accept a compromise proposal, for the simple reason that the proposal involves an act of lying, killing, or stealing. The same holds for any other moral principle that sets limits to human action. This may sound straightforward and, perhaps, trivial. Yet in the philosophical literature, discussions of the limits of compromise have singled out more specific principles: Avishai Margalit proposes that the limits of compromise are set by the value of humanity, Simon May points at racial equality and more generally democratic legitimacy, Alexander Ruser and Amanda Machin appeal to the value of integrity, and a fourth at least initially plausible account invokes the idea of public justifiability. After discussing in greater detail what an account of the limits of compromise may be expected to do, the paper will show that none of these accounts is convincing.
{"title":"The limits of compromise","authors":"Fabian Wendt","doi":"10.1111/rati.12419","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rati.12419","url":null,"abstract":"This paper defends the view that the limits of compromise are identical with the moral principles that set limits to human action more generally. Moral principles that prohibit lying, stealing, or killing, for example, sometimes make it morally impermissible to accept a compromise proposal, for the simple reason that the proposal involves an act of lying, killing, or stealing. The same holds for any other moral principle that sets limits to human action. This may sound straightforward and, perhaps, trivial. Yet in the philosophical literature, discussions of the limits of compromise have singled out more specific principles: Avishai Margalit proposes that the limits of compromise are set by the value of humanity, Simon May points at racial equality and more generally democratic legitimacy, Alexander Ruser and Amanda Machin appeal to the value of integrity, and a fourth at least initially plausible account invokes the idea of public justifiability. After discussing in greater detail what an account of the limits of compromise may be expected to do, the paper will show that none of these accounts is convincing.","PeriodicalId":46553,"journal":{"name":"Ratio","volume":"194 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141516919","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In recent years, narrative accounts of the self have gained increasing attention. It is widely accepted that humans are storytelling creatures, that stories shape our self‐conception, and that we fail to be agents without a narrative framework. While there is less agreement on what constitutes a narrative, it is generally understood to be more than a chronological listing of life events; it is also an account of the explanatory relationships among these events—a story of how events lead to other events. However, specifying the nature of this explanatory relationship has proven difficult. As critics have pointed out, narrativists often resort to simplistic notions of narrative when faced with criticism. The concept of narrative explanation needs to be elaborated in a way that is both substantive enough to exclude trivial behaviours from being considered narratives and nonrestrictive enough to accommodate ordinary lives that may not be particularly story‐like. In this paper, I review existing accounts of narrative explanation and propose a teleological account, according to which narratives consist of goal‐directed explanations of a sequence of events. I argue that a teleological account of narrative explanation can be a fruitful way to clarify the concept of “narrative” in the context of the narrative self by addressing the most common objections.
{"title":"What is narrativity?","authors":"Nazim Keven","doi":"10.1111/rati.12418","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rati.12418","url":null,"abstract":"In recent years, narrative accounts of the self have gained increasing attention. It is widely accepted that humans are storytelling creatures, that stories shape our self‐conception, and that we fail to be agents without a narrative framework. While there is less agreement on what constitutes a narrative, it is generally understood to be more than a chronological listing of life events; it is also an account of the explanatory relationships among these events—a story of how events lead to other events. However, specifying the nature of this explanatory relationship has proven difficult. As critics have pointed out, narrativists often resort to simplistic notions of narrative when faced with criticism. The concept of narrative explanation needs to be elaborated in a way that is both substantive enough to exclude trivial behaviours from being considered narratives and nonrestrictive enough to accommodate ordinary lives that may not be particularly story‐like. In this paper, I review existing accounts of narrative explanation and propose a teleological account, according to which narratives consist of goal‐directed explanations of a sequence of events. I argue that a teleological account of narrative explanation can be a fruitful way to clarify the concept of “narrative” in the context of the narrative self by addressing the most common objections.","PeriodicalId":46553,"journal":{"name":"Ratio","volume":"171 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141508983","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this article, I argue that life is a strongly emergent phenomenon. For the project of drawing a real distinction between living and non‐living beings cannot but appeal to strongly emergent powers. First, I introduce some features whose possession is typically taken to be sufficient for possessing life, i.e., Life‐Sufficient Features (or LS‐Features). I also clarify what I mean by “strongly emergent powers”. And I fully develop and illustrate my argument. Subsequently, I examine no less than 17 possible reactions to my argument. I show why all of such reactions turn out to be troublesome or inadequate.
{"title":"Life is strongly emergent","authors":"Michele Paolini Paoletti","doi":"10.1111/rati.12416","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rati.12416","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I argue that life is a strongly emergent phenomenon. For the project of drawing a real distinction between living and non‐living beings cannot but appeal to strongly emergent powers. First, I introduce some features whose possession is typically taken to be sufficient for possessing life, i.e., Life‐Sufficient Features (or LS‐Features). I also clarify what I mean by “strongly emergent powers”. And I fully develop and illustrate my argument. Subsequently, I examine no less than 17 possible reactions to my argument. I show why all of such reactions turn out to be troublesome or inadequate.","PeriodicalId":46553,"journal":{"name":"Ratio","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141508984","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper defines relational properties and argues for their reducibility in a, broadly speaking, Armstrongian framework of state of affairs ontology and truthmaking. While Armstrong's own characterisation and reduction of them arguably is the best one available in the literature of this framework, it suffers from two main problems. As will be shown, it neither defines relational properties very clearly (if at all), nor provides an adequate conception of their reduction. This paper attempts to remedy this situation in four steps. First, it introduces relational properties and why they matter in metaphysics in general. Second, by briefly comparing and contrasting them with extrinsic properties, and by briefly mapping them onto a tripartite division of relations, the particular kinds of relevant relational properties are identified. Third, it classifies relational properties and thereby makes possible an apt definition of them. Finally, using the notion of truthmaking, it outlines a more satisfactory case for their reduction.
{"title":"Relational properties: Definition, reduction, and states of affairs","authors":"Bo R. Meinertsen","doi":"10.1111/rati.12414","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rati.12414","url":null,"abstract":"This paper defines relational properties and argues for their reducibility in a, broadly speaking, Armstrongian framework of state of affairs ontology and truthmaking. While Armstrong's own characterisation and reduction of them arguably is the best one available in the literature of this framework, it suffers from two main problems. As will be shown, it neither defines relational properties very clearly (if at all), nor provides an adequate conception of their reduction. This paper attempts to remedy this situation in four steps. First, it introduces relational properties and why they matter in metaphysics in general. Second, by briefly comparing and contrasting them with extrinsic properties, and by briefly mapping them onto a tripartite division of relations, the particular kinds of relevant relational properties are identified. Third, it classifies relational properties and thereby makes possible an apt definition of them. Finally, using the notion of truthmaking, it outlines a more satisfactory case for their reduction.","PeriodicalId":46553,"journal":{"name":"Ratio","volume":"123 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141508985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Emotions play vital roles in our psychology and our lives. They also often form the basis of our evaluative beliefs. On some views, emotions, like perceptions, justify the beliefs to which they give rise. It has, however, been claimed that, unlike perceptions, emotions are merely proxies for the genuine reasons that are constituted by their cognitive bases. In this paper, I argue that this objection arises from the failure to notice the difference between the notions of ‘reasons there are’ and ‘possessed reasons’. After developing an account of what it is to possess a reason, it will be argued that emotions do constitute genuine reasons for the evaluative beliefs that result from them. To support this claim, a distinction is made between thinner and thicker descriptions of the same event, where a thinner description may be in terms of the emotional response, whereas a thicker description may be in terms of possessing a normative reason to hold a belief or to act.
{"title":"The perceptual model: Emotions as possessed reasons","authors":"Hamid Vahid","doi":"10.1111/rati.12406","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rati.12406","url":null,"abstract":"Emotions play vital roles in our psychology and our lives. They also often form the basis of our evaluative beliefs. On some views, emotions, like perceptions, justify the beliefs to which they give rise. It has, however, been claimed that, unlike perceptions, emotions are merely proxies for the genuine reasons that are constituted by their cognitive bases. In this paper, I argue that this objection arises from the failure to notice the difference between the notions of ‘reasons there are’ and ‘possessed reasons’. After developing an account of what it is to possess a reason, it will be argued that emotions do constitute genuine reasons for the evaluative beliefs that result from them. To support this claim, a distinction is made between thinner and thicker descriptions of the same event, where a thinner description may be in terms of the emotional response, whereas a thicker description may be in terms of possessing a normative reason to hold a belief or to act.","PeriodicalId":46553,"journal":{"name":"Ratio","volume":"51 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140833716","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
According to the realist rendering of mathematical structuralism, mathematical structures are ontologically prior to individual mathematical objects such as numbers and sets. Mathematical objects are merely positions in structures: their nature entirely consists in having the properties arising from the structure to which they belong. In this paper, I offer a bundle-theoretic account of this structuralist conception of mathematical objects: what we normally describe as an individual mathematical object is the mereological bundle of its structural properties. An emerging picture is a version of mereological essentialism: the structural properties of a mathematical object, as a bundle, are the mereological parts of the bundle, which are possessed by it essentially.
{"title":"Mathematical structuralism and bundle theory","authors":"Bahram Assadian","doi":"10.1111/rati.12397","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/rati.12397","url":null,"abstract":"According to the realist rendering of mathematical structuralism, mathematical structures are ontologically prior to individual mathematical objects such as numbers and sets. Mathematical objects are merely positions in structures: their nature entirely consists in having the properties arising from the structure to which they belong. In this paper, I offer a bundle-theoretic account of this structuralist conception of mathematical objects: what we normally describe as an individual mathematical object is the mereological bundle of its structural properties. An emerging picture is a version of mereological essentialism: the structural properties of a mathematical object, as a bundle, are the mereological parts of the bundle, which are possessed by it essentially.","PeriodicalId":46553,"journal":{"name":"Ratio","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-02-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139758352","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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