Some views articulate reality’s hierarchical structure using relations from the fundamental to representations of reality. Other views instead use relations from the fundamental to constituents of non-representational reality. This paper argues against the first kind of view.
{"title":"Against Representational Levels","authors":"Nicholas K. Jones","doi":"10.1111/phpe.12176","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/phpe.12176","url":null,"abstract":"Some views articulate reality’s hierarchical structure using relations from the fundamental to representations of reality. Other views instead use relations from the fundamental to constituents of non-representational reality. This paper argues against the first kind of view.","PeriodicalId":51519,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Perspectives","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44046886","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Given some things, what’s prior: those things taken individually or those things taken collectively? Is each of them prior to them, or are they prior to every one of them? Is each thing prior to the things, or are the things themselves prior to each thing itself? This is, at a very rough first pass, the general question at the heart of a neglected debate in foundational ontology, the debate over the relative ontological priority of individuality and collectivity. What’s prior, each of some entities or those very entities? Are some objects taken separately prior to those objects taken together, or are the objects taken together prior to the objects taken separately? Using a common piece of jargon: given some things, what’s prior, every single such thing or the plurality of them?1 The question ought not to be confused with others that have interested metaphysicians both across history and in more recent years. For instance, what’s at issue is not the relative priority of some entities and a further entity that’s somehow made out of those entities (a mereological fusion of them, a class or set of them, a fact or proposition about them, and so forth). That concerns the relative priority of some things (whether taken individually or collectively) and a somehow composite thing to which they bear some sort of intimate, constitutive relation (parthood, membership, etc.). The question is instead over the relative priority of each of some objects and those very objects—the focus is on individuality and collectivity proper, not on compositeness and componency. Similarly, the issue is not with the relative priority of some entities and a network of relations that those entities bear to one another. The concern there is with the relative priority of how some things are in isolation from each other and how they are in relation to each other. Our question is instead over how each of some objects is (whether in isolation from or in relation to others) and how those objects are—the focus is on singularity and plurality as such, not on isolation and relationality. Of *Many thanks to Ross Cameron, Michael Della Rocca, Heather Demarest, Cian Dorr, Nina Emery, Kit Fine, Rob Koons, Daniel Nolan, Laurie Paul, David Plunkett, Jonathan Schaffer, Erica Shumener, Gabriel Uzquiano, and Seth Yalcin for extensive feedback on previous versions of this material. 1Jargon: a plurality of things isn’t a further thing, which is somehow made out of those things. Rather, it’s just those things, the things themselves—those very things taken together, i.e. taken collectively.
给定一些东西，什么是优先的:那些单独采取的还是那些集体采取的?是每一个都先于它们，还是每一个都先于它们?是每一事物先于事物，还是事物本身先于每一事物本身?粗略地说，这是基础本体论中一个被忽视的争论的核心问题，关于个体和集体的相对本体论优先权的争论。什么是优先的，是某些实体中的每一个还是那些实体本身?是把一些对象分开后再把这些对象放在一起，还是把这些对象放在一起后再把它们分开?用一个常见的术语:给定一些事物，哪个优先，是每一个还是多个?这个问题不应该与历史上和近年来形而上学家感兴趣的其他问题混淆。例如，争论的焦点不是某些实体的相对优先级，以及由这些实体组成的另一个实体(它们的流变融合，一类或一组实体，关于它们的事实或命题，等等)。这涉及到一些事物的相对优先级(无论是单独的还是集体的)和某种程度上的复合事物，它们具有某种亲密的，构成的关系(部分，成员，等等)。相反，问题在于某些对象和那些对象的相对优先级——重点是个体性和集体性，而不是组合性和组件性。同样，问题不在于某些实体的相对优先地位以及这些实体彼此之间的关系网络。这里关注的是一些事物如何相互孤立以及它们如何相互联系的相对优先级。相反，我们的问题是某些对象中的每一个是怎样的(无论是孤立于其他对象还是相对于其他对象)，以及这些对象是怎样的——重点是单一性和多元性本身，而不是孤立性和相关性。非常感谢Ross Cameron, Michael Della Rocca, Heather Demarest, ian Dorr, Nina Emery, Kit Fine, Rob Koons, Daniel Nolan, Laurie Paul, David Plunkett, Jonathan Schaffer, Erica Shumener, Gabriel Uzquiano和Seth Yalcin对本材料之前版本的广泛反馈。1 .行话:事物的复数不是一个进一步的事物，它是由这些事物组成的。相反，它只是那些东西，这些东西本身——这些东西放在一起，即集体。
{"title":"Ontological Collectivism","authors":"Raul Saucedo","doi":"10.1111/phpe.12175","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/phpe.12175","url":null,"abstract":"Given some things, what’s prior: those things taken individually or those things taken collectively? Is each of them prior to them, or are they prior to every one of them? Is each thing prior to the things, or are the things themselves prior to each thing itself? This is, at a very rough first pass, the general question at the heart of a neglected debate in foundational ontology, the debate over the relative ontological priority of individuality and collectivity. What’s prior, each of some entities or those very entities? Are some objects taken separately prior to those objects taken together, or are the objects taken together prior to the objects taken separately? Using a common piece of jargon: given some things, what’s prior, every single such thing or the plurality of them?1 The question ought not to be confused with others that have interested metaphysicians both across history and in more recent years. For instance, what’s at issue is not the relative priority of some entities and a further entity that’s somehow made out of those entities (a mereological fusion of them, a class or set of them, a fact or proposition about them, and so forth). That concerns the relative priority of some things (whether taken individually or collectively) and a somehow composite thing to which they bear some sort of intimate, constitutive relation (parthood, membership, etc.). The question is instead over the relative priority of each of some objects and those very objects—the focus is on individuality and collectivity proper, not on compositeness and componency. Similarly, the issue is not with the relative priority of some entities and a network of relations that those entities bear to one another. The concern there is with the relative priority of how some things are in isolation from each other and how they are in relation to each other. Our question is instead over how each of some objects is (whether in isolation from or in relation to others) and how those objects are—the focus is on singularity and plurality as such, not on isolation and relationality. Of *Many thanks to Ross Cameron, Michael Della Rocca, Heather Demarest, Cian Dorr, Nina Emery, Kit Fine, Rob Koons, Daniel Nolan, Laurie Paul, David Plunkett, Jonathan Schaffer, Erica Shumener, Gabriel Uzquiano, and Seth Yalcin for extensive feedback on previous versions of this material. 1Jargon: a plurality of things isn’t a further thing, which is somehow made out of those things. Rather, it’s just those things, the things themselves—those very things taken together, i.e. taken collectively.","PeriodicalId":51519,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Perspectives","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47566912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Shamik Dasgupta has argued that realists about natural properties (and laws, grounding, etc.) cannot account for their epistemic value. For “properties are cheap”: in addition to natural properties and any value the realist might attach to them, there are also “shmatural” properties (standing to natural properties as Goodman’s grue and bleen stand to green and blue) and a corresponding “shmvalue” of theorizing in terms of them. Dasgupta’s challenge is one of objectivity: the existence of the “shmamiked” network of concepts threatens the objectivity of facts stated using the unshmamiked network. But given a proper understanding of objectivity itself, the challenge can be answered.
{"title":"Dasgupta's Detonation","authors":"Theodore Sider","doi":"10.1111/phpe.12169","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/phpe.12169","url":null,"abstract":"Shamik Dasgupta has argued that realists about natural properties (and laws, grounding, etc.) cannot account for their epistemic value. For “properties are cheap”: in addition to natural properties and any value the realist might attach to them, there are also “shmatural” properties (standing to natural properties as Goodman’s grue and bleen stand to green and blue) and a corresponding “shmvalue” of theorizing in terms of them. Dasgupta’s challenge is one of objectivity: the existence of the “shmamiked” network of concepts threatens the objectivity of facts stated using the unshmamiked network. But given a proper understanding of objectivity itself, the challenge can be answered.","PeriodicalId":51519,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Perspectives","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48110738","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
According to the theory developed here, we may trace out the processes emanating from a cause in such a way that any consequence lying along one of these processes counts as an effect of the cause. This theory gives intuitive verdicts in a diverse range of problem cases from the literature. Its claims about causation will never be retracted when we include additional variables in our model. And it validates some plausible principles about causation, including Sartorio’s ‘Causes as Difference Makers’ principle and Hitchcock’s ‘Principle of Sufficient Reason’.
{"title":"How to Trace a Causal Process","authors":"J. Gallow","doi":"10.1111/phpe.12174","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/phpe.12174","url":null,"abstract":"According to the theory developed here, we may trace out the processes emanating from a cause in such a way that any consequence lying along one of these processes counts as an effect of the cause. This theory gives intuitive verdicts in a diverse range of problem cases from the literature. Its claims about causation will never be retracted when we include additional variables in our model. And it validates some plausible principles about causation, including Sartorio’s ‘Causes as Difference Makers’ principle and Hitchcock’s ‘Principle of Sufficient Reason’.","PeriodicalId":51519,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Perspectives","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49320872","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the ongoing debates about the nature of time, two main theories have recently come into focus. One is The Static Theory of Time, according to which time is like space in various ways, and there is no such thing as the passage of time. And the other is The Dynamic Theory of Time, according to which time is very different from space, and the passage of time is an all-too-real phenomenon. For various contingent, historical reasons, The Static Theory has been themajority view among scientists and philosophers ever since early in the 20th Century. Lots of arguments have been proposed against The Dynamic Theory, and Dynamic Theorists have mainly played defense, attempting to respond to the arguments that have been raised against our view. In this paper, I am going to get offensive: I want to introduce five new arguments for The Dynamic Theory of Time. But I want to emphasize at the outset that I am going to talk about two views – each one a combination of several different theses – that are among the many views on the table in the metaphysics of time. I will talk about these two because I consider them to be the most plausible and the most interesting. But for each of the two views to be featured here, there are many other possible combinations of theses in the same ballpark, quite a few of which have been defended in the literature. Some of what I say will apply to some of these other combinations, and some of what I say will not. One cannot talk about everything in a single paper. But my main goal is to introduce five new arguments for what I take to be the most plausible and the most interesting version of a dynamic theory of time. Before I get to those arguments, I will start by characterizing the two theories about the nature of time that I want to focus on. This is important partly in order to clarify what is at issue, and also because, as I see it, the two main sides in the dispute over the nature of time have not been formulated in the most perspicuous ways, and I want to be a part of the solution to that problem.
{"title":"Five New Arguments for The Dynamic Theory of Time","authors":"N. Markosian","doi":"10.1111/phpe.12167","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/phpe.12167","url":null,"abstract":"In the ongoing debates about the nature of time, two main theories have recently come into focus. One is The Static Theory of Time, according to which time is like space in various ways, and there is no such thing as the passage of time. And the other is The Dynamic Theory of Time, according to which time is very different from space, and the passage of time is an all-too-real phenomenon. For various contingent, historical reasons, The Static Theory has been themajority view among scientists and philosophers ever since early in the 20th Century. Lots of arguments have been proposed against The Dynamic Theory, and Dynamic Theorists have mainly played defense, attempting to respond to the arguments that have been raised against our view. In this paper, I am going to get offensive: I want to introduce five new arguments for The Dynamic Theory of Time. But I want to emphasize at the outset that I am going to talk about two views – each one a combination of several different theses – that are among the many views on the table in the metaphysics of time. I will talk about these two because I consider them to be the most plausible and the most interesting. But for each of the two views to be featured here, there are many other possible combinations of theses in the same ballpark, quite a few of which have been defended in the literature. Some of what I say will apply to some of these other combinations, and some of what I say will not. One cannot talk about everything in a single paper. But my main goal is to introduce five new arguments for what I take to be the most plausible and the most interesting version of a dynamic theory of time. Before I get to those arguments, I will start by characterizing the two theories about the nature of time that I want to focus on. This is important partly in order to clarify what is at issue, and also because, as I see it, the two main sides in the dispute over the nature of time have not been formulated in the most perspicuous ways, and I want to be a part of the solution to that problem.","PeriodicalId":51519,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Perspectives","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45699723","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
I respond to the frequent objection that structural realism fails to sharply state an alternative to the standard predicate-logic, object / prop-erty / relation, way of doing metaphysics. The approach I propose is based on what I call a ‘math-first’ approach to physical theories (close to the so-called ‘semantic view of theories’) where the content of a physical theory is to be understood primarily in terms of its mathematical structure and the representational relations it bears to physical systems, rather than as a collection of sentences that attempt to make true claims about those systems (a ‘language-first’ approach). I argue that adopting the math-first approach already amounts to a form of structural realism, and that the choice between epistemic and ontic versions of structural realism is then a choice between a language-first and math-first view of metaphysics ; I then explore the status of objects (and properties and relations) in fundamental and non-fundamental physics for both versions of math-first structural realism. ordinary-language semantics: satisfaction.
{"title":"Stating structural realism: mathematics‐first approaches to physics and metaphysics","authors":"D. Wallace","doi":"10.1111/phpe.12172","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/phpe.12172","url":null,"abstract":"I respond to the frequent objection that structural realism fails to sharply state an alternative to the standard predicate-logic, object / prop-erty / relation, way of doing metaphysics. The approach I propose is based on what I call a ‘math-first’ approach to physical theories (close to the so-called ‘semantic view of theories’) where the content of a physical theory is to be understood primarily in terms of its mathematical structure and the representational relations it bears to physical systems, rather than as a collection of sentences that attempt to make true claims about those systems (a ‘language-first’ approach). I argue that adopting the math-first approach already amounts to a form of structural realism, and that the choice between epistemic and ontic versions of structural realism is then a choice between a language-first and math-first view of metaphysics ; I then explore the status of objects (and properties and relations) in fundamental and non-fundamental physics for both versions of math-first structural realism. ordinary-language semantics: satisfaction.","PeriodicalId":51519,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Perspectives","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42720004","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：