Movatterモバイル変換

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   1 citation  

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   13 citations  

According to one traditional view, empirical science is necessarily preceded by philosophical analysis. Yet the relevance of philosophy is often doubted by those engaged in empirical sciences. I argue that these doubts can be substantiated by two theoretical problems that the traditional conception of philosophy is bound to face. First, there is a strong normative etiology to philosophical problems, theories, and notions that is difficult to reconcile with descriptive empirical study. Second, conceptual analysis (a role that is typically assigned to (...) philosophy) seems to lose its object of study if it is granted that terms do not have purely conceptual meanings detached from their actual use in empirical sciences. These problems are particularly acute to the current naturalistic philosophy of science. I suggest a more concrete integration of philosophy and the sciences as a possible way of making philosophy of science have more impact. (shrink)

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark   8 citations  

This paper is inspired by and develops on E. J. Lowe’s work, who writes in his book The Possibility of Metaphysics that ‘metaphysical possibility is an inescapable determinant of actuality’ (1998: 9). Metaphysics deals with possibilities – metaphysical possibilities – but is not able to determine what is actual without the help of empirical research. Accordingly, a delimitation of the space of possibilities is required. The resulting – controversial – picture is that we generally need to know whether something is (...) possible before we can know whether it is actual. In order to appreciate this picture, we need to understand Lowe’s slogan: ‘essence precedes existence’ (Lowe 2008: 40). This slogan has both an ontological and an epistemic reading. The ontological reading is related to the now familiar idea that essence grounds modality, as popularised by Kit Fine. The epistemic reading suggests that we can know the essence of some entity before we know whether or not that entity exists. However, this idea is often met with puzzlement and Lowe himself sadly passed away before he had a chance to clarify this framework. I will present the framework as I understand it, develop it on my own terms, and put forward a qualified defence of it. I will also illustrate how the framework can be put to use with a case study concerning the discovery of transuranic elements. (shrink)

Direct download(6 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   8 citations  

There have been many attempts to determine what makes a natural kind real, chief among them is the criterion according to which natural kinds must be mind-independent. But it is difficult to specify this criterion: many supposed natural kinds have an element of mind-dependence. I will argue that the mind-independence criterion is nevertheless a good one, if correctly understood: the mind-independence criterion concerns the unification principles for natural kinds. Unification principles determine how natural kinds unify their properties, and only those (...) natural kinds that have a mind-independent unification principle should be considered real. (shrink)

Direct download(4 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   11 citations  

Aristotelian metaphysics is currently undergoing something of a renaissance. This volume brings together fourteen essays from leading philosophers who are sympathetic to this conception of metaphysics, which takes its cue from the idea that metaphysics is the first philosophy. The primary input from Aristotle is methodological, but many themes familiar from his metaphysics will be discussed, including ontological categories, the role and interpretation of the existential quantifier, essence, substance, natural kinds, powers, potential, and the development of life. The volume mounts (...) a strong challenge to the type of ontological deflationism which has recently gained a strong foothold in analytic metaphysics. It will be a useful resource for scholars and advanced students who are interested in the foundations and development of philosophy. (shrink)

Direct download(3 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   40 citations  

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 14.1 (2006) 77-88 [Access article in PDF] Revealing the Habitual: The Teachings of Unconventional Piano-PlayingTuomas Mali Vantaa, Finland Playing Experiences as a Source of Knowledge As a pianist, I know piano-playing from the inside as something I am accustomed to doing. For me, as for every serious pianist, playing is an everyday activity that has become so habitual as to be inseparable (...) from myself. As I am absorbed in piano-playing, I become musical in a way that more or less makes me forget myself. In the tumult of playing there is no objectifying gaze, no clear distinction between subject and object, performer and music; there is just skilful coping with musical tasks and concerns.1 For an experienced pianist the centrality of the lived body is a commonplace: to know piano-playing is to know one's own body in and through playing as one cultivates a "pianistic" way of existing. This calls for daily training.2 Although it is not always this obvious, the lived body is important to all knowing. Through regular practicing and performing I know piano-playing in the same direct way as we all know the world in and through living "in" it as human bodies, in and through our everyday coping, our "dealings" in the world.3 Juha Varto, the Finnish phenomenologist, uses the word "inspective" to describe this way of knowing, in a sense that emphasizes active bodily being-in-the-world.4 [End Page 77]To reflect on piano-playing, in contrast, requires one to distance oneself from playing, to adopt a perspective that is not present in the playing itself. The relationship between the knower and the world is now different. Here, Varto uses the word "perspective" as an adjective to designate this way of knowing. He illuminates the difference between "inspective" and "perspective" knowing with the image of a burning stake: the spectators certainly know that the stake is hot and that it kills, but the smell of one's own burning flesh makes it clear and certain in a radically different way without intermediary thought.5 Reflection makes it possible to "observe" piano-playing, to see it "in perspective," as part of a larger, ordered, cultural reality, as part of a considered "view" or "theory." When devoting oneself to reflection, it is typical to characterize the activity of playing as objective, as something that lies outside the lived experience of the body. But—and this is often deliberately ignored—a view or a theory arrived at through observation is also irrevocably bound to the embodied existence of the observer, even if the view often seems to be more or less a product of thought alone.While the distinction between concerned coping ("inspective" knowing) and reflective viewing ("perspective" knowing) is important, it should be kept in mind that in human life they are always interwoven. There is no way to eliminate one of them, no way to choose only one or the other. Rather, we are constantly negotiating between the "inspective" and "perspective," dealing on the one hand with our situated bodily experience and on the other hand with our recognition of a larger cultural perspective.Historically, valued knowledge about music-making has often been framed around a conception of reflection as detached, disinterested inquiry which as pure contemplation, has nothing to do with the lived body of the knower. A particular discourse or a quest for definition has often served as starting points for research—starting points that seemingly rule out the relevance of bodily experiences. However, it seems to me that there is no way to cut the link between knowing and experiencing; differences on the level of the lived body are often crucial for knowledge. For example, the difference in the experiential basis often results in a gap between the knowledge of a "maker" and that of a "viewer." When music is known mostly through making it, knowledge gained through observation often seems to miss what is essential, to distort and misinterpret the musical practice. This gap, and... (shrink)

Direct download(6 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

Natural kind essentialism is a specification of the intuitive idea that there are some mind-independent or objective categories in nature. These categories are thought to be characterised by a shared essence, which may involve intrinsic or extrinsic properties, mechanisms, or causal history. While the ontological basis of natural kinds has its roots in antiquity and especially Aristotle, the contemporary notion of a “natural kind” in philosophical discussion is often traced to William Whewell’s and John Stuart Mill’s work in the 1800s. (...) In its more modern form, natural kind essentialism was popularised in the 1970s mainly by Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam. Traditionally, natural kind essentialism has been associated with intrinsic and microstructural properties, but contemporary work has made it clear that more refined versions of natural kind essentialism may have to accept extrinsic or relational essences. (shrink)

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   2 citations  

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   29 citations  

Unity of science was once a very popular idea among both philosophers and scientists. But it has fallen out of fashion, largely because of its association with reductionism and the challenge from multiple realisation. Pluralism and the disunity of science are the new norm, and higher-level natural kinds and special science laws are considered to have an important role in scientific practice. What kind of reductionism does multiple realisability challenge? What does it take to reduce one phenomenon to another? How (...) do we determine which kinds are natural? What is the ontological basis of unity? In this Element,Tuomas Tahko examines these questions from a contemporary perspective, after a historical overview. The upshot is that there is still value in the idea of a unity of science. We can combine a modest sense of unity with pluralism and give an ontological analysis of unity in terms of natural kind monism. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

Direct download(9 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   12 citations  

How do we come to know metaphysical truths? How does metaphysical inquiry work? Are metaphysical debates substantial? These are the questions which characterize metametaphysics. This book, the first systematic student introduction dedicated to metametaphysics, discusses the nature of metaphysics - its methodology, epistemology, ontology and our access to metaphysical knowledge. It provides students with a firm grounding in the basics of metametaphysics, covering a broad range of topics in metaontology such as existence, quantification, ontological commitment and ontological realism. Contemporary views (...) are discussed along with those of Quine, Carnap and Meinong. Going beyond the metaontological debate, thorough treatment is given to novel topics in metametaphysics, including grounding, ontological dependence, fundamentality, modal epistemology, intuitions, thought experiments and the relationship between metaphysics and science. The book will be an essential resource for those studying advanced metaphysics, philosophical methodology, metametaphysics, epistemology and the philosophy of science. (shrink)

Direct download(6 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   47 citations  

The notion of fundamentality, as it is used in metaphysics, aims to capture the idea that there is something basic or primitive in the world. This metaphysical notion is related to the vernacular use of “fundamental”, but philosophers have also put forward various technical definitions of the notion. Among the most influential of these is the definition of absolute fundamentality in terms of ontological independence or ungroundedness. Accordingly, the notion of fundamentality is often associated with these two other technical notions.

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   43 citations  

Recent work on Natural Kind Essentialism has taken a deflationary turn. The assumptions about the grounds of essentialist truths concerning natural kinds familiar from the Kripke-Putnam framework are now considered questionable. The source of the problem, however, has not been sufficiently explicated. The paper focuses on the Twin Earth scenario, and it will be demonstrated that the essentialist principle at its core (which I call IDENT)—that necessarily, a sample of a chemical substance, A, is of the same kind as another (...) sample, B, if and only if A and B have the same microstructure—must be re-evaluated. The Twin Earth scenario also assumes the falsity of another essentialist principle (which I call INST): necessarily, there is a 1:1 correlation between (all of ) the chemical properties of a chemical substance and the microstructure of that substance. This assumption will be questioned, and it will be argued that, in fact, the best strategy for defending IDENT is to establish INST. The prospects for Natural Kind Essentialism and microstructural essentialism regarding chemical substances will be assessed with reference to recent work in the philosophy of chemistry. Finally, a weakened form of INST will be presented. (shrink)

Direct download(13 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   48 citations  

The goals of this paper are two-fold: I wish to clarify the Aristotelian conception of the law of non-contradiction as a metaphysical rather than a semantic or logical principle, and to defend the truth of the principle in this sense. First I will explain what it in fact means that the law of non-contradiction is a metaphysical principle. The core idea is that the law of non-contradiction is a general principle derived from how things are in the world. For example, (...) there are certain constraints as to what kind of properties an object can have, and especially: some of these properties are mutually exclusive. Given this characterisation, I will advance to examine what kind of challenges the law of non-contradiction faces; the main opponent here is Graham Priest. I will consider these challenges and conclude that they do not threaten the truth of the law of non-contradiction understood as a metaphysical principle. (shrink)

Direct download(7 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   41 citations  

In formal ontology, infinite regresses are generally considered a bad sign. One debate where such regresses come into play is the debate about fundamentality. Arguments in favour of some type of fundamentalism are many, but they generally share the idea that infinite chains of ontological dependence must be ruled out. Some motivations for this view are assessed in this article, with the conclusion that such infinite chains may not always be vicious. Indeed, there may even be room for a type (...) of fundamentalism combined with infinite descent as long as this descent is “boring,” that is, the same structure repeats ad infinitum. A start is made in the article towards a systematic account of this type of infinite descent. The philosophical prospects and scientific tenability of the account are briefly evaluated using an example from physics. (shrink)

Direct download(5 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   47 citations  

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   12 citations  

Name der Zeitschrift: Language and Cognition - An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language and Cognitive Science Jahrgang: 5 Heft: 4 Seiten: 375-408.

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark  

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

Review of Uskonto ja maailmanpolitiikka, eds. Heikki Pesonen, Tuula Sakaranaho and Sini Paukkunen.

No categories

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

It is argued that if we take grounding to be univocal, then there is a serious tension between truth-grounding and one commonly assumed structural principle for grounding, namely transitivity. The primary claim of the article is that truth-grounding cannot be transitive. Accordingly, it is either the case that grounding is not transitive or that truth-grounding is not grounding, or both.

Direct download(6 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   39 citations  

Direct download(9 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   13 citations  

Three popular views regarding the modal status of the laws of nature are discussed: Humean Supervenience, nomic necessitation, and scientific/dispositional essentialism. These views are examined especially with regard to their take on the apparent modal force of laws and their ability to explain that modal force. It will be suggested that none of the three views, at least in their strongest form, can be maintained if some laws are metaphysically necessary, but others are metaphysically contingent. Some reasons for thinking that (...) such variation in the modal status of laws exists will be presented with reference to physics. This drives us towards a fourth, hybrid view, according to which there are both necessary and contingent laws. The prospects for such a view are studied. (shrink)

Direct download(11 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   22 citations  

In this chapter, a generic definition of fundamentality as an ontological minimality thesis is sought and its applicability examined. Most discussions of fundamentality are focused on a mereological understanding of the hierarchical structure of reality, which may be combined with an atomistic, object-oriented metaphysics. But recent work in structuralism, for instance, calls for an alternative understanding and it is not immediately clear that the conception of fundamentality at work in structuralism is commensurable with the mereological conception. However, it is proposed (...) that once we understand fundamentality as an ontological minimality thesis, these two as well as further conceptions of fundamentality can all be treated on a par, including metaphysical infinitism of the ‘boring’ type, where the same structure repeats infinitely. (shrink)

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   21 citations  

In this chapter, it is suggested that our epistemic access to metaphysical modality generally involves rationalist, a priori elements. However, these a priori elements are much more subtle than ‘traditional’ modal rationalism assumes. In fact, some might even question the ‘apriority’ of these elements, but I should stress that I consider a priori and a posteriori elements especially in our modal inquiry to be so deeply intertwined that it is not easy to tell them apart. Supposed metaphysically necessary identity statements (...) involving natural kind terms are a good example: the fact that empirical input is crucial in establishing their necessity has clouded the role and content of the a priori input, as I have previously argued. For instance, the supposed metaphysically necessary identity statement involving water and its microstructure can only be established with the help of a controversial a priori principle concerning the determination of chemical properties by microstructure. The Kripke-Putnam framework of modal epistemology fails precisely because it is unclear whether the required a priori element is present. My positive proposal builds on E. J. Lowe’s work. Lowe holds that our knowledge of metaphysical modality is based on our knowledge of essence. Lowe’s account strives to offer a uniform picture of modal epistemology: essence is the basis of all our modal knowledge. This is the basis of Lowe’s modal rationalism. I believe that Lowe’s proposal is on the right lines in the case of abstract objects, but I doubt that it can be successfully applied to the case of natural kinds. Accordingly, the case of natural kinds will be my main focus and I will suggest that modal rationalism, at least as it is traditionally understood, falls short of explaining modal knowledge concerning natural kinds. Yet, I think that Lowe has identified something of crucial importance for modal epistemology, namely the essentialist, a priori elements present in our modal inquiry. The upshot is that rather than moving all the way from modal rationalism to modal empiricism, a type of hybrid approach, ‘empirically-informed modal rationalism ’, can be developed. (shrink)

Direct download(3 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   14 citations  

Direct download(7 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   4 citations  

This is a contribution to Paavo Pylkkänen's Festschrift. I discuss his relationship to Bohm's philosophy and a sense of holism that can be extracted from the Bohmian view.

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark  

Biochemical kinds such as proteins pose interesting problems for philosophers of science, as they can be studied from the points of view of both biology and chemistry. The relationship between the biological functions of biochemical kinds and the microstructures that they are related to is the key question. This leads us to a more general discussion about ontological reductionism, microstructuralism, and multiple realization at the biology-chemistry interface. On the face of it, biochemical kinds seem to pose a challenge for ontological (...) reductionism and hence motivate a dual theory of chemical and biological kinds, a type of pluralism about natural kinds. But it will be argued that the challenge, which is based on multiple realization, can be addressed. The upshot is that there are reasonable prospects for ontological reductionism about biochemical kinds, which corroborates natural kind monism. (shrink)

Direct download(13 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   18 citations  

The practice of scientific modelling often resorts to hypothetical, false, idealised, targetless, partial, generalised, and other types of modelling that appear to have at least partially non-actual targets. In this paper, I will argue that we can avoid a commitment to non-actual targets by sketching a framework where models are understood as having networks of possibilities as their targets. This raises a further question: what are the truthmakers for the modal claims that we can derive from models? I propose that (...) we can find truthmakers for the modal claims derived from models in actuality, even in the case of supposedly non-actual targets. I then put this framework to use by examining a case study concerning the modelling of superheavy elements. (shrink)

Direct download(4 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   4 citations  

The epistemology of essence is a topic that has received relatively little attention, although there are signs that this is changing. The lack of literature engaging directly with the topic is probably partly due to the mystery surrounding the notion of essence itself, and partly due to the sheer difficulty of developing a plausible epistemology. The need for such an account is clear especially for those, like E.J. Lowe, who are committed to a broadly Aristotelian conception of essence, whereby essence (...) plays an important theoretical role. In this chapter, our epistemic access to essence is examined in terms of the a posteriori vs. a priori distinction. The two main accounts to be contrasted are those of David S. Oderberg and E.J. Lowe. (shrink)

Direct download(7 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   28 citations  

A recent methodological approach at the interface of metaphysics and philosophy of science suggests that just like causal laws govern causation, there needs to be something in metaphysics that governs metaphysical relations. Such laws of metaphysics would be counterfactual-supporting general principles that account for the explanatory force of metaphysical explanations. There are various suggestions about how such principles could be understood. They could be based on what Kelly Trogdon calls grounding-mechanical explanations, where the role that grounding mechanisms play in certain (...) metaphysical explanations mirrors the role that causal mechanisms play in certain scientific explanations. Another approach, by Gideon Rosen, takes it that there are essentialist principles or laws that tell us about what grounds what. Finally, Jonathan Schaffer defends an approach that he considers to be neutral regarding grounding or essences. In this paper I will assess these suggestions and argue that for those willing to invoke a non-modal notion of essence, there is a more promising route available: metaphysical and scientific explanations may be unified in terms of general essences. Accordingly, essentialists may be better viewed as outlaws when it comes to laws of metaphysics. (shrink)

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

No categories

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

No categories

Export citation   Bookmark  

Direct download(3 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

The base rate fallacy is a fallacy that occurs in probabilistic reasoning when available general information is omitted from the calculations and attention is given to specific information only. To illustrate this concept, this chapter discusses the scenario in Philip K. Dick's short story “Minority Report”, with some details augmented by the 2002 movie daptation by Steven Spielberg. The legislative approach seems to be based not just on the base rate fallacy but on assuming a base rate that is divorced (...) from reality, that the drug use rate among welfare applicants is significantly higher than the national rate. Once the accurate base rate is applied (be it the proportions between the races in the US population, or the percentage of drug users among the people receiving government welfare, etc.), one can clearly see that the original conclusion does not follow. (shrink)

No categories

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark  

What if the Merc with a Mouth was sent to a psychiatric institution with the intent of helping him, but what came out was something even more disturbing? This is the basic plotline of Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe where Deadpool, well, kills all the characters who make up the Marvel Universe in order to save them from a fate worse than death. Under the gory surface of this story are substantive philosophical questions about the nature of reality, the place (...) we inhabit in it, and the meaning of our seemingly absurd existence. This chapter explores the nature of possibility and the arguments for cashing out the notion of alternate realities in terms of possible worlds. (shrink)

No categories

Direct download   Export citation   Bookmark  

In Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence a company called Cybertronics is responsible for creating, building, and disseminating a large number of ‘mechas’ – androids built specifically to address a multitude of human needs, including the desire to have children. David, an android mecha-child, has the capacity to genuinely love on whomever he ‘imprints.’ The first of this kind of mecha, he is ultimately abandoned by his ‘mother’ Monica, and David spends the rest of the film searching for Pinocchio's Blue Fairy (...) so that he can be made into a ‘real boy’ and gain Monica's love. Their reunion finally occurs at the end of the film, after hundreds of years. Typically, the ending in A.I. is panned by critics, and written off as an egregrious example of Spielberg's sentimentalism. However, we argue that the ending is essential in order to portray a certain conception of the nature of human personhood. While many science fiction films about artificial intelligence are centered on the issue of what constitutes personhood, A.I. is one of the very few films that does not regard personhood as something purely intrinsic to the biological construction of the organism. We contend that one of the many the messages of this film is that the journey to complete personhood requires social recognition. (shrink)

Direct download(4 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

Export citation   Bookmark  

Direct download(5 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   1 citation  

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark  

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   1 citation  

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   11 citations  

Direct download(4 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   27 citations  

The starting point of this paper concerns the apparent difference between what we might call absolute truth and truth in a model, following Donald Davidson. The notion of absolute truth is the one familiar from Tarski’s T-schema: ‘Snow is white’ is true if and only if snow is white. Instead of being a property of sentences as absolute truth appears to be, truth in a model, that is relative truth, is evaluated in terms of the relation between sentences and models. (...) I wish to examine the apparent dual nature of logical truth (without dwelling on Davidson), and suggest that we are dealing with a distinction between a metaphysical and a linguistic interpretation of truth. I take my cue from John Etchemendy, who suggests that absolute truth could be considered as being equivalent to truth in the ‘right model’, i.e., the model that corresponds with the world. However, the notion of ‘model’ is not entirely appropriate here as it is closely associated with relative truth. Instead, I propose that the metaphysical interpretation of truth may be illustrated in modal terms, by metaphysical modality in particular. One of the tasks that I will undertake in this paper is to develop this modal interpretation, partly building on my previous work on the metaphysical interpretation of the law of non-contradiction (Tahko 2009). After an explication of the metaphysical interpretation of logical truth, a brief study of how this interpretation connects with some recent important themes in philosophical logic follows. In particular, I discuss logical pluralism and propose an understanding of pluralism from the point of view of the metaphysical interpretation. (shrink)

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   9 citations  

One of the main line of responses to the infamous causal exclusion problem has been based on the counterfactual account of causation. However, arguments have begun to surface to the effect that the counterfactual theory is in fact ill-equipped to solve the exclusion problem due to its commitment to downward causation. This argumentation is here critically analysed. An analysis of counterfactual dependence is presented and it is shown that if the semantics of counterfactuals is taken into account carefully enough, the (...) counterfactual notion of causation does not need to be committed to downward causation. However, it is a further question whether this is eventually enough to solve the exclusion problem for the analysis shows how the problem itself can take various different forms. (shrink)

Direct download(2 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   11 citations  

When I say that my conception of metaphysics is Aristotelian, or neo-Aristotelian, this may have more to do with Aristotle’s philosophical methodology than his metaphysics, but, as I see it, the core of this Aristotelian conception of metaphysics is the idea that metaphysics is the first philosophy . In what follows I will attempt to clarify what this conception of metaphysics amounts to in the context of some recent discussion on the methodology of metaphysics (e.g. Chalmers et al . (2009), (...) Ladyman and Ross (2007)). There is a lot of hostility towards the Aristotelian conception of metaphysics in this literature: for instance, the majority of the contributors to the Metametaphysics volume assume a rather more deflationary, Quinean approach towards metaphysics. In the process of replying to the criticisms towards Aristotelian metaphysics put forward in recent literature I will also identify some methodological points which deserve more attention and ought to be addressed in future research. (shrink)

Direct download(3 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   23 citations  

Ian Hacking uses the looping effect to describe how classificatory practices in the human sciences interact with the classified people. While arguably this interaction renders the affected human kinds unstable and hence different from natural kinds, realists argue that also some prototypical natural kinds are interactive and human kinds in general are stable enough to support explanations and predictions. I defend a more fine-grained realist interpretation of interactive human kinds by arguing for an explanatory domain account of the looping effect. (...) First, I argue that knowledge of the feedback mechanisms that mediate the looping effect can supplement, and help to identify, the applicability domain over which a kind and its property variations are stably explainable. Second, by applying this account to cross-cultural case studies of psychiatric disorders, I distinguish between congruent feedback mechanisms that explain matches between classifications and kinds, and incongruent feedback mechanisms that explain mismatches. For example, congruent mechanisms maintain Western auditory experiences in schizophrenia, whereas exporting diagnostic labels inflicts incongruence by influencing local experiences. Knowledge of the mechanisms can strengthen explanatory domains, and thereby facilitate classificatory adjustments and possible interventions on psychiatric disorders. (shrink)

Direct download(4 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   3 citations  

What is our epistemic access to metaphysical modality? Timothy Williamson suggests that the epistemology of counterfactuals will provide the answer. This paper challenges Williamson's account and argues that certain elements of the epistemology of counterfactuals that he discusses, namely so called background knowledge and constitutive facts, are already saturated with modal content which his account fails to explain. Williamson's account will first be outlined and the role of background knowledge and constitutive facts analysed. Their key role is to restrict our (...) imagination to rule out irrelevant counterfactual suppositions. However, background knowledge turns out to be problematic in cases where we are dealing with metaphysically possible counterfactual suppositions that violate the actual laws of physics. As we will see, unless Williamson assumes that background knowledge corresponds with the actual, true laws of physics and that these laws are metaphysically necessary, it will be difficult to address this problem. Furthermore, Williamson's account fails to accommodate the distinction between conceivable yet metaphysically impossible scenarios, and conceivable and metaphysically possible scenarios. This is because background knowledge and constitutive facts are based strictly on our knowledge of the actual world. Williamson does attempt to address this concern with regard to metaphysical necessities – as they hold across all possible worlds – but we will see that even in this case the explanation is questionable. These problems, it will be suggested, cannot be addressed in a counterfactual account of the epistemology of modality. The paper finishes with an analysis of Williamson's possible rejoinders and some discussion about the prospects of an alternative account of modal epistemology. (shrink)

Direct download(6 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   26 citations  

In this paper I will offer a novel understanding of a priori knowledge. My claim is that the sharp distinction that is usually made between a priori and a posteriori knowledge is groundless. It will be argued that a plausible understanding of a priori and a posteriori knowledge has to acknowledge that they are in a constant bootstrapping relationship. It is also crucial that we distinguish between a priori propositions that hold in the actual world and merely possible, non-actual a (...) priori propositions, as we will see when considering cases like Euclidean geometry. Furthermore, contrary to what Kripke seems to suggest, a priori knowledge is intimately connected with metaphysical modality, indeed, grounded in it. The task of a priori reasoning, according to this account, is to delimit the space of metaphysically possible worlds in order for us to be able to determine what is actual. (shrink)

Direct download(8 more)   Export citation   Bookmark   8 citations  

Contemporary metaphysics, and especially neo‐Aristotelian metaphysics, tackles many of the same problems as Avicenna did. One of these problems is the possibility of substantial kind change. For instance, is it possible for an animal to change its species? Aristotle and Avicenna both regarded species to be eternal, but their metaphysics might allow for individuals to change their kinds—what is important is that one kind cannot change into another kind. From a contemporary perspective, this may seem odd, given what we know (...) about the evolution of species. Moreover, phenomena like beta decay seem to suggest that a given sample of an element may change into another element, so one might think that contemporary science allows both changing kinds and substantial kind change. Yet, I suggest that the essentialist metaphysics that has developed from Aristotle to neo‐Aristotelian metaphysics, via Avicenna, may already possess the necessary tools to accommodate all this. (shrink)

Direct download(3 more)   Export citation   Bookmark