Below are the abstracts for the talks - in alphabetic order by the speaker's last name (all references have been collected at the very end).
In this article I look at a particular theory of possibility based on the notion of a disposition, as formulated in [Borghini and Williams, 2008]. Borghini and Williams' article presents a new actualist understanding of modality. Such an understanding entails removing the notion of possible worlds from the metaphysical account of modality, replacing it with modal properties existing in the world (cf. Vetter, 2011). Their article is solely focusing on the concept of possibility, and the particular properties responsible for the fact that some things are possible, are those that are dispositional in character. These dispositions are all we need in order to explain possibility. I agree with Borghini and Williams' background assumptions, such as there being several good reasons why we should leave the framework of possible worlds behind, and rather appeal to modal properties found in the world, when discussing the metaphysics of modality. Still, I argue that their account has some unfortunate consequences. Most important, I argue that they are defending a notion of metaphysical possibility which is wider than what their own framework really allows for. Borghini and Williams' article is often cited (cf. e.g., Vetter, 2011; Vetter, 2015; Contessa, 2010; Jacobs, 2010) but seldom scrutinized. Usually it is simply presented as a token example of a dispositional theory of possibility, with little or no further analysis of their project. The goal of my article is to bring attention to certain consequences of their account which have been overlooked so far. Their theory is not simply a presentation of a theory of possibility, it is also an argument for a particular interpretation of the domain of the metaphysically possible. Their account explains possibility as what actual objects in the world are disposed to do. However, the manifestation of such dispositions may bring new dispositions about, so-called \higher-order" dispositions, giving rise to possibilities hitherto not existing in the world. These possibilities may in some cases be super-nomic possibilities. That is, possibilities going beyond the actual laws of nature. Borghini and Williams holds that the domain of the nomic and the super-nomic possibilities taken together is equivalent with what is metaphysically possible. One of their main claims regarding this domain, is that the metaphysically possible will go beyond what is allowed by the laws of nature, also when possibility is explained in accordance with their dispositional theory.
I will argue against this idea, not only because I disagree with this understanding of metaphysical possibility, but also because this claim is, as far as I can tell, not warranted by Borghini and Williams' own theory. Their article lacks a good explanation of when and how the alleged jump from the nomic to the super-nomic is made. I will suggest instead that both the metaphysically possible and the nomically possible are pointing to the same set of possibilities, also in Borghini and Williams' framework. Explanations in the dispositionalist manner does not provide a notion of the metaphysically possible that goes beyond the nomic. This makes the notion of nomic possibility redundant in this context.
Recent years have seen a surge of interest in the study of metaphysical disputes as disagreement phenomena, employing the resources provided by the vast literature on disagreement in social epistemology (e.g. Plunkett 2015; Belleri 2017; Thomasson 2017). The most widespread view resulting from such studies is that metaphysical disagreement should be regarded as metalinguistic negotiations or verbal disputes and therefore supports deflationists’ claim that metaphysical debates are non-substantive. However, these analyses of metaphysical disagreements are refuted by others – often metaphysicians themselves – who insist that metaphysical debates are substantive (e.g. Sider 2011; Balcerak Jackson 2013). Thus, out of first order metaphysical disagreements emerges a second order disagreement between metaphysical inflationists on one side and deflationists on the other. While first order disagreements in metaphysics has received much attention, the second order disagreement in metametaphysics has yet to be studied as a disagreement phenomenon. It is this deficiency that this paper seeks to address.
The study of disagreement often centers on the question of whether it is rational to be conciliatory or steadfast in the face of disagreement. The poor epistemic conditions in philosophy have been offered as a reason to be conciliatory to the degree of withholding belief (Christensen 2007). This is disheartening news, since such suspension of judgement is argued to entail some variant of skepticism (Machuca 2012). However, others have questioned the grounds for favoring suspension of judgement in the context of philosophical disagreement (Grundmann 2013; Kelly 2016). They propose that philosophers are rational in being resolute in the face of disagreement, i.e. that philosophers should sustain their beliefs about the issue under dispute.
Applying this view to the disagreement between inflationists and deflationists, I will argue that resoluteness may be good news for metaphysicians despite its symmetry between inflationism and deflationism. This conclusion originates in the observation that resoluteness has very distinct consequences for second order disagreements if the participants in such disagreements are themselves engaged in the first order disagreements from which the second order disagreement emerged. Resoluteness entails that both inflationists and deflationists are rational to sustain their belief in inflationism and deflationism respectively. Intuitively, the consequence of this is that both parties should continue to provide evidence in favor of their position. However, since the inflationists are often also engaged in first order metaphysical debates, they may choose to continue this engagement instead. Resoluteness makes it rational for them to sustain their inflationism and thus rational to regard their metaphysical debates as substantive. While the inflationist metaphysicians are rational in continuing their occupation with metaphysics, the deflationists have no such alternative to their engagement in the inflationist/deflationist disagreement. This generates an asymmetry of interest in the resolution of this disagreement. So long as resoluteness is rational, the inflationist metaphysicians will be satisfied with the state of the disagreement whereas the deflationists have no other option but to continue their attempt at resolving the disagreement to their advantage. This, I argue, shifts the burden to advance the inflationist/deflationist dispute towards the deflationists.
“Metaphysics has spent a lot of time asking whether there are tables, rather less time asking whether there are genders,” remarks Barnes (2014, 335). But is it the same “metaphysics” that has been asking both questions? I will object to the Factual Interpretation of feminist metaphysics of gender (e.g. Barnes 2014, Mikkola 2016, Sider 2017, Schaffer 2017), according to which e.g. Haslanger (2000) and Sveinsdóttir (2013) are concerned with investigating reality just as much as the metaphysicians discussing the existence of tables. I will also provide an alternative account of the two projects. I will argue that the Factual Interpretation entails a commitment to wishful thinking as an acceptable way of reasoning in feminist metaphysics. At least, it entails this commitment if certain kinds of arguments, like that of Jenkins (2016) – arguments that appeal to ethical rather than evidential considerations – are considered relevant as objections to the central claims in feminist metaphysics of gender.
Perhaps, then, in contrast to mainstream metaphysics, feminist metaphysics does not investigate reality, but seeks to revise our gender concepts in line with certain ethical and political goals? However, much of mainstream metaphysics is also plausibly viewed as a project of conceptual engineering, aimed at finding the concepts that best reflect the objective structure of reality (Sider 2011). Maybe the two projects are in the same business, after all – as competitors rather than allies (since they disagree about whether ethical considerations are relevant in conceptual engineering)? I will reject this view as well, arguing that we should recognize different kinds of beliefs, targeted by the two projects of conceptual engineering.
Roughly, when we believe something, we represent the world in a certain way and we take the world to be as represented. Now, there are different ways of taking the world to be as represented. One is to perceive the world as represented and to act on the basis of this perception; another is to reflectively endorse that the world is as represented. Feminist metaphysicians have reason to care about the first sort of belief; mainstream metaphysicians have reason to care about the second kind of belief. Both revise concepts for the kinds of beliefs they have reason to care about. And their different criteria for concept revision make sense, in the light of these different targets. This difference in targets also explains why, for example, eliminativists about ordinary objects such as tables are forgiving when the folk forget about metaphysical truths in the midst of life; while for feminist metaphysicians, it is important that we live the truths in question.
So the metaphysicians who discuss the existence of tables and those who discuss the existence of genders do have something in common: both try to improve the ordinary conceptual scheme that we use in forming beliefs about the world. But each project targets a different kind of belief. Feminist metaphysicians primarily target the beliefs that we unreflectively form on perception and that we act upon. Mainstream metaphysicians target beliefs that we endorse at rare moments of reflection.
Saul Kripke (1980) famously suggests that origin, matter and kind are necessary features of an individual. The aim of my paper is to develop an epistemological theory of how we arrive to know that exactly these features are necessary in a Kripkean framework. Kripke’s epistemology of modality is sometimes called a two-factor model: We need, on the one hand, an a priori premise P → □P, and on the other hand, an a posteriori premise P, in order to conclude that □P. This, however, is not yet enough to tell us when we are allowed to apply the two-factor model to a certain property, and thus the epistemology of necessity is not yet complete until we find a story of how to apply it correctly. Kripke (1971) also famously shows that the two-factor model applies to identity statements between rigid designators, i.e. he shows that if a=b, then necessarily a=b. This gives us a story of some true instances of the model, but the proof offered here will not help us further to necessity of origin or necessity of matter and kind: Queen Elizabeth, for example, is not identical with her origin. Thus, something else is needed.
In the previous literature, there has been mainly two candidates to fulfill Kripke’s theory: Firstly, there has been a lot of attention to “something like a proof” that Kripke offers in footnote 56 of Naming and Necessity. Secondly, it has been also common to point out that Kripke merely appeals to intuition when claiming that origin, matter and kind are necessary for an individual. I will offer a third candidate, which takes it starting point in understanding of an identity of an individual: given that Kripke is constantly asking questions about sameness in his examples of Queen Elizabeth and the table, we should start by spelling out what an identity amounts to in Kripkean framework. To do this, I will use his theory of reference and his views on possible worlds and modal thinking. My strategy will yield interesting results: Firstly, it will offer us an explanation of why necessity of origin, matter and kind are intuitive for Kripke: it is because they rise from his other theoretical commitments. Secondly, it will also show that to certain extend, Kripke is much closer to the Aristotelian essentialism than what is usually assumed, given that knowledge of necessity is posterior to knowledge of identity. Moreover, my account will show that Kripke will not be an eligible target for Fine’s (1994) famous counterexamples.
What is the relationship between dispositions and their causal bases, for instance fragility and molecular structure, or belief and states of the brain? According to
The Identity Theory Dispositions are identical to their causal bases.
The causal basis of a given disposition is simply that property, or that conjunction of properties if there are many, which is/are causally responsible for the disposition’s manifestations. Historical proponents include Quine (1960) and Armstrong (1968, 1973). Contemporary proponents include Mumford (1998) and Heil (1999, 2004). As the well-told story goes, if ‘dispositions’ and ‘causal bases’ are taken to denote types, then the identity theory is false due to the problem of multiple realisability. Orthodoxy has it that proponents may avoid the problem by endorsing token-token rather than type-type identity relations. In this paper I challenge this orthodox dialectical move. First, I delineate a class of multiply realised dispositions. I call these the disjunctively realised dispositions. A disposition D is disjunctively realised iff some manifestations of D are caused by a unique causal basis x, some by a unique causal basis y (such that y is not identical with x), and the rest (if any remain) by both x and y. For example:
Overkill A vial of poison contains a mixture m of two distinct chemicals, DEATH1 and DEATH2. Because of this, m has the disposition to kill when ingested. Furthermore, there exists an agent S such that S is perfectly resistant to DEATH1 but not DEATH2, and there exists a distinct agent S’ such that S’ is perfectly resistant to DEATH2 but not DEATH1.
I argue that disjunctively realised causal bases are as threatening to the token-token identity theory as the standard cases of multiple realisability are for type-type identity theories, because they involve multiple realisation at the token level. I conclude by considering and rejecting three replies.
Objection 1 The putative token-identity holds only for sparse properties and plurally realised dispositions are abundant. I detail three accounts of sparseness, and show that for all three I am in the clear: there are sparse plurally realised dispositions on all views.
Objection 2 Plurally realised dispositions have complex bases: either conjunctional or disjunctional. I argue the former fails as the relevant conjunctional property is not causally efficacious in all of the disposition’s manifestations, and the latter fails because disjunctional properties are not causally efficacious simpliciter.
Objection 3 Plural realisation involves not a single disposition, but multiple dispositions. I argue this response faces three worries: (A) The response is vulnerable to a circularity objection. (B) If dispositions are individuated by their manifestations (Molnar, 2003; Lowe, 2011; Vetter 2014) then some plurally realised dispositions cannot be taken to be distinct. I use as an example pathogens such as E Coli (Escherichia coli) that differ in their resistance (masking conditions), but not their pathogenic properties (their mechanism of manifestation). (C) Once we have admitted that there are multiple dispositions, the identity theorist has no motivation to endorse token rather than type identity relations.
Recent metaphysics has seen a great deal of interest in grounding, a relation of non-causal determination whereby one fact obtains in virtue of the obtaining of some other fact or facts. There has been a great deal of controversy over the nature of grounding itself, but one recurring and largely unquestioned theme in much of the literature is that grounding is, in some sense, a particularly intimate metaphysical relation. Thus, for example, Kit Fine calls grounding "the ultimate form of explanation." An arguably related idea is that grounding has some necessary connection with the most core features of things, such as their essences or natures – those features that constitute the identities of things and make them what they are.
In this talk, I will be concerned with these (and related) ideas about how grounding works. I believe that certain interesting and widespread philosophical views (such as e.g. classical moral non-naturalism) are committed to a notion of grounding where it constitutes a less than maximally intimate relation, among other things because it does not necessarily go together with any essence or nature connections. I say that a fact [P] opaquely grounds another fact [Q] when [P] (at least partially) grounds [Q], but [P] is neither part of the essence of [Q] nor part of the metaphysical analysis of [Q] (what [Q] consists in). I believe that this notion has been neglected in the grounding literature, and I think it has important and interesting consequences for how to think about grounding and nearby topics.
In the talk, I will introduce and define the notion of metaphysically opaque grounding, before briefly sketching some interesting consequences if there is opaque grounding. I will thereafter move on to consider three natural objections to the idea of opaque grounding: the Conceptual Constraint objection (that it’s simply part of the concept of grounding that it is never opaque), the Objection from Varieties of Grounding (that lesser forms of grounding – such as normative grounding – may perhaps be opaque, but that it’s part of what makes metaphysical grounding metaphysical that it’s always transparent), and the Distinctiveness Challenge (that the notion of opaque grounding is so metaphysically thin as to be indistinguishable from mere metaphysical necessitation). I will argue that none of these objections provide us with good reason to reject the possibility of metaphysically opaque grounding.
Can counterpossibles be false? The Orthodox doctrine is that all counterpossibles are vacuously true [Stalnaker, 1968, Lewis, 1973, Williamson, 2017]). However a number of Reformists defend the contradictory view that some counterpossibles, at least, are best regarded as false rather than vacuously true [Brogaard and Salerno, 2013, Berto et al., 2017]. One might motivate the Reformist view just by providing intuitively clear examples of false counterpossibles, but there are deeper, and more theoretically loaded reasons for that view. A number of metaphysicians have recently argued that key metaphysical notions are hyperintensional [Nolan, 2014] and that this hyperintensional character is logically connected to the falsity of some counterpossibles [e.g. Wilson, 2016]. The following argument from hyperintensional metaphysics thus provides a strong motivation for siding with the Reform:
Essentialist claims (on a hyperintensional, e.g. Finean, construal of essence), grounding claims [Wilson, 2016], and claims of impossible [Jenkins and Nolan, 2012] dispositions provide examples of such classes of metaphysical propositions. Now, the party of the Reform is united in its opposition to Orthodoxy only be the acceptance of the general proposition that some counterpossibles are false. But they don't necessarily all agree on which counterpossibles are false and why. There are several non equivalent ways to provide a semantics for counterfactuals that allows for counterpossible falsity. Not all versions will satisfy the metaphysical motivation sketched above though. For example, some Reformists [Brogaard and Salerno, 2013] consider counterpossibles as epistemic, in the sense that their truth-value depends, at list in part, on the epistemic situation of the speaker who utters them. But this move is hardly consistent with the metaphysical motivation, since the false counterpossibles that are needed should be metaphysical rather than epistemic: the epistemic situation of the speaker should not make a difference to their truth-value.
Berto et al. [2017] propose an impossible-worlds semantics for counterpossibles that is claimed to be compatible with a metaphysical construal of counterpossibles. Their semantics predicts the failure of the substitutivity of identity, as in the following example:
(1) If Hesperus had not been Phosphorus, what I was told in astronomy class would have been wrong.
(2) *If Hesperus had not been Hesperus, what I was told in astronomy class would have been wrong. (What I was told in logic class would have been wrong then).
This raises a problem for their claim, since it makes counterpossibles referentially opaque. Whereas metaphysical hyperintensionality seems on the face of it coherent - hyperintensionality is a feature that is argualy shared by epistemic (e.g. belief) and metaphysical (e.g. grounding) notions - it is much more difficult to make sense of metaphysical opacity, or so I shall argue. If I am correct, then Berto et al.'s proposal is incapable of satisfying the metaphysical motivation for the Reformist view, contrary to what they claim.
A clarification of the relation between hyperintensionality and opacity, on the one hand, and of the epistemic vs. metaphysical distinction, on the other, will be necessary to make that point clear. The upshot is that the Reformists who want false counterpossibles in order to do safely their hyperintensional metaphysics should not buy Berto et al.'s impossible-worlds semantics, but something different.
Hartry Field (1989) put forward one of the most well-known epistemological objections to mathematical platonism, and it has been suggested that the objection can be replicated and used to attack other realist metaphysical theories, in domains like modality and ethics. The gist of such a Field-style argument (FA) against realism in a domain is this: if realism is assumed to be correct, the fact that our beliefs about the matter in question are reliably true, is inexplicable. Core to FA is the assumption that if we have reliable beliefs, this is a fact that needs to be explained somehow. FA is arguably more compelling than some of its predecessors (like Benacerraf’s dilemma) partly because it leaves open what sort of reliability explanation would do the trick (in particular, it doesn’t need to be in terms of causal dependence). In this paper, I suggest that it is too open.
Recently, Justin Clarke-Doane (2015, 2017) has proposed what I will call a modal solution to FA. It proceeds from two assumptions. First, that “reliability” is purely a modal matter. Second, that the truths in the relevant domain are necessary (which seems a plausible enough assumption for domains like mathematics, morality and modality). If we have that in place, then as long as we can tell a genealogical story of our actual beliefs, that story is also a story which guarantees their reliability. David Liggins (forthcoming) have responded that Clarke-Doane misunderstands the point of FA. I agree, and suggest that this is due to him mistakenly viewing FA as raising basically the same problem as a debunking argument which, I stress, it does not. A debunking argument is a sceptical argument whereas FA is, again, a complaint that a certain explanatory task can’t be completed given realism. However, I offer a reformulation of the modal solution according to which it does rebut FA. Unfortunately, this is of very little comfort to the realist in the larger perspective of things: the solution itself implies that the realist theory in question lacks the ontological justification afforded by a Quine-Putnam indispensability argument, which cracks realism wide open to a standard nominalist attack.
The culprit here is the unspecified explanatory demand. If it allows for the modal solution, which renders metaphysics completely irrelevant to the question of epistemic reliability, that undermines assumptions that are central not only to epistemological arguments against metaphysical theories but also to arguments that would support them. This prompts us to yet again rethink what is a suitable demand for explanation to underwrite an epistemological objection. Demanding a causal explanation is clearly too narrow to make a compelling argument, but demanding a completely unspecified reliability explanation is too wide to be of service to anyone.
Armstrong, D. M., 1968, A Materialist Theory of the Mind, Routledge.
Balcerak Jackson, B., 2013, “Metaphysics, Verbal Disputes and the Limits of Charity”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 86 (2): 412–34.
Barnes, E., 2014, "Going Beyond the Fundamental: Feminism in Contemporary Metaphysics", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 114(3): 335–51.
Belleri, D., 2017, “Verbalism and Metalinguistic Negotiation in Ontological Disputes”, Philosophical Studies, 174 (9): 2211–26.
Berto, F., R. French, G. Priest, and D. Ripley, online first, "Williamson on counterpossibles", Journal of Philosophical Logic.
Borghini, A. and N. E. Williams, 2008, "A dispositional theory of possibility", dialectica, 62(1):21-41.
Brogaard, B. and J. Salerno, 2013, "Remarks on counterpossibles", Synthese, 190(4):639-660.
Christensen, D., 2007, “Epistemology of Disagreement: The Good News”, Philosophical Review, 116 (2): 187–217.
Clarke-Doane, J., 2017, “What is the Benacerraf Problem?”, in: F. Partaut, ed., New Perspectives on the Philosophy of Paul Benacerraf: Truth, Objects, Infinity Springer International, pp. 17-43.
Clarke-Doane, J., 2015, “Justification and Explanation in Mathematics and Morality”, in: R. Schafer-Landau, ed., Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 80-103.
Contessa, G., 2010, "Modal Truthmakers and Two Varieties of Actualism", Synthese, 174(3):341-353.
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Haslanger, S., 2000, "Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We Want Them To Be?", Noûs, 34(1): 31–55.
Heil, J., 1999, "Multiple Realizability", American Philosophical Quarterly, 36(3): 189–208.
Heil, J., 2004, "Natural Intentionality", in: R. Schantz, ed., The Externalist Challenge, De Gruyter.
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Jacobs, J. D., 2010, "A Powers Theory of Modality: or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Reject Possible Worlds", Philosophical Studies, 151.
Jenkins, C. S. and D. Nolan, 2012, "Disposition Impossible", Noûs, 46(4): 732-753.
Jenkins, K., 2016, "Amelioration and Inclusion: Gender Identity and the Concept of Woman", Ethics, 126(2): 394-421.
Lewis, D. K., Counterfactuals, Blackwell, 1973.
Kelly, T., 2016, “Disagreement in Philosophy: Its Epistemic Significance”, in: The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology, H. Cappelen, T. Szabó Gendler, and J. Hawthorne, eds., Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kripke, S., 1980, Naming and Necessity, Harvard University Press.
Kripke, S., 1971, “Identity and Necessity”, in: M. K. Munitz, ed., Identity and Individuation, pp. 135-64.
Liggins, D., forthcoming, “The Reality of Field’s Epistemological Challenge to Platonism”, Erkenntnis.
Lowe, E. J., 2011, "How Not to Think of Powers", The Monist, 94(1), 19–33.
Machuca, D. E., ed., 2012, Disagreement and Skepticism, Routledge.
Mikkola, M., 2016, "Doing Ontology and Doing Justice: What Feminist Philosophy Can Teach Us About Meta-Metaphysics", Inquiry, 58(7-8): 780-805.
Molnar, G., 2003, Powers: A Study inMetaphysics, Oxford University Press.
Mumford, S., 1998, Dispositions, Clarendon Press.
Nolan, D., 2014, "Hyperintensional Metaphysics", Philosophical Studies, 171(1): 149-160.
Plunkett, D., 2015, “Which Concepts Should We Use?: Metalinguistic Negotiations and The Methodology of Philosophy”, Inquiry, 58(7–8): 828–74.
Schaffer, J., 2017, "Social Construction as Grounding; or: Fundamentality for Feminists, a Reply to Barnes and Mikkola", Philosophical Studies, 174(10): 2449–2465.
Sider, T., 2011, Writing the Book of the World, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sider, T., 2017, "Substantivity in Feminist Metaphysics", Philosophical Studies, 174: 2467–2478
Stalnaker, R. C., 1968, "A Theory of Conditionals", American Philosophical Quarterly, pp. 98-112.
Sveinsdottir, A., 2013, “The Social Construction of Human Kinds”, Hypatia, 28(4): 716–732.
Thomasson, A. L., 2017, “Metaphysical Disputes and Metalinguistic Negotiation”, Analytic Philosophy, 58(1): 1–28.
Vetter, B., 2011, "Recent Work: Modality Without Possible Worlds", Analysis, 71(4): 742-754
Vetter, B., 2014, "Dispositions Without Conditionals", Mind, 123(489): 129–156.
Vetter, B., 2015, Potentiality: From Dispositions to Modality, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Williamson, T., 2017, "Counterpossibles in Semantics and Metaphysics", Argumenta, 2(2): 195-226.
Wilson, A., 2016, "Grounding Entails Counterpossible Nontriviality", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 92(3): 716-728.