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54267.776307
This commentary aims to support Tim Crane’s account of the structure of intentionality by showing how intentional objects are naturalistically respectable, how they pair with concepts, and how they are to be held distinct from the referents of thought. Crane is right to reject the false dichotomy that accounts of intentionality must be either reductive and naturalistic or non-reductive and traffic in mystery. The paper has three main parts. First, I argue that the notion of an intentional object is a phenomenological one, meaning that it must be understood as an object of thought for a subject. Second, I explain how Mark Sainsbury’s Display Theory of Attitude Attribution pairs well with Crane’s notion of an intentional object and allows for precisification in intentional state attributions while both avoiding exotica and capturing the subject’s perspective on the world. Third, I explain the reification fallacy, the fallacy of examining intentional objects as if they exist independently of subjects and their conceptions of them. This work helps to bring out how intentionality can fit in the natural world while at the same time not reducing aboutness to some non-intentional properties of the natural world.
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79210.776413
The paper advances the hypothesis that the multi-field is a determinable, that is, a physical object characterized by indeterminate values with respect to some properties. The multi-field is a realist interpretation of the wave function in quantum mechanics, specifically it interprets the wave function as a new physical entity in three-dimensional space: a “multi-field” (Hubert & Romano 2018; Romano 2021). The multi-field is similar to a field as it assigns determinate values to N-tuples of points, but is also different from a field as it does not assign pre-existing values at each point of three-dimensional space. In particular, the multi-field values corresponding to the empty points (points where no particles are located) have indeterminate values until a particle is located at those points. The paper suggests that the multi-field so defined can be precisely characterized in terms of determinable-based, object-level, account of metaphysical indeterminacy. Under this view, the multi-field as novel physical entity is, in fact, a metaphysically indeterminate quantum object, that is, a determinable.
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139921.776423
Suppose Socrates is looking at a bright red apple in good viewing conditions, so that it looks to him the colour it is. Schematically, Aristotle’s explanation of this “Good Case” is that the apple looks bright red to Socrates because he has taken on the perceptual form of bright red without the matter. But what happens if Socrates misperceives the apple instead and it looks purple? It is not at all clear how to apply Aristotle’s account of perception to such a “Bad Case.” Does Socrates still take on the perceptual form of the actual—bright red—colour of the apple in the Bad Case? Of purple? Neither? I argue that applying Aristotle’s account of perception to this sort of Bad Case requires that there are different ways of being in perceptual contact with perceptible qualities like the colour of an apple, depending on how that perceptual contact is mediated by changes in the sense organs and perceptual medium.
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194652.776429
This chapter compares Andreas and G ünther’s (forthcoming) epochetic analysis of actual causation to the currently popular counterfactual accounts. The primary focus will be on the shortcomings of the counterfactual approach to causation. But we will also explain the motivation behind counterfactual accounts and how the counterfactual approach has successively moved away from its core idea in response to recalcitrant counterexamples. The upshot is that our epochetic analysis tallies better with our causal judgments than the counterfactual accounts. A comparison to counterfactual accounts at manageable length must be selective. For reasons of systematicity, we have chosen Lewis’s (1973a) analysis of causation in terms of chains of difference-making, Yablo’s (2002) account in terms of de facto dependence, and the causal model accounts of Hitchcock (2001), Halpern and Pearl (2005), Halpern (2015), Halpern (2016), and Gallow (2021). The latter may be seen as the current culmination of the counterfactual approach and the strongest competitor to our epochetic analysis. This is why we devoted a rather long section on Gal-low’s theory towards the end of this chapter.
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367794.776438
It is a widespread consensus among metaphysicians that the bundle and substratum theories are substantially different metaphysical theories of individuality. In a realist stance towards metaphysics, they cannot both track the truth when describing fundamental reality, thus they’re rival metaphysical theories. Against that consensus, Jiri Benovsky has advanced a metametaphysical thesis that they are in fact metaphysically equivalent. This paper challenges Benovsky’s equivalence thesis with two counter-arguments based on the metaphysics of quantum mechanics: quantum metaphysical indeterminacy and wavefunction realism. As we shall argue, while both substratum and bundle theories arguably fail in standard quantum mechanics, they fail in different ways. Hence, given Benovsky’s own notion of metaphysical equivalence, they are not equivalent.
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771571.776445
Scientific realism is the philosophical stance that science tracks truth, in particular in its depiction of the world’s ontology. Ontologically, this involves a commitment to the existence of entities posited by our best scientific theories; metaontologically, it includes the claim that the theoretical framework itself is true. In this article, we examine wave function realism as a case study within this broader methodological debate. Wave function realism holds that the wave function, as described by quantum mechanics, corresponds to a real physical entity. We focus on a recent formulation of this view that commits to the ontology of the wave function while deliberately avoiding the metaontological question of the framework’s truth. Instead, the view is defended on pragmatic, non-truth-conductive grounds. This, we argue, raises tensions for the purported realism of wave function realism and its compatibility with scientific realism more broadly.
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886916.776451
In contemporary philosophy of physics, there has recently been a renewed interest in the theory of geometric objects—a programme developed originally by geometers such as Schouten, Veblen, and others in the 1920s and 30s. However, as yet, there has been little-to-no systematic investigation into the history of the geometric object concept. I discuss the early development of the geometric object concept, and show that geometers working on the programme in the 1920s and early 1930s had a more expansive conception of geometric objects than that which is found in later presentations— which, unlike the modern conception of geometric objects, included embedded submanifolds such as points, curves, and hypersurfaces. I reconstruct and critically evaluate their arguments for this more expansive geometric object concept, and also locate and assess the transition to the more restrictive modern geometric object concept.
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944586.776456
We ask how and why mathematical physics may be seen as a rigorous discipline. Starting with Newton but drawing on a philosophical tradition ranging from Aristotle to (late) Wittgenstein, we argue that, as in mathematics, rigour ultimately comes from rules. These include logical rules of inference as well as definitions that give a precise meaning to physical concepts such as space and time by providing rules governing their use in models of the theories in which they are defined. In particular, so-called implicit definitions characterize “indefinables” whose traditionally assumed familiarity through “intuition” or “acquaintance” from Aristotle down to Russell blasts any hope of both rigour and innovation. Given the basic physical concepts, one may subsequently define derived concepts (like black holes or determinism). Definitions are seen as a priori meaning-constitutive conventions that are neither necessary `a la Kant nor arbitrary `a la Carnap, as they originate in empirical science as well as in the autonomous development of mathematics and physics. As such definitions are best seen as hypothetical.
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1117750.776462
In this paper, we argue that a perceiver’s contributions to perception can substantially affect what objects are represented in perceptual experience. To capture the scalar nature of these perceiver-contingent contributions, we introduce three grades of subject-dependency in object perception. The first grade, “weak subject-dependency,” concerns attentional changes to perceptual content like, for instance, when a perceiver turns their head, plugs their ears, or primes their attention to a particular cue. The second grade, “moderate subject-dependency,” concerns changes in the contingent features of perceptual objects due to action-orientation, location, and agential interest. For instance, being to the right or left of an object will cause the object to have a corresponding locative feature, but that feature is non-essential to the object in question. Finally, the third grade, “strong subject-dependency,” concerns generating perceptual objects whose existence depends upon their perceivers’ sensory contributions to perception. For this final grade of subject-dependency the adaptive perceptual system shapes diverse representations of sensory information by contributing necessary features to perceptual objects. To exemplify this nonstandard form of object perception we offer evidence from the future-directed anticipation of perceptual experts, and from the feature binding of synesthetes. We conclude that strongly subject-dependent perceptual objects are more than mere material objects, but are rather a necessary combination of material objects with the contributions of a perceiving subject.
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1233235.776469
Causal Set Theory (CST) is a promising approach to fundamental physics that seems to treat causation as a basic posit. But in exactly what sense is CST causal? We argue that if the growth dynamics is interpreted as a physical process, then CST employs relations of actual causation between causal set elements, whereby elements bring one another into existence. This is important, as it provides a better sense of how CST works, highlights important differences from general relativity— where relations between spacetime points are typically seen as cases of mere causal connectibility rather than actual causation of the relevant type—and points toward a specific understanding of the emergence of spacetime within CST.
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1348690.776475
The term ‘spontaneous’ appears in various contexts in modern physics, but it also has a long history in natural philosophy. Its Greek analogue to automaton is studied by Aristotle, and the Latin phrase sponte sua is used extensively by Lucretius. Peirce also introduces spontaneity in the context of his tychism. In this thesis we give a historical overview of these uses of spontaneity and compare them to spontaneity in thermodynamics and quantum mechanics. We examine the relation to quantum measurement. We argue that in the Copenhagen interpretation, no quantum event can be said to be truly spontaneous, but that true spontaneity does exist in spontaneous collapse theories. Finally we investigate the relation of spontaneity to randomness and indeterminism.
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1511328.776481
Історія логіки – актуальний напрямок досліджень в царині сучасного логічного знання. Такі розвідки, по-перше, сприяють створенню загальної картини еволюції логіки, усвідомленню змін предмета, що їх вона зазнавала як наука і як навчальна дисципліна, а також змін у парадигмальних принципах її історичного розвитку, засадничих правилах побудови логічних теорій та інструментарієві останніх. По-друге, історикологічні дослідження надають можливість виявити те, як логічні концепції впливали на інші наукові дисципліни, передусім філософію та математику. По-третє, історико-логічний аналіз дозволяє розглянути логічну позицію певного автора в широкому історико-філософському контексті, показати, як філософські ідеї впливали на розвиток логічного знання. По-четверте, дослідження в царині історії логіки допомагають розглянути її в широкому історико-культурному контексті, з’ясувати взаємовплив різних логічних поглядів та певних культурних традицій і особливостей історичних епох.
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1815175.776488
What is the relation between the phenomenal properties of experience and physical properties, such as physical properties of the brain? I evaluate the proposal that phenomenal properties are determinables of physical realizer determinates, focusing Jessica Wilson’s response to a prominent argument for thinking that phenomenal properties cannot be understood in this way. Wilson premises her response on the idea that phenomenal properties admit of physical determination dimensions, which can be discovered through the relevant sciences. I provide several reasons for questioning this way of understanding the relation between the phenomenal and the physical, centered on the idea that even if phenomenal properties have physical determination dimensions, it remains to be shown that these determine the physical realizers of phenomenal properties, and provide reasons for denying that this is the case. I then address Wilson’s “powers-based conception” of the determinable/ determinate relation and argue that it faces difficulties both independent from and in relation to the view of phenomenal properties as determinables of physical realizer determinates.
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1924957.776493
Charles Darwin argued that natural selection produces species analogously to how artificial selection produces breeds. Previous analyses have focused on the formal structure of Darwin’s analogical argument, but few authors have investigated how it is that Darwin’s analogy succeeds in yielding support for his theory in the first place. This topic is particularly salient since at first blush, Darwin's analogical argument appears to undermine the inference he aims to make with it. Darwin held that natural selection produces new species, but artificial selection produces only varieties—a fact which led many of Darwin’s contemporaries to see the analogy as counterevidence to his theory, rather than evidence in favor. I argue that the key to understanding how Darwin’s analogy supports his theory is to recognize three core conceptual revisions to the ‘received view’ of artificial selection for which he argued. Only on Darwin’s resultant ‘revised view’ of artificial selection did his analogical argument support, rather than undermine, his theoretical explanation for the origin of species. These revisions are: 1) the sufficiency of mere differential reproduction for producing evolutionary change; 2) the limitless variation of organisms; and 3) the age and stability of Earth’s geological history. I show why Darwin needed to establish these particular conceptual modifications in order for his analogical argument to generate theoretical support, and I further suggest that accounts focused on the formal aspects of Darwin’s analogical argument cannot capture the significance of Darwin’s conceptual revisions to the success of his analogical argument.
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2011310.7765
Numerous theories of quantum gravity (QG) postulate non-spatiotemporal structures to describe physics at or beyond the Planck energy scale. This stands in stark contrast to the spatiotemporal framework provided by general relativity, which remains remarkably successful in low-energy regimes. The resulting tension gives rise to the so-called disappearance of spacetime (DST): the removal of spatiotemporal structures from the fundamental ontology of a theory and the corresponding challenge of reconciling this with the general relativistic picture. In this paper, I classify different instances of DST and highlight the necessary trade-off between theory-specific features and general patterns across QG approaches. I argue that a precise formulation of the DST requires prior clarification of the relevant conception of fundamentality. In particular, I distinguish two forms of disappearance, corrisponding to intra-theoretic and inter-theoretic fundamentality relations. I argue that intra-theoretic analyses can yield meaningful results into the DST in QG only when supported by further justificatory arguments. To substantiate my claim, I examine the relationship between string theory, noncommutative geometry, and special relativity.
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2011334.776506
According to the Causal Principle, anything that begins to exist has a cause. In turn, various authors – including Thomas Hobbes, Jonathan Edwards, and Arthur Prior – have defended the thesis that, had the Causal Principle been false, there would be no good explanation for why entities do not begin at arbitrary times, in arbitrary spatial locations, in arbitrary number, or of arbitrary kind. I call this the Hobbes-Edwards- Prior Principle (HEPP). However, according to a view popular among both philosophers of physics and naturalistic metaphysicians – Neo-Russellianism – causation is absent from fundamental physics. I argue that objections based on the HEPP should have no dialectical force for Neo-Russellians. While Neo-Russellians maintain that there is no causation in fundamental physics, they also have good reason to reject the HEPP.
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2093166.776511
With Matthew Adelstein’s kind permission, here’s the transcript of the Adelstein/Huemer conversation on the ethics of insect suffering. Lightly edited by me. 00:37:48 MATTHEW ADELSTEIN
Okay. So, yeah. …
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2097755.776517
A conditional argument is put forth suggesting that if qualia have a functional role in intelligence, then it might be possible, by observing the behavior of verbal AI systems like large language models (LLMs) or other architectures capable of verbal reasoning, to tackle in an empirical way the “strong AI” problem, namely, the possibility that AI systems have subjective experiences, or qualia. The basic premise is that if qualia are functional, and thus have causal roles, then they could affect the production of discourses about qualia and subjective consciousness in general. A thought experiment is put forth envisioning a possible method to probabilistically test the presence of qualia in AI systems based on this conditional argument. The method proposed in the thought experiment focuses on observing whether ideas related to the issue of phenomenal consciousness, such as the so-called “hard problem” of consciousness, or related philosophical issues centered on qualia, spontaneously emerge in extended dialogues involving LLMs specifically trained to be initially oblivious of such philosophical concept and related ones. By observing the emergence (or lack thereof) in the AI’s verbal production of discussions related to phenomenal consciousness in these contexts, the method seeks to provide empirical evidence for or against the existence of consciousness in AI. An outline of a Bayesian test of the hypothesis is provided. Three main investigative methods with different reliability and feasibility aimed at empirically detecting AI consciousness are proposed: one involving human interaction and two fully automated, consisting in multi-agent conversations between machines. The practical and philosophical challenges involved by the idea of transforming the proposed thought experiments into an actual empirical trial are then discussed. In light of these considerations, the proposal put forth in the paper appears to be at least a contribution to computational philosophy in the form of philosophical thought experiments focused on computational systems, aimed at refining our philosophical understanding of consciousness. Hopefully, it could also provide hints toward future empirical investigations into machine consciousness.
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2433486.776524
The idea that qualities can be had partly or to an intermediate degree is controversial among contemporary metaphysicians, but also has a considerable pedigree among philosophers and scientists. In this paper, we first aim to show that metaphysical sense can be made of this idea by proposing a partial taxonomy of metaphysical accounts of graded qualities, focusing on three particular approaches: one which explicates having a quality to a degree in terms of having a property with an in-built degree, another based on the idea that instantiation admits of degrees, and a third which derives the degree to which a quality is had from the aspects of multidimensional properties. Our second aim is to demonstrate that the choice between these account can make a substantial metaphysical difference. To make this point, we rely on two case studies (involving quantum observables and values) in which we apply the accounts in order to model apparent cases of metaphysical gradedness.
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2615914.77653
Advocates of the explanatory indispensability argument for platonism say two things. First, we should believe in the parts of our best scientific theories that are explanatory. Second, mathematical objects play an explanatory role within those theories. I give a two-part response. I start by using a Bayesian framework to argue that the standards many have proposed must be met to show that mathematical objects are dispensable are too demanding. In particular, nominalistic theories may be more probable than platonistic ones even if they are extremely complicated by comparison. This is true even if there are genuine cases of mathematical explanation in science. The point made here is a matter of principle, holding regardless of how one assesses nominalistic theories already on offer. I then examine my recent nominalization of second-order impure set theory in light of the correct, laxer standards. I make a tentative case that my nominalistic theory meets those standards, which would undermine the explanatory indispensability argument. While this case is provisional, I aim to bring attention to my nominalization and others in light of the revised standards for demonstrating dispensability.
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2615936.776536
In this paper, I develop a “safety result” for applied mathematics. I show that whenever a theory in natural science entails some non-mathematical conclusion via an application of mathematics, there is a counterpart theory that carries no commitment to mathematical objects, entails the same conclusion, and the claims of which are true if the claims of the original theory are “correct”: roughly, true given the assumption that mathematical objects exist. The framework used for proving the safety result has some advantages over existing nominalistic accounts of applied mathematics. It also provides a nominalistic account of pure mathematics.
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2788798.776543
Philosophers of mind call Hempel’s dilemma an argument by (Crane and Mellor, 1990; Melnyk, 1997) against metaphysical physicalism, the thesis that everything that exists is either ‘physical’ or ultimately depends on the ‘physical’. Their argument is understood as a challenge to the idea of fixing what is ‘physical’ by appealing to a theory of physics. The dilemma briefly goes as follows. On the one hand, if we choose a current theory of physics to fix what is ‘physical’, then, since our current theories of physics are very likely incomplete, the so-articulated metaphysical physicalism is very likely false. On the other hand, if we choose a future theory of physics to fix what is ‘physical’, then, since future theories of physics are currently unknown, the so-articulated metaphysical physicalism has indeterminate meaning. Thus, it seems we can rely neither on current nor on future theories of physics to satisfactorily articulate metaphysical physicalism. Recently (Firt et al., 2022) argued that the dilemma extends to any theory that gives a deep-structure and changeable account of experience (including dualistic theories, although cf. Buzaglo, 2024).
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3118680.77655
There is a longstanding puzzle about empty names. On the one hand, the principles of classical logic seem quite plausible. On the other hand, there would seem to be truths involving empty names that require rejecting certain classically valid principles.
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3565993.776559
Key elements of the recent dialectic surrounding the hole argument in the philosophy of general relativity are clarified by close attendance to the nature of scientific representation. I argue that a structuralist account of representation renders the purported haecceitistic differences between target systems irrelevant to the representational role of models of general relativity. Framing the hole argument in this way helps resolve the impasse in the literature between Weatherall and Pooley and Read.
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3926299.776565
When we count, we often count fractions, too. We contend that fractional counting involves partial entities, which are merely possible parts of entities of the counted kind. The size of these possible parts is measured with respect to the size of a possible member of that kind. Therefore, partialhood is mereomodal, and the logical form of fractional counting claims includes mereological predicates, modal operators, and a measurement functor. Different varieties of modality and forms of measurement are involved, depending on the kinds of entities to be counted and the context. The mereomodal account validates the idea that fractional counting is a way of counting by identity, in continuity with logic-based accounts of non-fractional counting, albeit more complex than them. Such an account also explains why some kinds of entities are not involved in partialhood and cannot be fractionally counted, while others only have marginal involvement in these phenomena. In the last part, we discuss some difficult cases and show that an integrity condition for partial entities is required in the logical form of some fractional counting claims.
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4312097.77657
A principle of plenitude implies the existence of a host of objects, the point being to avoid arbitrariness and worldly vagueness. But to play this role, the host of objects must exhibit an appropriate host of features.
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4393295.776576
The concept of infinity has long occupied a central place at the intersection of mathematics and philosophy. This paper explores the multifaceted concept of infinity, beginning with its mathematical foundations, distinguishing between potential and actual infinity and outlining the revolutionary insights of Cantorian set theory. The paper then explores paradoxes such as Hilbert’s Hotel, the St. Petersburg Paradox, and Thomson’s Lamp, each of which reveals tensions between mathematical formalism and basic human intuition. Adopting a philosophical approach, the paper analyzes how five major frameworks—Platonism, formalism, constructivism, structuralism, and intuitionism—each grapple with the metaphysical and epistemological implications of infinity. While each framework provides unique insights, none fully resolves the many paradoxes inherent in infinite mathematical objects. Ultimately, this paper argues that infinity serves not as a problem to be conclusively solved, but as a generative lens through which to ask deeper questions about the nature of mathematics, knowledge, and reality itself.
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4681718.776583
Radical ontic structural realism (ROSR) argues that structure is all that there is and that objects are metaphysically eliminable. By making such claims, ROSR is widely considered metaphysically obscure. To address this, I propose a novel characterisation of ROSR, drawing on two metaphysical concepts: existence monism, attributed to Spinoza by Bennett (1984) and Spinoza’s concept of modes. These concepts are adaptable to ROSR, which becomes a structuralist existence monism, where putative objects are reconceptualised as modes of the world’s structure. This proposal directly contributes to solving two problems ROSR faces: (A) the need for a metaphysical framework clarifying ROSR’s key claims and (B) ROSR’s need to account for the apparent plurality of objects we experience. Drawing on Wallace and Timpson’s (2010) spacetime state realism, I suggest a solution to a third problem, (problem C), McKenzie’s (2024) challenge to ROSR's status as a substantive metaphysical doctrine. My reformulation of ROSR is a natural interpretation of this solution. I also compare my proposal to French’s (2014) ROSR, and Esfeld and Lam's (2011) moderate structural realism, highlighting my proposal's advantages.
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5200948.77659
Trevor Griffith and Adrian Kind argue that we should reject a standard interpretation of pain asymbolia, according to which asymbolics experience pain even though their pain lacks the affective-motivational element that typical pains possess. We make the case that Griffith and Kind’s reasons for rejecting the standard interpretation are relatively weak. We end by arguing that debates between the standard interpretation and alternative interpretations cannot be resolved without addressing the issue of how we should taxonomize pain asymbolia as a neurological condition.
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5431892.776595
Philosophers of science commonly connect ontology and science, stating that these disciplines maintain a two-way relationship: on the one hand, we can extract ontology from scientific theories; on the other hand, ontology provides the realistic content of our scientific theories. In this article, we will critically examine the process of naturalizing ontology, i.e., confining the work of ontologists merely to the task of pointing out which entities certain theories commit themselves to. We will use non-relativistic quantum mechanics as a case study. We begin by distinguishing two roles for ontology: the first would be characterized by cataloging existing entities according to quantum mechanics; the second would be characterized by establishing more general ontological categories in which existing entities must be classified. We argue that only the first step is available for a naturalistic approach; the second step not being open for determination or anchoring in science. Finally, we also argue that metaphysics is still a step beyond ontology, not contained in either of the two tasks of ontology, being thus even farther from science.