Close Range

CFP: Society for Exact Philosophy

The 37th annual meeting of the Society for Exact Philosophy will be held at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta. May 7-9, 2009.

Call for Papers

Paper submissions in all areas of analytic philosophy are welcomed. A selection of papers from the conference will be published in a special volume of Synthese, guest edited by Marc Moffett.

Paper submission deadline: January 31st, 2009.

"The SEP is dedicated to providing sustained discussion among researchers who believe that rigorous methods have a place in philosophical investigations." Information on the Society and its previous meetings is on the web at SEP Home.

Submission Instructions

Authors are requested to submit their papers according to the following guidelines: 1) Papers should be prepared for blind refereeing, 2) put into PDF file format, and 3) sent as an email attachment to the address given below -- where 4) the subject line of the submission email should include the key-phrase "SEP submission", and 5) the body text of the email message should constitute a cover page for the submission by including i) return email address, ii) author's name, iii) affiliation, iv) paper title, and v) short abstract.

Electronic submissions should be sent to <sep-conference_AT_phil.ufl.edu>

Nota Bene: All submissions will receive email confirmation of receipt. If your submission does not soon result in such an email confirmation, please send an inquiry either to the above address or to the local organizer.

Length

You should plan on having 40 minutes presentation time. We suppose this to be the principal guide in judging the length of the paper you send. It is the norm at SEP meetings for speakers to present rather than read their papers (and this is a virtue), so it is to be expected that presentation time and page length will only loosely correlate.

That said, do please bear in mind that a referee needs to both grasp the content of your paper and be able to readily envisage how you could present it in the available time. So, if your paper runs long, you might for this reason what to prepare a shortened version.

(If you prefer a page number specification to this human guideline: fifteen double-spaced pages is a common norm for forty minute talks.)

Why Must the Facts about Parthood be Systematizable?

I’m writing a review of Horgan and Potrč’s new book, Austere Realism, and I thought I’d float some of the ideas here first. Their big project is to defend a totally stripped-down ontology, in which (among other things) there are no tables, mountains, or other ordinary composites, but all the while insisting that ordinary utterances like ‘there are tables’ are strictly and literally true. I’m planning to have a second (and possibly third) post on their strategy for reconciling their revisionary metaphysics with ordinary discourse, but first I want to talk about one of their arguments against “naive commonsense ontology.”

The idea behind their “argument from arbitrariness” (§2.3, if you have the book) is that naive commonsense ontology is too messy and unsystematizable to possibly be right. Here I think is a fair reconstruction of the argument:

(P1) The correct answer to the special composition question, “under what conditions are some things the parts of a further thing?”, must be general and systematic.
(P2) There is no general and systematic answer to this question that accommodates the bulk of our intuitive judgments about when composition does and does not occur.
(C) So a great many of our intuitive judgments about when composition does and does not occur must be incorrect.

Anyone who’s attempted to give even a rough-and-ready answer to the special composition question that accommodates our intuitive judgments about composition is going to feel the force of P2. But why accept P1? Horgan and Potrč suggest that if indeed the compositional facts do not conform to some general and systematic answer to the special composition question, then they would have to be explanatorily basic (or “brute”), which surely they are not.  It is far from obvious, though, that one who embraces the bruteness of composition—i.e., that there is no general and systematic account of the conditions under which composition occurs—is thereby committed to the brutality of compositional facts—i.e., that facts about whether composition occurs are explanatorily basic. To deny that there are interesting general principles governing the conditions under which composition occurs seems entirely compatible with maintaining that, in each case, there are noncompositional facts in virtue of which the compositional facts are as they are.

Now for the ad hominem: Horgan and Potrč themselves defend just such a particularist claim later in the book. For reasons having to do with their revisionary semantic theory, they wind up embracing a semantic particularist thesis on which there are no general and systematic answers to a certain range of questions about the semantic facts (§6.4). But of course they don’t think that the unsystematizable semantic facts are explanatorily basic; rather, they’re explained by specific (nonsystematizable) facts about the speaker’s context together with facts about intentional mental states (§7.4.3).

One last thing: It’s worth comparing the special composition question to the “special inheritance question,” that is, under what conditions does a composite inherit properties from its proper parts? (I’m borrowing this case, and most of the examples, from Dave Liebesman’s very cool paper on generics.) Hard question. In order to have the property of touching the wall a chair only has to have a single part that’s touching the wall. But, in order to have the property of being plastic, the vast majority of its parts have to be plastic. And in order to have the property of being red, only the parts on its surface have to be red. And it may be 5.7 pounds even though none of its parts are 5.7 pounds. In other words, good luck trying to find a general and systematic answer to the special inheritance question! But we don’t find that intolerable; we don’t take that as grounds for skepticism about our “naive” intuitive judgments about inheritance. We don’t then become universalists about inheritance (all of thing’s parts have to be F in order for it to be F) or nihilists (inheritance never occurs) or god forbid organicists (composites only inherit properties from their living parts), for fear of being stuck with an unsystematizable mess. And notice that here, the bruteness of inheritance certainly doesn’t entail the brutality of inheritance facts: the table inherits the property of being red from its parts because the parts on its surface are all red.

First question: is there any reason why one who denies the bruteness of composition also has to deny the brutality of compositional facts?

Second question: is there any reason to think that bruteness of composition (without brutality of compositional facts) is worse than bruteness of semantics (without brutality of semantic facts)?

Third question: why is the lack of a systematic answer to the special composition question any more reason for skepticism about our intuitive judgments than the lack of a systematic answer to the special inheritance question?

Williamson on Intuitions

I’ve been reading Williamson’s new book (which is awesome!), and I just got to chapter 7, where he’s wondering what “intuitions” are supposed to be. He mentions Bealer’s suggestion that they’re intellectual seemings, and here’s what he says about Bealer’s favorite example, Naive Comprehension (i.e., that every predicate has a set as its extension):

“For myself, I am aware of no intellectual seeming beyond my conscious inclination to believe Naive Comprehension, which I resist because I know better.” (p.217)

I found this very strange. Yes, Naive Comprehension seems true to me, even though I know full well that it’s inconsistent -- just as the Muller-Lyer arrows seem to be different lengths, even though I know full well that they aren’t. But I have no inclination whatsoever to believe Naive Comprehension, conscious or otherwise. I mean, I used to sometimes feel inclined to believe it, even after I learned about Russell’s paradox, because (for instance) I wouldn’t recognize it right away as the axiom that generates Russell's paradox. But now I’m always able to recognize it right away, and I have no inclination to believe it.

Likewise when I’m looking at the Muller-Lyer arrows. I’m not at all inclined to believe that they’re the same length. I know the trick. Or consider my friend Enrico, who has the zombie intuition, but said that I should stab him if he ever gives up materialism (true story, he made me promise). I think it’s safe to assume that he has no inclination whatsoever to believe that zombies are possible, even when it seems to him that they are possible.

And anyway, this is a very strange thing for Williamson of all people to say. As those of you who’ve read chapter 4 know, his all-purpose counterexample to epistemic characterizations of analyticity is the stubborn philosopher with funny views about logic who has no disposition whatsoever (even a little! even subconsciously!) to assent to the sentence 'every vixen is a vixen'. Surely if this guy’s stubborn enough to have no disposition to assent to 'every vixen is a vixen', I’m stubborn enough to have no inclination to believe Naive Comprehension!

Soames on the Contingent A Priori

Saul Kripke famously argued that some propositions are both contingent and knowable a priori. For instance, one who introduces the term ‘one meter’ as a rigid designator for the length of a certain stick s at time t is meant to be in a position to know a priori that if s exists at t then the length of s at t is one meter. Call this the meter proposition. Scott Soames (2003) says that neither the meter proposition nor any of Kripke’s other examples are genuine examples of a priori contingencies. Soames observes that the baptizer’s knowledge of the meter proposition would have to be based partly on the knowledge that the term ‘one meter’ refers in his language to the length of an object iff the length of that object is one meter. Call this further proposition the R-proposition. The question of whether the meter proposition is known a priori therefore turns on the question of whether the R-proposition is known a priori. Soames offers the following reason for denying that the R-proposition and related propositions can be known a priori: “If they could be so known, then non-English speakers should be able to know them simply by reflecting on and reasoning about them—which of course they cannot.” (2003,408-9)

Soames does, however, admit that there are genuine a priori contingencies, for instance, that if actually Princeton has a philosophy department then Princeton has a philosophy department. Call this the Princeton proposition. The argument for the contingency of the Princeton proposition is straightforward: Its antecedent will be true at all worlds—since it is true at all worlds that in our world Princeton has a philosophy department—including those worlds in which Princeton has no philosophy department. At such worlds, the conditional as a whole is false; hence, the Princeton proposition is contingent. The argument for its a priority is equally straightforward, for one can know a priori, of any proposition that one entertains, that it is true iff true in one’s own world.

I’m going to argue that Soames’s stated reason for denying that the R-proposition can be known a priori should be rejected on the grounds that it’s equally a reason for denying that the Princeton proposition can be known a priori. So Soames’s argument against the a priority of the meter proposition fails. And this isn’t merely an ad hominem attack, for it is widely assumed that such propositions as the R-proposition cannot be known a priori, yet it is difficult to find (or imagine) any reason for assuming this other than the one Soames supplies. So unless there is some flaw in the reasoning behind the a priority of the Princeton proposition (and there isn’t), we are left with no satisfactory reason for supposing these semantic facts to be knowable only a posteriori.

Soames seems to have in mind something like the following argument in the passage quoted above (I’ve added some charitable bells and whistles):

(P1) A proposition p can be known a priori only if, necessarily, if p is true then anyone who understands p and is suitably intelligent can come to know p simply by reflecting on and reasoning about it.   
(P2) The R-proposition is true and some suitably intelligent individuals understand it but cannot know it simply by reflecting on and reasoning about it.
(C) So the R-proposition cannot be known a priori.

The reasoning behind P2 is straightforward: just as non-French speakers can understand the proposition that the term ‘un pouce’ refers in French to the length of an object iff the length of that object is one meter without being in any position to know whether it is true or false, non-English speakers can understand the R-proposition perfectly well without being in any position to know whether it is true or false.

But P1, together with the following premise P2*, entails that the Princeton proposition cannot be known a priori:

(P2*) Possibly, the Princeton proposition is true and some individuals understand it and are suitably intelligent but cannot know it simply by reflecting on and reasoning about it.

The possible individuals in question will be inhabitants of a world other than our own in which Princeton has a philosophy department. In order for them to understand the Princeton proposition—which is, at least in part, a proposition about our world—they have to be able to think about our world. Singling out a specific nonactual world in thought is no small feat, but we may suppose that their mental capacities far exceed our own and that they are able to get our world uniquely in mind by imagining it in full detail. They nevertheless will not be in a position to know the Princeton proposition simply by reflecting on and reasoning about it. For although they can know that its antecedent (which is true in their world iff Princeton has a philosophy department in our world) is true simply by reflecting on and reasoning about it, they cannot know that its consequent (which is true in their world iff Princeton has a philosophy department in their world) is true simply by reflecting on and reasoning about it. Consequently, they cannot know whether the conditional itself is true simply by reflecting on and reasoning about it.

So P2* is true. So either P1 is true, in which case it follows that the Princeton proposition cannot be known a priori, or P1 is false. The Princeton proposition can be known a priori. So P1 is false, Soames’s argument that the meter proposition cannot be known a priori fails, and we lose the standard (and perhaps only) reason for taking R-propositions to be knowable only a posteriori.

Borderline Composition without Metaphysical Vagueness

Ted Sider argues that composition is unrestricted on the grounds that, were it restricted, there’d have to either be sharp cut-offs with respect to composition or borderline cases of composition, and there can’t be either. The conventional wisdom is that embracing borderline composition is going to lead either to metaphysical vagueness or else some sort of relativism. That not quite right: I know of at least four ways (one due to my blogmate Chad Carmichael) to be a non-relativist borderliner without abandoning a linguistic theory of vagueness. I want to sketch one way here. It’s kind of crazy, but not obviously crazier than unrestricted composition.

Some background: numerical sentences are sentences of the following form that say that there are exactly n concrete things (for some number n, in this case 2): ‘∃x∃y(Cx & Cy & x≠y & ∀z(Cz → (x=z v y=z)))’. One premise of Sider’s argument is that whenever there’s borderline composition, some numerical sentence will lack a determinate truth value. After all, it’ll be indeterminate whether there are just some things, or those things *plus* an additional thing that’s composed of them. The strategy I have in mind is to concede that some such sentence lacks a determinate truth value, but insist that the only indeterminacy at issue is semantic indeterminacy. I’ll develop this in three phases. Phase 1: identifying the representational indeterminacy. Phase 2: eliminating everything from the ontology that might lead to nonrepresentational vagueness. Phase 3: ignoring possible objections. 

Phase 1: There are countless perfectly precise ways for simples to be arranged: they may be in arrangement1, arrangement2, arrangement3, and so forth. These are monadic properties, collectively instantiated by pluralities of simples, and each of which has a perfectly determinate extension. The envisaged borderliner will countenance states of affairs involving mereological simples and their precise arrangements. Such states of affairs are all that will be needed for securing the semantic indeterminacy of the numerical sentence. To see why, let us say that some things compose something iff they are arranged objectwise, where the vague expression ‘arranged objectwise’ may be replaced by any vague restriction on composition (e.g., arranged lifewise.) Assuming that some simples cannot compose more than one thing at a time, the numerical sentence for some number n will be true iff the arithmetic sum of the number of simples and the number of sets of simples whose members are arranged objectwise is n. Because it is a vague restriction there will be borderline cases of being arranged objectwise. Suppose that simples in arrangement1 through arrangement10 are the clear cases of being arranged objectwise, and that simples in arrangement11 are a borderline case of being arranged objectwise. The sparse borderline can then say that the numerical sentence for n is semantically indeterminate insofar as it is indeterminate which of the following two (perfectly determinate) states of affairs it represents as obtaining:

(i) There being m simples and n minus m sets of simples who members are either in arrangement1 or arrangement2 or … or arrangement10.

(ii) There being m simples and n minus m sets of simples who members are either in arrangement1 or arrangement2 or … or arrangement10 or arrangement11.

One might naturally think of these states of affairs as precisifications of the numerical sentence for n.

Phase 2:  Linguistic theorists agree that it’s indeterminate whether Paul is bald, but avoid de re vagueness by denying that there is such a property as the property of being bald; there are only the perfectly precise properties: bald1, bald2, bald3, etc. There also is no such proposition as the proposition that Paul is bald (which would be a borderline instance of the property of being true) or such a state of affairs as the state of affairs of Paul’s being bald (which would be a borderline case of the property of obtaining).

Our sparse borderliner piggybacks this strategy: there is no such property as being arranged objectwise; there are just the precise properties of being in arrangement1, etc. There also is no such proposition as the proposition that ∃x∃y(Cx & Cy & x≠y & ∀z(Cz → (x=z v y=z))), and no such state of affairs as the state of affairs of there being an x and a y such that (Cx & Cy & x≠y & ∀z(Cz → (x=z v y=z))). So there is nothing in the ontology that exhibits de re vagueness. Mission accomplished!

Phase 3: What, me worry?

Philosophers of Language: Help!

Consider the following sentences:

(a) ‘Rabbits are animals’ is a true sentence of my language iff rabbits are animals.
(b) The word ‘rabbit’ refers in my language to an object iff that object is a rabbit.

Scott Soames says “The propositions expressed by these sentences are standardly not regarded as capable of being known apriori.” He has an argument for their a posteriority, which I may blog about later. But what I’m wondering is: does anyone know of any other discussions of the epistemic status of such propositions? Or even of other places where someone takes a stand (perhaps without extensive discussion) on their epistemic status?

Also feel free to state any strong feelings you might have about whether they're a priori.

Hawthorne on Strange Communities

John Hawthorne raises the following objection to commonsense views of material objects, on which there are familiar kinds (islands, statues, snowballs) but no strange kinds (incars, gollyswoggles, snowdiscalls):

“Barring a kind of anti-realism that none of us should tolerate, wouldn’t it be remarkable if the lines of reality match the lines that we have words for? The simplest exercises of sociological imagination ought to convince us that the assumption of such a harmony is altogether untoward, since such exercises convince us that it is something of a biological and/or cultural accident that we draw the lines that we do.” (2006, 109).

We “draw the lines that we do” largely as a result of our intuitive judgments about what kinds of things there are, so the suggestion evidently is that it is a biocultural accident that we have the intuitions that we do. Why exactly are we supposed to be convinced of this by “the simplest exercises of sociological imagination”? There are a number of things that Hawthorne might have in mind. Let me mention a couple. 

(1) Surely Hawthorne doesn’t mean to suggest that the mere fact that we’re able to imagine strange communities should convince of this. After all, we can also easily imagine communities who don’t share our intuitions about the multiple-realizability of mental properties, about the moral impermissibility of torturing babies for fun, about the premises of various arguments against commonsense ontology, and so on. Whatever reasons there may be for global skepticism about intuition, the mere imaginability of communities with different intuitions is not one of them.

(2) Perhaps what Hawthorne has in mind is that we can easily imagine the sorts of circumstances that might have led us to draw the lines differently and that, since these circumstances could easily have obtained, we could easily have drawn the lines differently. There are two ways in which this is right, and one way in which this is far from obvious.

First way in which it’s right: We could easily have found it convenient to categorize things differently. We classify things as infants, toddlers, and adolescents. Had our biocultural circumstances been different, we may well have found it convenient to have different categories, e.g., infoddlers (i.e., humans that are infants or toddlers) and toddlescents (i.e., humans that are toddlers or adolescents). But infoddlers and toddlescents aren’t strange things. They’re familiar things, strangely categorized. So this is no problem for the commonsense ontologist. 

Second way in which it’s right: Had biocultural circumstances been different, we may well have found it convenient to make different kinds of things. In that case, there would have been different kinds of artifacts. Perhaps they’d have strange persistence conditions. In that case, we would have had different (and correct!) judgments about which kinds of things there are. But that’s no reason to worry about our judgments about what sorts of artifacts we have in fact made. So, again, this is no problem for the commonsense ontologist.

The sorts of cases that would be problematic for commonsense ontologists involve strange ways of individuating (vs. merely classifying) nonartifacts. Let a supertoddlescent be a strange thing that comes into existence when a child becomes a toddler, ceases to exist when a child becomes an adolescent, and is colocated with the child at all times in between. Intuitively, there are none. Are there possible circumstances in which a whole community has different intuitions about supertoddlescents (setting aside communities who’ve been subjected to philosophy)? I suppose so -- for instance, they could just all be stupid. But it surely is no less easy for there to have been stupid communities with different intuitions about supertoddlescents than for there to be stupid communities with different intuitions about the indiscernibility of identicals, or multiple-realizability, the supervenience of moral facts on natural facts, etc.. So, setting aside idle skepticism about the quality of our present cognitive conditions, this by itself is hardly reason to worry about the reliability of our intuitions about supertoddlescents, moral supervenience, etc.

[[I’m ignoring one further interpretation of Hawthorne: that these exercises in imagination show us that there’s no ontologically significant difference between the strange and familiar things which could account for the existence of the one but not the other. I’ve got a whole paper on this if anyone’s interested.]]

Philosophical Methodology Workshop

UT-Austin will be hosting a 5 day summer school for graduate students on the topic of philosophical methodology. Each day of the workshop will include two or three seminar-style sessions led by faculty. In addition, there may be some number of faculty-led roundtable discussions on such issues as conceptual analysis, intuition, thought experiments, conceivability, reduction, reflective equilibrium, and ontological commitment.

To date, confirmed faculty participants include Julia Driver (Dartmouth), Jeff King (Rutgers), Dan Korman (Illinois), Marc Moffett (Wyoming), Roy Sorenson (Dartmouth), Ernest Sosa (Rutgers), and UT faculty Josh Dever, Mark Sainsbury, and David Sosa.

The workshop will be held August 12-16, 2008. Attendance will be limited to around 10 outside graduate students, the presenters, and UT graduate students and faculty. Interested graduate students are encouraged to apply. The deadline for applications is June 7, 2008. See the workshop homepage for details.

Snowballs and Islands

Members of phased kinds can cease to be members of that kind without ceasing to exist. Of course, as a matter of de dicto necessity, all toddlers are toddlers. But it’s not the case that all toddlers are necessarily toddlers. Members of individuative kinds belong to that kind as a matter de re necessity. A person can’t cease to be a person without ceasing to exist. A statue can’t cease to be a statue without ceasing to exist. If you flatten the statue, it’s not just that it ceases to be a statue; it ceases to exist.

Assuming you’re on board with those cases (i.e., assuming that your modal intuitions aren’t completely defective -- oh snap!), I’m wondering what you think about snowballs and islands. When you flatten a snowball, does it cease to exist, or does it just cease to be a snowball? Suppose you’ve got a low island, and it gets completely submerged every day at high tide. Does it cease to exist at high tide? Or does it continue to exist, but cease to be an island? Or perhaps you want to say that it still exists *and* it’s still an island at high tide? 

I say the snowball survives flattening but ceases to be a snowball, and the island survives being submerged (and probably is still an island). If I’m right about this, it seems that Hawthorne’s complaint that (“barring an anti-realism that none of us should tolerate”) it’s intolerably arbitrary to include islands in one’s ontology and exclude (Hirsch’s) incars. One, but not the other, has extraordinarily weird persistence conditions. Similarly for Sosa’s claim that a realist who lets in snowballs is going to have to let in snowdiscalls as well. Anyway, my question is whether what I say about snowballs and islands seems right to you.

CFP: 62nd Mountain-Plains Philosophy Conference

The 62nd Annual Mountain-Plains Philosophy Conference

Keynote Address: Ted Sider (NYU)

Hosted By
Fort Hays State University
Hays, Kansas

Thursday, October 23^rd to Saturday, October 25^th 2008

Accommodations: TBD

Papers on any topic of philosophical interest will be considered.  E-Mail submissions are preferred and should be no longer than 3000 words, suitable for reading aloud, and prepared for blind-reviewing (detachable title page).  Please include a 100-word abstract in your cover letter, indicate the preferred AOS of your referee, and indicate whether, should your paper not be accepted, you would be willing to serve as a commentator or session moderator.

Deadline for Submission: July 15, 2008

Send submission by e-mail to (please, no MS Word2007; older versions are fine): Franz-Peter Griesmaier (University of Wyoming), fpg@uwyo.edu.