Truthmaking, Supervenience, and Reduction

2018 ◽  
Vol 95 (4) ◽  
pp. 520-540
Author(s):  
Mohsen Zamani
Keyword(s):  
Ontological Commitment ◽  
Reduction Theory ◽  
Plausible Account ◽  
Ontological Reduction ◽  
Composite Objects ◽  
Commitment Theory

There are two main theories of ontological commitment: the quantifier view, and the truthmaker view. Since there are some truths that apparently commit us to certain entities, but actually do not, any ontological commitment theory must also contain an ontological reduction theory. Advocates of the quantifier view propose the paraphrasing method of reduction, while some advocates of the truthmaker view propose the supervenience method. In this paper, after a brief discussion of the quantifier view, the author proposes a modified version of truthmaker-based ontology, and shows that a plausible account of the supervenience method can be deduced from his version. He then shows that the supervenience method could explain why the paraphrasing method is successful. The author also argues that according to the truthmaker view we must accept composite objects as something over and above the particles which constitute them.

scholarly journals Ontological Indifference of Theories and Semantic Primacy of Sentences

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Greimann
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Scientific Theory ◽  
Ontological Commitment ◽  
Philosophy Of Mathematics ◽  
Ontological Commitments ◽  
Ontological Reduction ◽  
Structuralist View ◽  
New Interpretation

Abstract In his late philosophy, Quine generalized the structuralist view in the philosophy of mathematics that mathematical theories are indifferent to the ontology we choose for them. According to his ‘global structuralism’, the choice of objects does not matter to any scientific theory. In the literature, this doctrine is mainly understood as an epistemological thesis claiming that the empirical evidence for a theory does not depend on the choice of its objects. The present paper proposes a new interpretation suggested by Quine’s recently published Kant Lectures from 1980 according to which his global structuralism is a semantic thesis that belongs to his theory of ontological reduction. It claims that a theory can always be reformulated in such a way that its truth does not presuppose the existence of the original objects, but only of some objects that can be considered as their proxies. Quine derives this claim from the principle of the semantic primacy of sentences, which is supposed to license the ontological reductions he uses to establish his global structuralism. It is argued that these reductions do not actually work because they do not account for some hidden ontological commitments that are not detected by his criterion of ontological commitment.

The Practice and Evolution of Torque and Drag Reduction: Theory and Field Results

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Edward McCormick ◽  
Chad D. Evans ◽  
Joe Le ◽  
TzuFang Chiu
Keyword(s):  
Drag Reduction ◽  
Reduction Theory

Acting on Knowledge

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Williamson
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Philosophy Of Action ◽  
Plausible Account ◽  
Direction Of Fit ◽  
General Schema ◽  
Action Intention ◽  
Knowledge Norms

This chapter develops and refines the analogy between knowledge and action in Knowledge and its Limits. The general schema is: knowledge is to belief as action is to intention. The analogy reverses direction of fit between mind and world. The knowledge/belief side corresponds to the inputs to practical reasoning, the action/intention side to its outputs. Since desires are inputs to practical reasoning, the desire-as-belief thesis is considered sympathetically. When all goes well with practical reasoning, one acts on what one knows. Belief plays the same local role as knowledge, and intention as action, in practical reasoning. This is the appropriate setting to understand knowledge norms for belief and practical reasoning. Marginalizing knowledge in epistemology is as perverse as marginalizing action in the philosophy of action. Opponents of knowledge-first epistemology are challenged to produce an equally systematic and plausible account of the relation between the cognitive and the practical.

Against Aesthetic Exceptionalism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Robson
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Difference ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Plausible Account

This chapter discusses a position it terms ‘belief pessimism concerning aesthetic testimony’ (BP). According to BP (i) judgements of aesthetic value are beliefs and (ii) aesthetic judgements are subject to some additional norm not active with respect to judgements concerning more mundane matters which (inter alia) prevents such judgements from legitimately being formed on the basis of testimony. The chapter argues that BP should be rejected since it faces a number of pressing objections relating to the nature of belief. First, it proposes a fundamental difference between aesthetic beliefs and beliefs of other kinds without properly motivating this distinction. Secondly, BP is in tension with any plausible account of the nature of belief. The chapter concludes, then, that at least one of (i) or (ii) should be rejected.

scholarly journals Why Composition Matters

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (8) ◽  
pp. 934-949
Author(s):  
Andrew M. Bailey ◽  
Andrew Brenner
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Composite Objects ◽  
Ontological Disputes

AbstractMany say that ontological disputes are defective because they are unimportant or without substance. In this paper, we defend ontological disputes from the charge, with a special focus on disputes over the existence of composite objects. Disputes over the existence of composite objects, we argue, have a number of substantive implications across a variety of topics in metaphysics, science, philosophical theology, philosophy of mind, and ethics. Since the disputes over the existence of composite objects have these substantive implications, they are themselves substantive.

scholarly journals Grounding Personal Persistence

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Harriet E. Baber
Keyword(s):  
Counterpart Theory ◽  
Possible World ◽  
Ordinary Objects ◽  
Plausible Account ◽  
Temporal Properties ◽  
What Matters In Survival ◽  
What Matters

Abstract Modal counterpart theory identifies a thing’s possibly being F with its having a counterpart that is F at another possible world; temporal counterpart theory identifies a thing’s having been F or going to be F, with its having a counterpart that is F at another time. Benovsky, J. 2015. “Alethic Modalities, Temporal Modalities, and Representation.” Kriterion: Journal of Philosophy 29: 18–34 in this journal endorses modal counterpart theory but holds that temporal counterpart theory is untenable because it does not license the ascription of the intuitively correct temporal properties to ordinary objects, and hence that we should understand ordinary objects, including persons, as transtemporal ‘worms’. I argue that the worm theory is problematic when it comes to accounting for what matters in survival and that temporal counterpart theory provides a plausible account of personal persistence.

scholarly journals Quantum ontology without speculation

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Egg
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Ontological Commitment ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Hard Case ◽  
Quantum Ontology

AbstractExisting proposals concerning the ontology of quantum mechanics (QM) either involve speculation that goes beyond the scientific evidence or abandon realism about large parts of QM. This paper proposes a way out of this dilemma, by showing that QM as it is formulated in standard textbooks allows for a much more substantive ontological commitment than is usually acknowledged. For this purpose, I defend a non-fundamentalist approach to ontology, which is then applied to various aspects of QM. In particular, I will defend realism about spin, which has been viewed as a particularly hard case for the ontology of QM.

The Comic Stance

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-72
Author(s):  
Lauren Olin
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Cognitive Architectures ◽  
General Acceptance ◽  
Plausible Account ◽  
The Future ◽  
Intentional Systems

Abstract Despite sustained philosophical attention, no theory of humor claims general acceptance. Drawing on the resources provided by intentional systems theory, this article first outlines an approach to investigating humor based on the idea of a comic stance, then sketches the Dismissal Theory of Humor (DTH) that has resulted from pursuing that approach. According to the DTH, humor manifests in cases where the future-directed significance of anticipatory failures is dismissed. Mirth, on this view, is the reward people get for declining to update predictive representational schemata in ways that maximize their futureoriented value. The theory aims to provide a plausible account of the role of humor in human mental and social life, but it also aims to be empirically vulnerable, and to generate testable predictions about how the comic stance may actually be undergirded by cognitive architectures.

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