General Relativity and Causality, Reasoning from Metaphysics, and E. J. Lowe’s Ontology

The paper aims to show the importance of reasoning “from metaphysics” in the course of a consistent interpretation of the “against neoscholasticism” thesis (J. Ladyman). The idea that “the subject of metaphysics is metaphysical possibilities, and science determines which of them are actually achieved” (E. J. Lowe, J. Katz, etc.) reinforces the role of reasoning “from metaphysics” within the field of metaphysics of science. The general theory of relativity violates the common prevailing intuition that “causality is the subject of local physical interaction” (J. Bigelow). Interpretation of causality in terms of “forces” and “coming into” within the framework of E. J. Lowe's ontology makes it possible to talk about causality in terms of “finding” and “going out” of existence of the corresponding modes of objects connected by a formal “causal relationship”. The transition to E. J. Lowe's ontology helps not only to overcome the intuition of the locality of causality, but also reveals in its own way, for example, such seemingly simple common intuitions as the dependence of the truth of propositions on time or the understanding of time as a dimension. All this once again brings us back to the understanding of the importance of the fact that a scientist, constructing or interpreting a scientific theory, as a rule, uses non-trivial philosophical assumptions that should be the subject of its own philosophical analysis.

When the Part Mirrors the Whole: Interactions Beyond “Simple Location”

Reductionism relies on expectations that it is possible to make sense of the whole by studying its parts, whereas emergentism considers that program to be unattainable, partly due to the existence of emergent properties. The emergentist holistic stance is particularly relevant in biology and cognitive neuroscience, where interactions amongst system components and environment are key. Here we consider Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy as providing important insights to metaphysics of science in general, and to the reductionism vs. emergentism debate in particular. An appraisal of Whitehead's perspective reveals a difficulty shared by both approaches, referred to him as “simple location”: the commitment to the idea that the nature of things is exhausted by their intrinsic or internal properties, and does not take into account relations or dynamic interactions denoting “togetherness.” In a word, that things are simply where they are. Whitehead criticizes this externalist ontological perspective in which each interacting element exists, and can be thought, without essential reference to other elements. The aim of this work is to uncover such a stance, particularly in the context of dynamical systems, and to show its shortcomings. We propose an alternative relational approach based on Whitehead's notion of “internal relations,” which we explicate and illustrate with several examples. Our work aims to criticize the notion of simple location, even in the framework of emergentist accounts, so as to contribute to a “relational turn” that will conceive “inter-identities” as “intra-identities” in which interactants are not enduring substances, but internally related processes. In sum, we argue that the notion of internal relations has a strong theoretical power to overcome some fundamental difficulties in the study of life and mind.

The Relevance of Metaphysics to Behavior Analysis

Behavior analysis takes a natural science approach to human and animal behavior. Some basic tenets are widely agreed in the field but it can be argued that some other assumptions are implicit in our approach and, if unexamined, may impair progress. Since the time of David Hume, there has been a strong Western philosophical tradition of naturalism and realism. Although behavior analysis has from the outset embraced pragmatism, features of naturalism are embedded in the metaphysics of science and thus have been imported into behavior analysis. Many versions of naturalism imply dualism, but this can be avoided without abandoning a naturalist–realist position either by adopting the historicist approach of Rorty, which suggests that apparently a priori truths are often merely conventions of a philosophical tradition, or by accepting Wittgenstein’s view that there are hinge statements that are fundamental to our thinking but are not propositional beliefs and do not entail dualism. As an alternative, we can adopt the metaphysical assumptions of monism, possibly starting from William James’s approach of neutral monism. Revising our metaphysical assumptions while retaining the pragmatism that is central to behavior analysis may enable us to engage more effectively with cognitive psychology, to develop stronger links with ecological psychology and other approaches that reject representationalism, and to move beyond the debate about the status of private events.

The Metaphysics of Quantities

This book articulates and defends a new and original answer to two questions: What are physical quantities and what makes them quantitative? This novel position—substantival structuralism—says that quantitativeness is an irreducible feature of particular attributes, and quantitative attributes are best understood as substantival structured spaces. Physical quantities like mass, momentum, or temperature play an important role in formulating laws of nature and in testing scientific theories. It is therefore important to have a clear philosophical understanding of what makes these attributes special. Traditional views of quantities have either suggested that quantities are determinables, that is, attributes that require determination by magnitudes, or that quantities are in some sense numerical, but neither view is satisfactory. The book shows how to use the representational theory of measurement to provide a better, more abstract criterion for quantitativeness: only attributes whose numerical representation has a high degree of uniqueness are quantitative. The best ontology for quantities is offered by a form of sophisticated substantivalism applied to quantities as structured spaces. Substantivalism, because an infinite domain is required to satisfy the formal requirements of quantitativeness; structured spaces, because they contain fundamental relations; sophisticated substantivalism because the identity of positions in such spaces is irrelevant. The resulting view is a form structuralism about quantities. The topic of the book falls squarely in the metaphysics of science, with contributions to general metaphysics and philosophy of science.

Privileged-Perspective Realism in the Quantum Multiverse

Privileged-perspective realism (PPR) is a version of metaphysical realism that takes certain irreducibly perspectival facts to be partly constitutive of reality. PPR asserts that there is a single metaphysically privileged standpoint from which these perspectival facts obtain. This chapter discusses several views that fall under the category of privileged-perspective realism. These include presentism, which is PPR about tensed facts, and non-multiverse interpretations of quantum mechanics, which the chapter argues, constitute PPR about world-indexed facts. Using the framework of the bird perspective and the frog perspective, it argues that PPR views are motivated by the assumption that the frog perspective is metaphysically primary. The chapter considers case studies of metaphysical interpretations of special relativity and quantum mechanics in order to demonstrate that such motivations for PPR are non-naturalistic. It considers psychological factors that motivate the appeal of PPR views and offers naturalistic explanations of why we should not expect them to lead to good metaphysics of science.

The Fundamentalist Vision

A brief synoptic conclusion. When our aim is a distinctive account of ultimate reality the proper postmodal tool is that of fundamentality. With that tool we can articulate a "fundamentalist vision": an account of the fundamental nature of the facts and laws in the domain in question. This conception of the metaphysics of science fits a certain realist outlook, and undermines some forms of structuralism: nomic essentialism and structural realism (though not comparativism). But the vision faces serious challenges having to do with arbitrariness: arbitrariness in the constituents of the fundamental facts, and arbitrariness in the laws of nature.

The Tools of Metaphysics and the Metaphysics of Science

Metaphysics is sensitive to the conceptual tools we choose to articulate metaphysical problems. Those tools are a lens through which we view metaphysical problems; the same problems look different when we change the lens. There has recently been a shift to "postmodal" conceptual tools: concepts of ground, essence, and fundamentality. This shift transforms the debate over structuralism, in many ways. For instance: structuralist theses say that "patterns" are prior to the "nodes" in the patterns. In modal terms it is clear what this means: the nodes cannot vary independently of the pattern. But it's far less clear what its postmodal meaning is. One expects it to mean that the pattern is fundamental, the entities in the pattern, derivative. But what would a fundamental account of reality that speaks only of patterns and not objects in the patterns look like? I examine three structuralist positions through a postmodal lens. First, nomic essentialism, which says that scientific properties are secondary and lawlike relationships among them are primary. Second, structuralism about individuals, a general position of which mathematical structuralism and structural realism are instances, which says that scientific and mathematical objects are secondary and the pattern of relations among them is primary. Third, comparativism about quantities, which says that particular values of scientific quantities, such as having exactly 1000g mass, are secondary, and quantitative relations, such as being-twice-as-massive-as, are primary. Finally, I take a step back and examine the meta-question of when theories are equivalent, and how that impacts the debate over structuralism.