Forms as Objects of Thought in Aristotle’s On Ideas

This chapter explores the dialectic of the interaction between modal semantics and modal metaphysics. It begins by looking at three examples of places where semantic and substantive issues interact, and where it is contentious whether a problem calls for a semantic or a metaphysical solution. The first example is an argument from a semantic premise to a metaphysical conclusion that is fallacious; the second is a case of a semantic decision with a metaphysical motivation. The third example is a puzzle where it is controversial whether the puzzle should have a semantic or a metaphysical solution. In this case, it is argued that the metaphysical response is unnecessary—the puzzle is best dissolved on semantic grounds. After discussing these three examples, the chapter considers a specific semantic question about how the quantifiers should work in our modal quantification theory and the way that this question interacts with metaphysical questions about the nature of the modal reality that the language aims to describe. This will lead us to a consideration of more general questions about ontological commitment.

Is a Metaphysical Solution Necessary?

In “Ruyer, Leibniz and the Unity of Bodies”, Bertrand Vaillant addresses the problem of the unity of bodies as inherited from Leibniz by French philosopher Raymond Ruyer (1902-1987). He examines Ruyer’s metaphysical solution, a “corrected monadology”, in the light of this Leibnizian influence. He intends to show that this solution, designed to avoid the difficulties raised by Leibniz’ metaphysics, doesn’t quite succeeds in that respect.

Measurement of racial populations is commonplace in many social sciences, and metaphysical accounts for the reality of race implicitly assume race is real because measurements of racial populations are successful, and therefore are best explained by a realist account of race. This paper challenges the first premise in this implicit argument: measurements of race in the social sciences are not successful due to a number of epistemic issues with the use of race in social-scientific survey instruments. The paper concludes by pointing towards a metaphysical solution that does not assume that empirical measures of race are coherent.

This book rescues compatibilists from the familiar charge of 'quagmire of evasion' by arguing that the problem of free will and determinism is a metaphysical problem with a metaphysical solution. There is no good reason to think that determinism would rob us of the free will we think we have.

In this paper Beebee argues that the problem of induction, which she describes as a genuine sceptical problem, is the same for Humeans than for Necessitarians. Neither scientific essentialists nor Armstrong can solve the problem of induction by appealing to IBE, for both arguments take an illicit inductive step.

The term intellectual intuition is the translation of the German intellektuelle or intellektuale Anschauung. Interestingly, Kant consistently uses the term intellektuelle Anschauung, and so does Fichte. This chapter presents the views of Fichte on intellectual intuition. Like all of Schelling's metaphysical solutions, intellectual intuition has gone through several stages. Especially for the young Schelling the influence of Fichte with respect to his view on intellectual intuition is considerable. Like Schelling, Holderlin believes that intellectual intuition is indispensable to inspire the intellect to surpass itself, to turn mere reflection into philosophical inspiration. The chapter discusses Holderlin's views on the relationship between poetry and philosophy and the crucial role of intellectual intuition.Keywords: Fichte; Holderlin; intellectual intuition; Kant; metaphysics; Schelling

This article aims at delineating Kant’s theory of understanding that integrate subject and object at the transcendent level. Transcendental here refers to the process of thinking in such a way that ‘transcends’ natural thinking. It is called transcendent for it occupied not so much with objects, but much about a metaphysical solution on how the object related to the subject. It starts with transcendental deduction by relating the objective with the subjective knowledge. Here he excludes transcendental deduction from the discussion of the empirical deduction. Afterward he differentiates the metaphysical deduction from transcendental deduction, in which he identifies transcendental deduction as the explanation of the way in which a priori concept can relate to object. The most important concept in Transcendental deduction is that of apperception. The analysis of this concept involve two abilities that later become two important steps: First ability of apprehending (reproducing and recognizing) knowledge of empirical truths. Second, ability of apprehending (reproducing and recognizing) knowledge of a non-empirical kind. Thus the general feature is the view that knowledge involve essentially the ability to judge (synthesize or combine) and the move from what is true empirically of our knowledge to what is true transcendentally. This is spontaneous act of mind and is called pure apperception or original apperception, while the principle that governs the unity of consciousness is entitled the Transcendental Unity of Apperception.

L'A. repond aux deux questions existentielles «pourquoi y a-t-il quelque chose plutot que rien?» et «pourquoi les choses sont-elles ce qu'elles sont?» en elaborant une pensee de l'existence pure, sans forme, dont l'essence est son etre meme, infini. Sa reponse metaphysique est fondee sur le thomisme et affronte de nombreux problemes existentiels

This paper seeks to show the State in its historical and analytical approaches. In view of history, we find two principal solutions. In this text they are called metaphysical and contractual. The metaphysical solution is characteristic of the pre-modern era with its Aristotelian claim that we carry the social principle in our human nature; the principle is the spawning ground for the State. Now, the contractual, i.e. the modern, approach defines the State as a result of human negotiation. Historically speaking, there have been many proposals along the spectrum from an overgrown institution to its, much atrophied, form. The author proposes a modest approach to our understanding of the State: it is needed from the well-being of social community. The condition, however, of this well-being is that the State be limited, allowing much space for its society to grow and form indispensable interrelations.

Not the least interesting thing about the beginnings of a revival of metaphysical interest is the source of that renewed interest. When Carnap developed the distinction between the formal and material modes of speech and with that his various formulations of syntactics, it was felt by him and his disciples that the confusions of the metaphysicians had at long last been definitively dispelled by being shown for what they really were — a confusion based on the use of pseudo-object statements because of an unjustified and uncritical application of the material mode of speech. So Carnap said at one time:

AGAIN and again is the physicist, in the course of his researches, brought face to face with philosophical questions. It then depends upon the bent and bias of his mind whether he is content to leave these questions as he finds them, or is impelled to adapt them to some more or less plausible metaphysical solution. Dr. Croll, whose death we have so recently had occasion to lament, made his mark by a skilful application of physical reasoning to sundry difficult problems connected with climate and time. It need hardly be said that the whole tendency of his thought and work was in support of the doctrine of evolution in its widest sense. In the volume before us he discusses, after forty years of meditation, the fundamental principles which underlie this doctrine. The Philosophical Basis of Evolution. By James Croll (London: Edward Stanford, 1891.)

Normative discourse frequently involves explanation. For example, we tell children that hitting is wrong because it hurts people. In a recent paper, Selim Berker argues that to account for this kind of explanation, expressivists need an account of normative grounding. Against this, I argue that expressivists should eschew grounding and stick to a more pragmatic picture of explanation, one that focuses on how we use explanatory speech acts to communicate information. This chapter proposes that the standard form of a normative explanation is a generalizing explanation, one which shows a particular moral injunction to follow from a more general injunction. An additional upshot of the resulting view is that it paves the way for a purely metaphysical solution to the problem of creeping minimalism. Quasi-real properties are those that, unlike real properties, stand outside of the metaphysical hierarchy of grounding relations.

Any serious effort toward a consistent, coherent, and synoptic account of the place of mind in nature is fraught with embarrassing perplexities. Philosophical temperaments notoriously differ in how they react to these perplexities. Some thinkers apparently like to wallow in them and finally declare the mind-body problem unsolvable: ‘Ignoramus et ignorabimus.’ Perhaps this is an expression of intellectual masochism, or a rationalization of intellectual impotence. It may of course also be an expression of genuine humility. Others, imbued with greater confidence in the powers of philosophical insight or in the promises of scientific progress, offer dogmatic solutions of the old puzzle. And still others, recognizing the speculative and precarious character of metaphysical solutions, and deeply irritated by the many bafflements, try to undercut the whole issue and declare it an imaginary problem. But the perplexities persist and provoke further efforts — often only minor variants of older ones — toward removing this perennial bone of contention from the disputes of philosophers and scientists. Wittgenstein, who tried to ‘dissolve’ the problem, admitted candidly [1953, Section 412]: “The feeling of an unbridgeable gulf between consciousness and brain-process…. This idea of a difference in kind is accompanied by slight giddiness,” but he added quickly “which occurs when we are performing a piece of logical sleight-of-hand.”

The literature surrounding Horgan and Timmons’s Moral Twin Earth scenarios has focused on whether such scenarios present a metasemantic problem for naturalist realists. But in Choosing Normative Concepts, Eklund uses a similar scenario to illuminate a novel, distinctly metaphysical problem for normative realists of both naturalist and non-naturalist stripes. The problem is that it is not clear what (if anything) would suffice for the sort of ardent realist view that normative realists have in mind – the view that reality itself favors certain ways of acting and valuing. Eklund then offers a metasemantic view that he thinks can provide the best solution to this problem. In this reply to Eklund, I argue that Eklund’s treatment of the problem and his solution re-entangle metaphysical and metasemantic issues that ought to be kept separate. I also argue that there is a purely metaphysical solution to the problem at hand, which Eklund’s own solution seems to implicitly rely upon. While these criticisms do not suggest that Eklund’s positive view is false, they do undermine some of the broader lessons that Eklund hopes to draw from the view.