Metaphysical Status Research Articles

Sets and Necessity

Τhis paper addresses the issue of the metaphysical status of sets and their interconnections. It discusses a foundational approach of the iterative set theoretic hierarchy comparatively to a regressive approach. Then it takes under consideration some naturalistic accounts of set theory and presents certain difficulties naturalism faces. It claims that the ontological status of sets should be dealt with in non-naturalistic terms and suggests that the issue in question could rather be placed in the context of a metaphysical discussion concerning abstract objects. So it investigates the operation ‘set of …’ as governed by necessary ontological dependence. After comparing some of the platonistic views S. Cowling (2017) has discussed, it proposes one of them as an appropriate account of sets as abstract objects with a modal status.

No Morality, No Self: Anscombe’s Radical Skepticism by James Doyle

Reviewed by: No Morality, No Self: Anscombe’s Radical Skepticism by James Doyle John Schwenkler James Doyle. No Morality, No Self: Anscombe’s Radical Skepticism. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2018. Pp. xi + 238. Cloth, $39.95. James Doyle’s book interprets and defends the arguments of G. E. M. Anscombe’s essays “Modern Moral Philosophy” and “The First Person.” Though both essays are widely cited, Doyle argues that in each instance Anscombe’s readers have missed the force of her arguments, which, when properly understood, are able to withstand the common objections to them. Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy” is commonly read as arguing that talk of moral obligation, permission etc., once had a legitimate place within conceptual frameworks that included the existence of a divine legislator, and can be vindicated outside that framework by adopting the schema of a neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics. But Doyle argues convincingly that this is all a misreading. For Anscombe, the concept of a divine lawgiver legitimizes the idea of unqualified requirements of good human action, but does not explain how any such requirements are distinctively “moral,” and her recommendation to talk instead of what is just, chaste, honest etc., is a proposal to replace talk of “moral” requirements rather than a way to justify it. Thus, Doyle’s slogan “no morality”: not because moral judgments are false or ungrounded, but rather because talk of moral X and what is morally Y expresses no concept at all and only stands in the way of genuine understanding of the goodness and badness of human action. By contrast, Doyle’s slogan “no self” is somewhat misleading as a statement of Anscombe’s central thesis in “The First Person,” since her concern there is not with the metaphysical status of “selves” but rather with the semantic function of first-person discourse. The thesis of that essay is that “I” is not a referring expression, that is, that the role of “I” in statements like “I am hungry” and “I was in Oslo last year” is not to name, or refer to, anyone or anything. It is true that one of her arguments for this thesis is that the only possible referent for “I” would be an immaterial ego—a suggestion which she then dismisses as untenable. But even there Anscombe’s argument is not that there are no such entities as these, but rather that they cannot be what we name when we say “I,” since there is no route by which this reference could be achieved. While Doyle’s exegesis of “The First Person” is less detailed than his reading of “Modern Moral Philosophy,” he succeeds again in showing that there are serious difficulties raised in Anscombe’s essay, and so far unaddressed in the literature that aims to respond to her, for philosophers who take it for granted that the semantic role of “I” is to refer. As the above suggests, Anscombe was not quite the “radical skeptic” of Doyle’s subtitle. In “The First Person,” her skepticism is only toward a philosophical account of the semantic role of a certain class of words—not of what Descartes claimed when he concluded “I think; I exist,” nor even of the immaterialism that he used this conclusion to support. Her thesis in “Modern Moral Philosophy” is comparatively more far-reaching, since it is not just philosophers but ordinary people, too, who sometimes use the word “moral” as if it is supposed to pick out a special class of virtues or action-guiding principles. But even here there may be an important difference between Anscombe’s target and the view of the common person: in ordinary speech, talk of ‘morality’ often indicates that the guidance under consideration is traditional or commonly accepted, whereas in philosophical discussions talk of ‘morality’ signals instead a kind of ultimacy. This means that, for philosophers, if taking from the rich to feed the poor is sometimes right, then this shows that it is sometimes morally right, whereas for most people the idea that theft is sometimes [End Page 176] permitted is taken to show instead that there are exceptions to “morality” as they understand it. And this latter view is not really...

Beyond Musical Metaphysics: A Philosophical Account of Listening to Music

Music’s original philosophical problem is ontological: what is it? In this paper, I argue that music has a better philosophical beginning; philosophical accounts of music should begin as philosophical accounts of listening to music. What distinguishes listening to music from hearing sound? My aim is to give a philosophical account of music by means of a description of a particular kind of interactive relationship we sometimes have to sound. Music, I shall argue, is not distinguished from sound because it has a special metaphysical status or because of the psychological reactions it produces in us; musical sound is distinctive because we listen to it in a certain way. I explore some of the ontological implications of my account, both for music broadly speaking and for the ontology of musical works.

Putting psychology before metaphysics in moral responsibility: Reactive attitudes and a “gut feeling” that can trigger and justify them

ABSTRACTIn “Freedom and Resentment,” P.F. Strawson argues that since the reactive attitudes are psychologically unavoidable, they do not stand in need of justification from philosophical theorizing about the metaphysical conditions necessary for free action. After reviewing and criticizing this line of argument, we develop an alternative account of how the reactive attitudes can be justified through a feature of our psychology. This new account focuses upon a collection of cognitive mechanisms identified by cognitive neuroscience, which recognize human beings (and other minded beings) and which also give rise to a gut feeling that certain entities are possible targets for the reactive attitudes. By focusing on the justificatory power of this gut feeling, we arrive at an account of moral responsibility that places psychology before metaphysics in a manner broadly similar to Strawson’s original account, but in a way that avoids some of the shortcomings of that account.

Czy współczesne nauki przyrodnicze mogą inspirować filozoficzny i teologiczny namysł nad przyczynowością?

Can Contemporary Science Inspire Philosophical and Theological Reflection on Causality? The cooperation between natural science, philosophy, and theology in an analysis of the causal structure and co-dependency of entities in the universe seems to be both legitimate and expected. It turns out, however, that in practice it oftentimes raises some tensions, questions and difficulties, leading to the development of alternative and in a sense competitive models of causality and of God’s action in the world. What is more, (1) the attitude of natural sciences since modernity, concentrated on gaining knowledge about natural phenomena to predict and control them, without trying to determine the nature of their ultimate causes, (2) Humean criticism and rejection of the concept of causality as such, and (3) concentration of analytic philosophers on the description of what accompanies phenomena classified as causal, leaving aside the question of the metaphysical status of causes and effects – they all seem to make impossible an interaction and mutual reference of contemporary science, philosophy, and theology in their reflection on the topic of causation. The main goal of this article is to defend the thesis about the possible and actual influence of scientific analysis of cause and effect relationships on the philosophical and theological reflection on causation, not only in the Middle Ages and Modernity, but also in contemporary thought. The presentation of the latest positions in the debate on divine action in the natural world will be followed by an argument in favor of the relevance of the model developed by philosophers and theologians representing the Thomistic school.

What Laws? Which Past?: Meillassoux’s Hyper-Chaos and the Epistemological Limitations of Retro-Causation

Abstract The question of the metaphysical status of the laws of physics has received increased attention in recent years. Perhaps most well-known among this work are David Lewis’s Humean supervenience and Nancy Cartwright’s dispositionalism, both of which reject the classical conception of the laws of physics as necessary and real independent of the objects they govern, arguing instead that what we call laws are shorthand for the regularities of local states of affairs (on Lewis’s account) or the dispositions of objects (on Cartwright’s). The properties of necessity and reality are generally taken to go hand-in-hand when physical laws are concerned; however, this leaves aside the possibility that the laws of physics are independently real (i.e. not just a description of regularities of objects) yet contingent. This paper will explore this third option which is found in the work of Quentin Meillassoux. We will ask: if laws both exist independent of their objects and are contingent, what happens when laws change? Specifically, the possibility of metaphysical retro-causation becomes a live option. This raises both questions of the ontological status of the past as well as our epistemic access to the past after a change in physical laws. Meillassoux’s ontology of hyper-chaos weathers this challenge with its consistency intact; however, it is an open question of whether or not saving the reality of physical laws by sacrificing their necessity is worth the epistemic limits and metaphysical strangeness that it implies.

THE DESTINY OF LANGUAGE IN THE CONDITION OF EXILE (approaches to the problem)

The article deals with exile as existential condition in its relationship with the language and the poet as the keeper of language. Based on Joseph Brodsky’s creative heritage, the author shows that exile for the poet is primarily expulsion from the native culture and the native language. The fate of exiled is not given to everybody. The exile is the ultimate lesson of linguistic humility. A person begins to feel himself «a grain of sand in the desert» and finds a special mode of measuring his creative powers - human infinity. Brodsky sees the fertile power of exile in an unprecedented and even lightning acceleration of professional escape into isolation, where a poet is left alone with the language. Moving forward through variety of language spheres and elements, the poet shows how things are there. In order to most closely reflect one or another state of the language, the poet’s soul must fall into that state, be in this state and capture it, perhaps against the personal will, but by the language’s will. The language is despotic; it prescribes what and how to speak. The poet’s craft is to allow the language to speak on its own. There are four modes of exile: initial exile, the birth into the material world as payment for original sin; real belonging to the Jewish, to the nation-exiled (or conscious identification with the Jews); exile from the motherland, or socio-political exile; exile as natural and at the same time - metaphysical condition of the poet. These states strengthen each other. The poet-exiled passes the way from the condition of groundlessness, from the being, lost its meaning, to the beingfulfilled, found its meaning. This way lies through the language, as the necessary purgatory and the only salvation. The ill-fate, a blind trick of fate, through free existential choice, through acceptance of the exile as a punishment and at the same time - as Divine gift transfigures into the destiny, foresight and foreknowledge, both for the poet, and for the language. The destiny of the poet becomes the destiny of the language, and vice versa.

Descartes’ Atomism of Thought: A Solution to the Puzzle about True and Immutable Natures

Central to Descartes’ philosophy is a view about immutable essences and eternal truths. After mentioning a Platonist account of recollection in Meditation V, Descartes declares that the ideas we have of mathematical notions “are not my invention but have their own true and immutable natures” (AT VII, 64/CSM II, 44).Descartes claims that other important philosophical notions, such as God, mind, body, and human free will (AT VII, 68; AT VIII-2, 348; AT III, 383; AT VII, 433, respectively), also have immutable natures or essences. Although Descartes says a good many things about this view, nowhere does he offer definitive doctrine on the matter, and in fact frequently confuses his reader with apparently inconsistent pronouncements about immutable natures and eternal truths. In this essay, I focus on the immutable natures and propose a solution to two of the main problems associated with Descartes’ position, the metaphysical status of immutable natures and the purported indivisibility of their existence as ideas in the mind

인공지능로봇의료의 도덕형이상학적 모색: 의료적 전자인간의 책임가능성*

The European Parliament is currently considering a proposal to grant artificial intelligence (AI) robots the legal status of “electronic persons”. This article examines the metaphysical status of AI robots and considers the some of the ethical questions that arise from the use of AI robots in the practice of medicine. In particular, would electronic human doctors have rights? And to what extent could they be held responsible for their behavior? In answering these questions this article considers the concept of a “kill switch” and how it relates to the notion of freedom that is presupposed by a Kantian understanding of responsibility. The article also outlines some of the new horizons opened up by the arrival of Watson in medicine, including the emergence of “self-care medicine” and the possibility of “universal self-care.” This article argues that in light of the advent of electronic human doctors, the new role for human health care personnel is that of a “kill switcher.”

HUMAN IMAGE IN CLASSICAL ISLAM AND SUFISM: PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS

Purpose. The study aims to obtaine data about the human image in Islam through thought of the respective visions of both the classical directions of the Muslim religion and the attitudes of Islamic mysticism (Sufism). Achievement of this goal involves the application of methods such as philosophical analysis, comparative method, phenomenology, as well as the consistent solution of the following tasks: a) to analyze the main manifestations of anthropological ideas in Islam; b) to comprehend the specificity of Muslim ideas about a human in comparison with the corresponding Christian teaching; c) to consider disagreements between the interpretation of the essence and tasks of a human in the classical Islam and Sufism. Theoretical basis. The author proceedes from the unsatisfactory nature of the superficial interpretation of the human image in Islam, according to which a human is often expounded as a «slave of Allah», neglecting the multidimensionality of the metaphysical status of a human in Islam, as well as the polyparadigmality of the human image in various Islam directons. Originality. The author refines the human image in Islam in two aspects: first – in the aspect of his conceptual content and secondly – in the aspect of his paradigmatic diversity. Conclusions. The widespread beliefs among the researchers concerning the anthropological component of Islam are not sufficiently substantiated, since they often do not take into account the ambiguity and multidimensionality of the ideas of the Muslim religion towards a human. As it has been shown, the general Muslim ideas about the metaphysical status of a human include two dimensions – a human is interpreted as «the slave of Allah», as well as "the vicegerent of Allah". Within this perception of the human nature there are two various paradigms for interpreting the sphere of preferential fulfillment of a human's duties as the slave and the vicegerent. The first one is used by the classical Islam, it was called the externalistic paradigm. The internalistic paradigm is used by Sufism. The author presents that the theme of the human image in Islam is still not sufficiently studied and it requires further research. The comprehension of the existing in Salafist and Shiite varieties of Islam concerning the human nature interpretation and their essence and tasks are the most productive areas of such further research.

ЗНАНИЕ И СВОБОДА КАК ОСНОВНОЙ ЗАМЫСЕЛ «ЭТИКИ» Б. СПИНОЗЫ

The article is devoted to the comprehension of the logos of anthropocentric freedom, which receives its expression in the metaphysical system of B. Spinoza. It is shown that the question of freedom in New European metaphysics testifies to the purely metaphysical status of the problem, where freedom cannot be reduced to freedom of will and choice. Understanding of substantiality of human thinking in Spinoza’s system is elucidated. The methodology of Spinoza, relating to overcoming sensory-emotional states (the negative aspect of understanding freedom), is analyzed. On the basis of the conducted research the author shows that metaphysics turns out to be ethics, in which it is justified that human activity is of key importance for cognition, where knowledge is freedom.

Time as Motion

Abstract The arena of the philosophy of time has been largely concerned with deciding whether tense distinctions reflect absolute metaphysical distinctions or not. After bringing the debate over the metaphysical status of instantaneous velocity to bear on the debate over the nature of temporal passage, I argue that we should further investigate whether aspectual distinctions reflect objective and absolute metaphysical distinctions too. I conclude that those who think that being realist about tense uniquely makes room for the idea that time passes should be realist about the progressive too.

Metaphysical Status of Memory in “Philosophy of Life” of Leo Tolstoy and Henri Bergson

Metaphysical Status of Memory in “Philosophy of Life” of Leo Tolstoy and Henri Bergson

Poređenje budističkog poimanja nestalnosti sveta u japanskom delu Hođoki i shvatanja prolaznosti u staroj srpskoj književnosti

The issue of impermanence of this worldly existence, not only in humans but shared by all sentient beings, had been, both as a theme and a motive, ubiquitously present in the medieval literature of both Serbia and Japan. Although very different by almost all formal literary criteria, both of them have in common an inherent inclination to the care of the metaphysical status of this world and all its creatures. A seriousness in their relation to the transcendental is the main trait by which their heritage differs from the literature of their respective countries today. That is the very reason why they can be treated in the same dialogical context. Contemporary conscience with its belief that nothing is left to say about the evanescence of the world, gave up this issue to be further dealt with only according to individual needs and randomly. But, both Serbian Christian and Japanese Buddhist medieval mind tended to put this problem right in the middle of almost every literary text. Far from only deploring the transient human fate, people are encouraged to foster everlasting memories of death, just to be able to get saved - either by returning to God, or in Japan, by being reborn in the Buddhist paradise of the Pure Land. Yet, there are some significant differences in the way impermanence is treated in these two traditions. This paper tries to elucidate how these differences were rooted in their respective literary and religious praxis.

A peculiar enterprise. The fate of metaphysics in a naturalist climate

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I examine the divide between ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ approaches to metaphysics by reconstructing a three-cornered debate between naturalists, hermeneutists, and pragmatists on the issue of how to understand the relationship between ethics and ontology. Taking my cue from the dominant naturalistic debates in Anglo-American ethics, I continue to discuss in more detail the positions of Hilary Putnam and Charles Taylor in the light of these debates. More particularly, I investigate Putnam’s wholesale rejection of (what he calls) Ontology with a capital ‘O’, while also exploring Taylor’s retrieval of ontological thinking for (what he calls) Ethics with a capital ‘E’. Drawing attention to the deep metaphysical uncertainties in all of these approaches, I ultimately seek to develop a well-defined perspective from which to evaluate the peculiar status of metaphysics in contemporary philosophy, reflecting on its fate beyond the analytic-continental split.

Reality in a soft science: the metaphonology of historical reconstruction

All disciplines that deal with (apparent) recovery of objects from the past are faced by a fundamental question: what is the metaphysical status of these objects? Are they realia of some kind, or are they merely epistemic objects with no substance? This could be summed up from a debate still going on in quantum physics: do quantum systems have a real existence, or are they merely devices for calculation? In this paper I sum up the advantages of having an ontology, and the disadvantages of assuming that reconstructed linguistic objects are not real. I also discuss the uniformitarian position that makes this an unproblematic claim. I also deal with the neo-Saussurean claim that reconstructed items have no reality in themselves, but solely in terms of the systems they are in; and I suggest that this position (held by Meillet and Kuryłowicz among others), is fundamentally perverse.

Ĥadīŝ Aĥād Sebagai Sumber Hukum Islam (Pemikiran Imam al-Sarakhsī dan Imam al-Ghazālī, Pendekatan Epistemologi)

Ĥadīŝ aĥād is one of the sources of Islamic law. But in practice, the scholars set different conditions as seen in the thoughts of Imam al-Sarakhsī and Imam al-Ghazālī. Therefore, this study examines the nature of ĥadīŝ aĥād according to both Imams, and their views on the criteria for the use of ĥadīŝ aĥād as the source of Islamic law. This research is done by epistemology approach which is part of a study of philosophy science. The technique of completion of research data is done by library research with the method of data analysis, that is a research according to the contents of both Imam. The data analysis is done by the comparative descriptive method that is, to find the relation between thinking with the same thing with equation and difference which is related to ĥadīŝ aĥād as the source of Islamic law. So the author comes to the conclusion of both Imams mentioned that ĥadīŝ aĥād is obliged to be practiced but doesn’t produce knowledge.The opposite side of their opinion is on the terms of practice. Imam al-Sarakhsī presupposes the fakih narrator, while Imam al-Ghazālī doesn’t because according to him the condition of the transmigrants is not realistic and complicates the practice.The analysis of the metaphysical example of ĥadīŝ aĥād fi'liyyah about ĥadīŝ yellow in the morning prayers indicates that in the ĥadīŝ the metaphysical condition of the jurists doesn’t increase the probability to certainty, and the absence of the fakih narrator doesn’t diminish its worth. Thus, the practice of ĥadīŝ aĥād is sufficient at the level of probability, so the thought of Imam al-Sarakhsī and Imam al-Ghazālī being complementary is not a contradiction.

Da cognição incorporada a uma ontologia da percepção: o corpo e o mundo na Fenomenologia da percepção de Merleau-Ponty

Neste artigo, apresenta-se a modificação operada pela Fenomenologia da Percepção de Maurice Merleau-Ponty no estatuto metafísico do sujeito do conhecimento – segundo certa apropriação da obra pelo movimento da cognição incorporada –, e procura-se entender por que essa mesma transformação foi alterada no pensamento posterior de Merleau-Ponty. Nossa intenção é propor um tipo de reflexão que habilitaria a filosofia da mente contemporânea a preservar a descoberta da cognição incorporada sem estar sujeita aos contornos assumidos tardiamente pela fenomenologia merleau-pontyana

Narrative and Metaphysical Ambition: On Being “in Christ”

AbstractThis article addresses some of the confusion regarding the role of metaphysical claims in narrative theology. Proponents and critics of narrative theology alike wonder at the ambiguous place of metaphysical speech about God as an objective reality. This essay enters the conversation through the side door of soteriology. Rather than focusing on the relationship between narrative and metaphysics or narrative and analogy or narrative and first‐order theological claims, I examine what sort of metaphysical statements are required to make the Christian claim that human beings are “in Christ” intelligible as a soteriological reality. I argue that the Christian grammar itself assumes a Christology with a certain kind of metaphysical ambition without which Christianity lapses into incoherence. To make this case, I show that David Kelsey's “narrative identity” Christology in Eccentric Existence lacks the metaphysical statements necessary to uphold his conviction that human beings are “in Christ.” A comparison with T. F. Torrance and the Book of Hebrews reveals that when narrative circumvents metaphysical statements about the incarnate Son, soteriological claims lack coherence and the biblical narrative itself is distorted by a false metaphysic. Thus, metaphysical claims internal to the narrative of Jesus are necessary to tell the story of God faithfully. In this way, narrative is the expression of a theological metaphysics.

Carnab’s Confirmability Principle and Popper’s Objections

This article deals with the work of the prominent philosopher and logician Rudolf Carnab in establishing the Confirmability Principle as a tool to distinguish scientific from metaphysical statements, and the objections raised by the philosopher of science Karl Popper to this principle. It also focuses on the philosophical and logical argumentation that lasted decades between them and its outcomes which had an influence on the contemporary shape of the philosophy of science in the twentieth century and how each one of them presented his own account for the nature of scientific methods that contemporary sciences must follow. While Carnab and the logical positivism group in general created the “verification principle” and then the “confirmability principle” as the proper way to eliminate metaphysical ideas from science that hindered its eventual progress for several decades, relying on the inductive method as a ground for scientific progress, Popper on the other hand, thought that in order to achieve such progress one must adhere to scientific theories and more specifically to the “Falsification Principle” in addition to relying on the “Virtual method” which grants the “Rational Hypothesis” a crucial role in contemporary sciences. The article concludes with the results of this argumentation and with how philosophy of contemporary science ended up giving more weight to the rational hypothesis and less to the confirmability principle due to the retreat of rigid empiricism in contemporary sciences, especially in physics. This led contemporary science to depend on philosophy once again.