Metaphysical Neutrality Research Articles

Intersectionality as emergence

Intersectionality is the notion that concerns the complexity of the experiences of individuals in virtue of their belonging to multiple socially significant categories. One of its main insights is that the way society is structured around categories such as gender, race, sexuality, class, etc., produces distinctive and specific forms of discrimination and privilege for groups in the intersections. In this paper, we suggest conceiving intersectionality as a general metaphysical framework wherein specific claims to the effect that the experiences of discrimination of Black women, among others, can be fruitfully formulated and examined. The main claim is that intersectional experiences emerge from the conjunction of social categories when social structures make them relevant vis-à-vis discrimination and privilege. We then argue that our view has three main virtues: metaphysical neutrality, explanatory flexibility and methodological openness. Explaining these virtues will allow us to contrast our proposal with alternatives from the recent literature.

Transcendental arguments and metaphysical neutrality: A Wittgensteinian proposal

AbstractDespite periods of resurgence over the last decades, it is safe to say that transcendental arguments no longer enjoy a prominent presence in the philosophical landscape. One reason for their declining prominence is the sustained suspicion that despite their self‐proclaimed metaphysical neutrality, transcendental arguments are, in fact, metaphysically committed. This paper aims to revive the discussion of transcendental considerations by offering a metaphysically neutral account of transcendental arguments. I argue that a metaphysically neutral conception of transcendental arguments requires a revision of two concepts constitutive of transcendental claims, namely, transcendental necessity and the a priori. I propose a transcendental reading of Wittgenstein's On Certainty, which, I maintain, provides us with an alternative, metaphysically neutral understanding of these concepts. Thus revised, transcendental claims are suitable for what Mark Sacks once described as the “post‐metaphysical” orientation of contemporary philosophy.

Idealism/realism: A metaphysical distinction?

Abstract In this article, I intend to show, first of all, that the metaphysical neutrality of the Logical Investigations leads to untenable consequences and even threatens the coherence of Husserl's project. In truth, Husserl's distinction between phenomenology and metaphysics and its corollary, the pure and simple exclusion of metaphysical problems - such as that of the reality of the so-called external world - from the field of nascent phenomenology, make it impossible to give a satisfactory form to a problem as central to this new discipline as that of perception. However, my final word will not be on the indissoluble link between the problems that phenomenology poses for itself and those that Husserl would like to be able to “purify” it from the outset. However permeable the boundaries between these two general research directions may be, phenomenology and metaphysics are not equivalent. Phenomenology can even be said to contribute to formulating and solving certain metaphysical problems, starting with the idealism/realism antithesis. It is to this contribution that I will devote the second part of these reflections.

Idéalisme/réalisme : une distinction métaphysique ?

Abstract In this article, I intend to show, first of all, that the metaphysical neutrality of the Logical Investigations leads to untenable consequences and even threatens the coherence of Husserl's project. In truth, Husserl's distinction between phenomenology and metaphysics and its corollary, the pure and simple exclusion of metaphysical problems - such as that of the reality of the so-called external world - from the field of nascent phenomenology, make it impossible to give a satisfactory form to a problem as central to this new discipline as that of perception. However, my final word will not be on the indis-soluble link between the problems that phenomenology poses for itself and those that Husserl would like to be able to "purify" it from the outset. However permeable the boundaries between these two general directions of research may be, phenomenology and metaphysics are not equivalent. Phenomenology can even be said to contribute to formulating and solving certain metaphysical problems, starting with the idealism/realism antithesis. It is to this contribution that I will devote the second part of these reflections.

The metaphysical neutrality of cognitive science

Progress in psychology and the cognitive sciences is often taken to vindicate physicalism and cast doubt on such extravagant metaphysical theses as dualism and idealism. The goal of this paper is to argue that cognitive science has no such implications—rather, evidence from cognitive science is largely (but not wholly) irrelevant to the mind-body problem. Our argument begins with the observation that data from cognitive science can be modeled by supervenience relations. We then show that supervenience relations are neutral, by showing how they can be coherently interpreted in physicalist, idealist, and dualist terms. We distinguish several types of supervenience relation, and show that each coheres better with some positions on the mind-body problem than the other. Since these variants of supervenience are not empirically equivalent, there is a possibility that data from cognitive science will end up supporting some positions on the mind-body problem more than others. It is in this sense that cognitive science is mostly, but not wholly, neutral.

The Theological Lineage of N. T. Wright’s Historical Method

In this article the author examines the historiographical methodology of N.T. Wright. The author claims that Wright employs the methods of “critical realism” in an attempt to retain metaphysical and theological neutrality in his historiographical writing. However, the author argues that Wright’s reception of critical realism, from Meyer and Lonergan, ignores implicit theological presuppositions within the critical realist approach that make it unsuitable for this very task from the outset.

The devil is in the categories: Metaphysics and social and political thought

AbstractIt is often assumed that social and political thought have nothing to do with issues of concern to metaphysicians. I have referred to this assumption in the past as The Myth of Metaphysical Neutrality. I argue here that social and political theories have metaphysical positions built into them, such that to adopt a given social or political account commits one to that theory's implicit metaphysics ‐‐ and, conversely, that commitment to a given metaphysical position will preclude adopting social or political accounts that are at odds with it. I look first at the issue of emergence, showing that key concepts employed by Aristotle, Rousseau and Marx, respectively, require a belief that wholes do not reduce to their parts. I then turn to Marx's account of alienation, arguing that it presupposes a belief in agent‐causal free will.

Explanation in the science of consciousness: From the neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs) to the difference makers of consciousness (DMCs)

At present, the science of consciousness is structured around the search for the neural correlates of consciousness (the NCCs). One of the alleged advantages of the NCCs framework is its metaphysical neutrality—the fact that it begs no contested questions with respect to debates about the fundamental nature of consciousness. Here, we argue that even if the NCC framework is metaphysically neutral, it is structurally committed, for it presupposes a certain model—what we call the Lite-Brite model—of consciousness. This, we argue, represents a serious liability for the NCC framework for the plausibility of the Lite-Brite model is very much an open question, and the science of consciousness would be better served by a framework that does not presuppose it. Drawing on interventionist ideas in the philosophy of science, we suggest that the Difference-Maker framework can provide just such an alternative. Instead of searching for the neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs), we ought to be searching for the difference makers of consciousness (DMCs). We detail how a shift to searching DMCs will change both the practice of consciousness science and the interpretation of existing results.

The Meaning of Being: Husserl on Existential Propositions as Predicative Propositions

This essay examines how Husserl stretches the bounds of his philosophy of meaning, according to which all propositions are categorical, to account for existential propositions, which seem to lack predicates. I examine Husserl’s counterintuitive conclusion that an existential proposition does possess a predicate and I explore his endeavor to pinpoint what that predicate is. This goal is accomplished in three stages. First, I examine Husserl’s standard theory of predication and categorial intuition from his 1901 Logical Investigations. Second, I show how Husserl imposes those 1901 insights to uncover the predicate of the existential proposition in unpublished manuscripts and lectures. He determines that the existential proposition predicates of the subject, that it corresponds to an actual object. This analysis reveals that Husserl’s descriptions of existential propositions from the late 1890s employed both static and genetic methodologies. In those texts, he carefully untangles and clarifies the co-enmeshed passive and active moments of consciousness and shows that the passive givenness of certain circumstances is the condition of possibility for our active verifying of propositions. Finally, I execute a critical assessment of Husserl’s thought to reveal that, while his insights about existential propositions are largely correct, they are augmented by re-construing them within the context of his mature philosophy. Only by renouncing his metaphysical neutrality and by accounting for intersubjectivity, can Husserl properly clarify existential propositions.

Die Idee einer spekulativen Phänomenologie (als Mathesis)

What is, what could, and what should be a speculative phenomenology? If, according to Fink, Husserl’s phenomenology was characterized by an “anti-speculative attitude”, we have to decide what “speculative” means here and if phenomenology can really take such an attitude. Rather than trying to lead phenomenology toward a speculative thinking that is “extrinsic” to it, we will try to find out in what sense phenomenology can find a speculative thinking that is, and remains, intrinsic to it, in a dimension characterized by a radical metaphysical neutrality. After showing that the phenomenological approach is per se “speculative”, namely in the more original and non-metaphysical (or metaphysically neutral) meaning of the ancient “The/ria”, I will outline four forms of such speculative phenomenology as forms of Mathesis. In the second part, I will present the basic concepts and theses towards a Mathesis of subjectivity as part of a phenomenological-speculative approach to forms of self-reference and to an existential dimension. In the third part, this approach will be integrated in a renewed form of meta-theoretical Mathesis as a new issue for the old phenomenological project of a theory of possible forms of theories. In the fourth part, I will focus on the deep relationship between a speculative nonmetaphysical approach to knowledge (theories) and the need to sketch a phenomenological meta-ontology (meta-ontological Mathesis). In the fifth and last part of the paper, I will present a general perspective inwhich the previous forms of Mathesis converge in a non- or metametaphysical questioning about reality

Husserl on Hume

ABSTRACTThis article offers an account of the development of Husserl’s assessment of Hume’s position in the history of philosophy. In Husserl’s early treatment of Hume, Husserl’s interpretation was shaped by the anti-Kantian views of his teacher Franz Brentano. Later, however, Husserl concentrated on those themes in Hume’s philosophy that were of relevance for the development of his own conception of phenomenology. His analysis into the a priori structures of intentionality led the Husserl of Logical Investigations (1900–1901) to reject Hume’s nominalism and sensualism, and to criticize Hume’s naturalistic psychologism and fictionalism. Already at this point, however, Husserl appreciated Hume’s metaphysical neutrality as well as his radical starting point in the immediate givenness of consciousness. In the period following Husserl’s transcendental turn in Ideas I (1913), Hume is gradually re-assessed in the context of Husserl’s engagement with Kant as a philosopher who offers important insights concerning concrete problems of transcendental philosophy. For Husserl, Hume ultimately offers the first outline of a pure phenomenology and, indeed, becomes one of the most important forerunners of transcendental philosophy as such.

On the Myth of Metaphysical Neutrality: Cheryl Frank Memorial Prize Lecture 2015

In this lecture I argue that it is not possible for social scientists or others engaged in making causal claims about the world to be neutral with respect to the question of what causation is. One need not be in possession of a full-blown account, but one must know whether or not, in saying that something is the cause of a given outcome, one intends to say that it has actively produced or generated that outcome. Following Brian Ellis, I refer to accounts according to which the answer would be ‘No’ as ‘passivist’. One is free to be a passivist, but it is not possible to be neither a passivist nor an anti-passivist.

Observability, Visualizability and the Question of Metaphysical Neutrality

Theories in fundamental physics are unlikely to be ontologically neutral, yet they may nonetheless fail to offer decisive empirical support for or against particular metaphysical positions. I illustrate this point by close examination of a particular objection raised by Wolfgang Pauli against Hermann Weyl. The exchange reveals that both parties to the dispute appeal to broader epistemological principles to defend their preferred metaphysical starting points. I suggest that this should make us hesitant to assume that in deriving metaphysical conclusions from physical theories we place our metaphysical theories on a purely empirical foundation. The metaphysics within a particular physical theory may well be the result of a priori assumptions in the background, not particular empirical findings.

The Metaphysical Neutrality of Husserlian Phenomenology

I argue that Husserlian phenomenology is metaphysically neutral, in the sense of being compatible with multiple metaphysical frameworks (including frameworks Husserl argued against). For example, though Husserl dismisses the concept of an unknowable thing in itself as “material nonsense”, I argue that the concept is coherent and that the existence of such things is compatible with Husserl’s phenomenology. I defend this metaphysical neutrality approach against a number of objections and consider some of its implications for Husserl interpretation.

Emergence of spacetime in stochastic gravity

I focus on the stochastic gravity program, a program that conceptualizes spacetime as the hydrodynamic limit of the correlation hierarchy of an underlying quantum theory, that is, a theory of the microscopic theory of gravity. This approach is relatively obscure, and so I begin by outlining the stochastic gravity program in enough detail to make clear the basic sense in which, on this approach, spacetime emerges from more fundamental physical structures. The theory, insofar as it is a univocal theory, is quite clear in its basic features, and so issues of philosophical interpretation can be readily isolated.The most obvious reason to investigate the theory as a model for the emergence of spacetime structure is how close it is to the stage at which the behavior that we recognize as spacetime actually emerges from the micro gravitational system. Approaches that begin with fully quantum gravity (insofar as there is such a thing) treat a system that is conceptually quite far removed from the stage at which emergence is relevant. The stochastic approach however begins by identifying the point at which spacetime emerges as a phenomena of interest.I begin with an analysis of the emergence question generally and ask how best we should understand it, especially from the point of view of thinking of spacetime as emergent. A nice feature of the stochastic program is how clear the question of emergence is on this approach. In part this is because of its similarity by design to the kinetic theory of gases and solid state physics. And so many of the analyses of the emergence of macroscopic variables in the thermodynamic limit can be repurposed to understand how an apparently continuous metrical space emerges from the behavior of a non-spatial system.A serious interpretive problem looms however. The problem is that there is no clear connection between features of the kinetic theory of gravity, as a quantum theory, and any final theory of gravity. In the third part of the paper I will argue that as far as questions of emergence are concerned, we need not begin with a final, underlying theory, and I attempt to identify general issues connected to the emergence of spacetime that can be addressed in isolation from our certainty about that final theory. I will argue that this is a common way in which we treat our other, after all, provisional theories. We begin with the theories we have and ask about their implications without assuming that they are final theories, and yet also without explicitly downplaying the significance of the results we derive. Moreover I will attempt to show that, whatever character a (or the) final theory of micro gravity has, spacetime as an emergent structure in that theory is likely to be similar in important respects to the way it manifests in the stochastic gravity program. Briefly this is precisely because of the metaphysical neutrality of the kinetic theory. I will expand, in this section, on the nature of the emergence of the spacetime structure in the context of the stochastic gravity program and explain how the emergence is tied not to the particular model of interactions appealed to, but rather to the generic features of quantum fields with correlated fluctuations at all orders.

Science and Experience/Science of Experience: Gestalt Psychology and the Anti-Metaphysical Project of theAufbau

This paper investigates the way in which Rudolf Carnap drew on Gestalt psychological notions when defining the basic elements of his constitutional system. I argue that while Carnap's conceptualization of basic experience was compatible with ideas articulated by members of the Berlin/Frankfurt school of Gestalt psychology, his formal analysis of the relationship between two basic experiences (“recollection of similarity”) was not. This is consistent, given that Carnap's aim was to provide a unified reconstruction of scientific knowledge, as opposed to the mental processes by which we gain knowledge about the world. It is this last point that put him in marked contrast to some of the older epistemological literature, which he cited when pointing to the complex character of basic experience. While this literature had the explicit goal of overcoming metaphysical presuppositions by means of an analysis of consciousness, Carnap viewed these attempts as still carrying metaphysical baggage. By choosing the autopsychological basis, he expressed his intellectual depth to their antimetaphysical impetus. By insisting on the metaphysical neutrality of his system, he emphasized that he was carrying out a project in which they had not succeeded.

Review of Brave new mind: A thoughtful inquiry into the nature of mental life.

PETER DODWELL Brave New Mind: A Thoughtful Inquiry into the Nature Of Mental Life New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, 262 pages (ISBN 0-19-508905-7, C$56.00, Hardcover) Reviewed by LEENDERT P. MOS author poses the major question for cognitive science: Can mental life be exhaustively studied as purely natural phenomenon, or must go beyond the mundane, the merely physical, to grasp its reality? (p. viii). His answer is, that absolutely no psychological consequence follows from model couched exclusively algorithmic, physical, or physiological terms, which the way contemporary cognitive proceeds (p. 190). Planned as history of cognitive science, and its contributory disciplines of psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, and computing science, and contemporary survey of its strengths and weaknesses, the project, according to its author, one of this country's most respected researchers, got out of hand (p. vii). This then the second book (the first, Roots of Cognitive listed as in preparation): a plea for the widening of the field of cognitive to include some well-documented features of mental life - the `drama of mental life' - that have suffered neglect over the past many decades but are nevertheless valid topics of inquiry (p. vii). While documenting the achievements of cognitive science, this volume much more mature retrospective on its limitations and, implicitly, its failures of intent, and this by participant the enterprise whose reflections reach back more than 40 years to the beginning of his academic career. It also book about science, the kind of to which cognitive aspires but cannot possibly attain given that it deals only with the of mental life and not with its drama. In other words, inquires the author manner reminiscent of the very beginnings of our discipline, is cognitive just natural science, or it ... also moral science? weight of contemporary opinion accepts the former, but I shall argue strongly for the latter, more accurately that cannot dispense with either, that need (p. vii). consequent tensions that may be expected to infuse Dodwell's critical reflections on what many our discipline deem to be its furthest reaches, are already evident the Preface, where immediately following his caution that cognitive science's concern with the should not blind it to the drama of mental life, he writes that we cannot take full measure of the drama without first apprising ourselves of the basic grammar (p. ix). But can cognitive be both moral and natural science; if it now natural can merely add on its essential moral component? Cognitive defined as the study of mental life and of self, and characterized, the opening chapter entitled The Scope of Cognitive Science, as the latest triumph the materialistic, mechanistic, and naturalistic tradition of natural science. If science has made metaphysicians of us all (p. 6) Dodwell writes, noting the failure of positivism's claim to metaphysical neutrality, cognitive too, especially neuroscience and artificial intelligence, has profoundly affected the kinds of questions philosophy can ask. Since philosophy feeds on rather than leads science, cognitive philosophy has merely affirmed the 19th-century materialist and mechanist, view, that entrenched cognitive science. trouble that cognitive has been unable to incorporate natural science's own critique of this clockwork view of (e.g., Heisenberg, Hawking, & Penrose) largely because advances sciences are no longer readily accessible, and understandable, even to scientists. But if neither philosophy nor can lead cognitive to critique of its reductionist groundings, can cognitive do so out of its own resources? …

Constitution Theory and Metaphysical Neutrality

Soulignant le role pionnier de la theorie des categories de Carnap dans le developpement de l'ontologie analytique, l'A. defend cependant l'independance historique et systematique de la these de la neutralite metaphysique et de la these de l'elimination. Mesurant l'importance de la methodologie de l'«Aufbau» pour les courants constructivistes contemporains, l'A. montre que le principe de neutralite s'appuie chez Carnap sur une conception de la realite comme structure d'invariance, d'une part, et que cette structuralisation menance les aspirations explicatives de la theorie de la constitution, d'autre part.

Research as living knowledge

ABSTRACT This paper proposes that research is a function of living knowledge. Research makes tacit assumptions about the meaning of life, despite its supposed metaphysical neutrality. Even though research may focus on a particular area, its elastic nature suggests that it is fundamentally a self-reflective and therefore an educational practice. The history of modern educational thought since Bacon reveals a tension between knowledge as personal (and thus educational) and knowledge as impersonal. The result is that today we do not know whether to think of knowledge as impersonal data or as a feature of human experience. This paper argues that it is time to reconsider the humanist tradition by viewing knowledge as a form of learning and research as a form of living knowledge. The research which is so highly appreciated in scientific laboratories as well as the research in libraries would then be seen to have a common living source.

Ordinary Language and Metaphysical Commitment

1. Philosophical theories that convict ordinary discourse of metaphysical error tend to be viewed with suspicion. It is true that some philosophers present their metaphysical claims as error theories theories that imply that ordinary language incorporates metaphysical mistakes. However, many who advocate what appear to be revisionary metaphysical theories prefer to present them as consistent with ordinary discourse. An extreme example of this reconciling tendency is to be found in Peter van Inwagen's recent Material Beings.' The central tenet of van Inwagen's metaphysics is that there are no tables, chairs, rocks, stars, or any other visible material objects except living organisms. Yet he maintains that this theory is consistent with what ordinary people mean when, in everyday life, they say things like 'There are two chippendale chairs in the room' or 'There are rocks that weigh over a ton'. This apparently outrageous thesis is defended by an appeal to the metaphysical neutrality of ordinary language. Van Inwagen holds that the everyday utterances are sufficiently free of metaphysical commitment to be insulated from conflict with his metaphysical denial of the existence of chairs, rocks, etc. (pp. 1-2, 98-107, 112-13, 129-31). I do not agree with van Inwagen's metaphysical theory2, but it is a separate issue whether he is right in claiming for the ordinary language statements a metaphysical neutrality that would allow them to be true even if his metaphysical theory were correct. In this paper, I shall challenge this claim. First, I shall show that van Inwagen must say that although ordinary discourse 'about' chairs, stars, rocks, etc., is not systematically mistaken, it is systematically misleading as to its ontological commitments. Secondly, I shall argue that this radical thesis is not supported by the analogies to which van Inwagen appeals in his attempt to reconcile his metaphysics with popular usage.