Minimal Substantivity (original) (raw)
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An Assessment of the Metaontological Debate Concerning Composition
Res Cogitans, 2010
I. Introduction: From Ontology to Metaontology a. First-Order Ontological Debate Ontology, as a field of inquiry, concerns existence. When we speak of what exists it is natural to use 'objects' as a fundamental unit. Thus, in ontology, questions about the nature of objects are of great importance. One such question contemporary ontologists grapple with is: "Are there composite objects?" meaning, objects which are composed of, but are not identical to, their constituent parts. Proposed answers to this question are part of first-order ontological debate. In order to lead us to an understanding of secondorder ontological debate, or metaontology, let us first briefly discuss the composition debate. Consider a possible world containing two chairs and nothing else. In the material composition debate, ontologists disagree as to how many objects exist in this world. Some say that in addition to the two chairs, this world contains a third object which is jointly composed by the two chairs. These mereological universalists propose that any two objects, regardless of whether they are in any way similar or causally-related, always jointly compose a third distinct object. By contrast, others deny that there are any chairs at all in this world. These 'mereological nihilists' propose that the only things that exist are simples-presumably indivisible subatomic particles-which may be arranged 'x-wise' (Sider pp. 384). For instance, in this possible world the nihilist would say that there are only 'simples arranged chair-wise'.
Theoria, 2005
has been working on problems about primarily the representational properties of mind and psychosemantics for more than four decades. One of his central concerns is the compositionality of concepts and meaning, another the conceptual nature of the human mind. Martin Jönsson and Ingar Brinck arranged to meet Fodor in Lund in March 2005 to discuss Fodor's views on these matters. The major parts of the conversation are printed below, starting with the nature of compositionality, continuing with the relation between concepts and categorisation, then turning to the conceptual capacities of animals. Finally Fodor expresses his thoughts about conceptual analysis and its role for philosophy today, viz. to construct and clarify theoretical concepts in close collaboration with the empirical sciences. University Press. F, J. A. and Z. P (1988). "Connectionism and cognitive architecture: A critical analysis." Cognition 28: 3-71.
Against Universal Mereological Composition
This paper opposes universal mereological composition (UMC). Sider defends it: unless UMC were true, he says, it could be indeterminate how many objects there are in the world. I argue that there is no general connection between how widely composition occurs and how many objects there are in the world. Sider fails to support UMC. I further argue that we should disbelieve in UMC objects. Existing objections against them say that they are radically unlike Aristotelian substances. True, but there is a stronger objection. This is that they are characterized by no properties, and so fail to be like anything -even themselves.
Compositionality: Philosophical Aspects
2006
There are three different but loosely related conceptions that are associated with the term 'compositionality' in the philosophical and linguistic semantics literature. One conception, taking its lead from the more literal sense of this technical term, concerns the manner of composition of objects in the world. In this sense, an object or type of object is compositional if it is identical with its parts when they are assembled in some specified way. A slogan for this notion of compositionality is "An object is the sum of its parts"-although this is a slightly misleading slogan because it does not distinguish between two different types of objects made of the same parts but put together differently. This notion of compositionality is metaphysical in nature: it provides a characterization of the ontology of objects in the world, saying that they can be all described in terms of some basic atomic elements and their combinations. Along with this ontological feature often goes an epistemological feature: that one can know objects in the world by understanding what the atomic items are and the ways they can be assembled. Both the ontological and the epistemological aspects here are further associated with "reductionism": the view that objects are "nothing more than" their parts. In this meaning of 'compositionality', the compositionalists are often called 'atomists' and anticompositionalists are called 'holists', or sometimes 'wholists'. These latter theorists deny that all objects can be described and known in terms of their parts and the arrangement of the parts-for instance, they might deny that a corporation, a nation, or a group is "nothing more than" the class of individuals making them up together with their relationships-and hence they are anti-reductionistic. They might also hold that there are emergent properties and gestalt properties which cannot be described and known in the way required by atomism. A slogan for these theories is: "The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
Ontic Terms and Metaontology, or: On What There Actually Is [Philosophical Studies]
Philosophical Studies, forthcoming
Terms such as ‘exist’, ‘actual’, etc., (hereafter, “ontic terms”) are recognized as having uses that are not ontologically committing, in addition to the usual commissive uses. (Consider, e.g., the two interpretations of ‘There is an even prime.’) In this paper, I identify five different noncommissive uses for ontic terms, and along the way I attempt to define (by a kind of via negativa) the commissive use of an ontic term, using ‘actual’ as my example. The problem, however, is that the resulting definiens for the commissive ‘actual’ is itself equivocal between a commissive and a noncommissive reading, and thus I consider other proposals for defining the commissive use, including two proposals from David Lewis. However, each proposal is found to be equivocal in the same way—and eventually I argue that it is impossible to define an ontic term unequivocally. Even so, this is not meant to overshadow the fact that we can understand an ontic term as univocally commissive, in certain conversational contexts. I close by illustrating the import of these observations for meta-ontology, especially for Hirsch’s “superficialist” view.
Synthese, 2017
I argue in this paper that the debate over composition is factually empty; in other words, I argue that there's no fact of the matter whether there are any composite objects like tables and rocks and cats. Moreover, at the end of the paper, I explain how my argument is suggestive of a much more general (and much more radical) conclusion, namely, that there's no fact of the matter whether there are any material objects at all. Roughly speaking, the paper proceeds by arguing that (a) if there were a fact of the matter about whether composite objects exist, then it would be either a necessary fact or a contingent fact, and (b) both of these alternatives are implausible. Keywords Composition • Mereology • Composite objects • Metaontology • Anti-metaphysics • Metametaphysics • Factual emptiness This paper is dedicated to the memory of Josh Parsons, who gave me valuable feedback on an earlier version of this paper and who died tragically the day before the proofs for this paper appeared in my inbox. Thanks are also due to
Conciliatory Metaontology, Permissive Ontology, and Nature's Joints
Synthese, 2020
According to the conciliatory view in metaontology, there are multiple possible languages corresponding to the popular positions in ontology. In each of these languages, the term 'exists' expresses a distinct "existence-like" property, and consequently the claims associated with each of the rival ontological positions come out true in some such language. Species of the conciliatory view can be distinguished based on claims about how the various existence-like properties are related vis-à-vis metaphysical naturalness. On some versions, all of the existence-like properties are held to be equally natural, such that there is no "metaphysically privileged" language. However, on others, there is held to be a most natural existence-like property and hence a most fundamental ontological language. In this paper I defend two views, one metaontological and one ontological. I first defend a version of the conciliatory view according to which there is exactly one perfectly natural existence-like property, but the rest are still "reasonably" natural. I then argue that, assuming this metaontological view, we should accept a permissive ontological view in the fundamental language (i.e. one with a very expansive domain).