Journal articles on the topic 'Metaphysical indeterminacy'
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1
Eklund, Matti. "Metaphysical Vagueness and Metaphysical Indeterminacy." Metaphysica 14, no. 2 (April 30, 2013): 165–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12133-013-0119-0.
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Vogt, Katja Maria. "No More This than That." Midwest Studies in Philosophy 45 (2021): 57–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/msp202111416.
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In the terms of ancient epistemology, Pyrrho is a dogmatist, not a skeptic, simply on account of putting forward a metaphysical theory. His most contested claim is that things are indifferent, unmeasured, and indeterminate—or, on a competing reconstruction, that things are indifferentiable, unmeasurable, and indeterminable. This paper argues that Pyrrho’s position, which I call Pyrrhonian Indeterminacy, belongs to a rich tradition of revisionist metaphysics that includes ancient atomism, flux metaphysics, Plato’s analysis of becoming, and today’s discussions of indeterminacy and vagueness. This tradition, my argument continues, makes room for a kind of metaphysics that proceeds in epistemological terms. Pyrrho’s indeterminacy claim says that things are indeterminate insofar as they do not have features by reference to which we can determine them to be such-and-such. We should not waver or be inclined to see things one way or another—we should see things, and describe them, as “no more this than that.”
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Calosi, Claudio, and Jessica Wilson. "Quantum metaphysical indeterminacy." Philosophical Studies 176, no. 10 (July 28, 2018): 2599–627. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11098-018-1143-2.
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Skow, Bradford. "DEEP METAPHYSICAL INDETERMINACY." Philosophical Quarterly 60, no. 241 (June 10, 2010): 851–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9213.2010.672.x.
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Bĕlohrad, Radim. "The Determinable-Based Account of Metaphysical Indeterminacy and Vague Identity." KRITERION – Journal of Philosophy 34, no. 3 (September 1, 2020): 23–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/krt-2020-340303.
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Abstract This paper focuses on Jessica Wilson's determinable-based account of metaphysical indeterminacy and its relationship to the concept of vague identity. The determinable-based account comprises a distinction between meta-level and object-level accounts of metaphysical indeterminacy. I first argue that the distinction cannot be clearly applied to some theories. In particular, I argue that even though Wilson categorizes the constitution account of metaphysical indeterminacy as a meta-level account, from one perspective it can be defensibly regarded as an object-level account, because it is bound to posit genuinely indeterminate states of affairs and provides an explanation of boundary indeterminacy that is structurally analogous to the explanation provided by Wilson's object-level account. This interim conclusion is important, because it has been argued that the constitution account, when applied to some more complex types of boundary indeterminacy, cannot avoid commitment to vague identity, in spite of the declarations of some of its proponents. The ultimate goal of this paper is to argue that, contrary to Wilson's claims, the determinable-based account must embrace vague identity too.
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Williams, J. Robert G. "Ontic Vagueness and Metaphysical Indeterminacy." Philosophy Compass 3, no. 4 (July 2008): 763–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00151.x.
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Darby, George. "Quantum Mechanics and Metaphysical Indeterminacy." Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88, no. 2 (August 13, 2009): 227–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00048400903097786.
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Bokulich, Alisa. "Metaphysical Indeterminacy, Properties, and Quantum Theory." Res Philosophica 91, no. 3 (2014): 449–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.11612/resphil.2014.91.3.11.
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Barnes, Elizabeth. "Arguments Against Metaphysical Indeterminacy and Vagueness." Philosophy Compass 5, no. 11 (October 29, 2010): 953–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00348.x.
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Torza, Alessandro. "Quantum metaphysical indeterminacy and worldly incompleteness." Synthese 197, no. 10 (October 4, 2017): 4251–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1581-y.
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Wilson, Jessica M. "A Determinable-Based Account of Metaphysical Indeterminacy." Inquiry 56, no. 4 (August 2013): 359–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0020174x.2013.816251.
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Paprzycka, Katarzyna. "Metaphysical or Linguistic Indeterminacy? A Reply to Hendrickson’s Reply." Journal of Philosophical Research 40 (2015): 293–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/jpr2015111150.
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Schroeren, David. "Quantum metaphysical indeterminacy and the ontological foundations of orthodoxy." Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 90 (December 2021): 235–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2021.09.008.
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Carr, Daniel Douglas. "Counterfeit Indeterminacy and Kane’s Self-Forming Actions." Southwest Philosophy Review 35, no. 1 (2019): 99–106. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/swphilreview201935110.
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Kane provides Self-Forming Actions (SFAs) as a rebuttal to allegations that indeterministic choices are determined by luck and are therefore not free. This paper explicates Kane’s proposal and provides a conceptual complication for Kane’s SFAs. The quantum events in an indeterministic world can be recreated in a deterministic world by pseudorandom number generation. This deterministic world is indistinguishable from the indeterministic world it simulates at the quantum, neurological, and phenomenological levels. Thus, indeterministic quantum behavior cannot secure free will in Kane’s SFAs in any way which is not reproducible in a deterministic world. The paper addresses the objections that the proposed problem is merely an epistemic rather than metaphysical one and that a deterministic agent does not have plural voluntary control. I conjecture that a dualistic account of libertarian free will may dodge the problems I raise regarding Kane’s SFAs.
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Kiyani, Asad. "The Antinomies of Legitimacy: On the (Im)possibility of a Legitimate International Criminal Court." African Journal of Legal Studies 8, no. 1-2 (June 2, 2015): 1–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/17087384-12342056.
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This paper critically analyzes the concept of legitimacy as it applies to international criminal law. Using the referral of the situation in Darfur to the International Criminal Court (icc) – and the resultant disagreement between Sudan, the African Union, and the icc – as an entry point, it examines the discourse about the referral as a contest of legitimacy. After placing this specific example in the context of theories of legitimacy, it argues that there are no objective criteria for determining the legitimacy of an international criminal tribunal. Legitimacy as a concrete concept is best understood as a Kantian antinomy – an unanswerable question that borders on the metaphysical. Yet this indeterminacy can be turned to the advantage of the critical theorist, offering pragmatic, normative, and pluralist alternatives for the reconstitution of international criminal tribunals such as the icc.
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Marion, Jean-Luc, and Enrique A. Eguiarte B. "Substantia." Augustinus 63, no. 3 (2018): 507–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/augustinus201863250/25125.
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The aim of J.-L. Marion’s article is to revisit the important debate on the place of Augustine in the history of metaphysics. Often, quibbles arise upon considering the use of substance (substantia) by Augustine, not only as approximative of essentia and as synonymous with ousia, but in deciding whether in so doing Augustine effectuates a ‘metaphysical turn’. While he elsewhere argues that Augustine is a pre-metaphysical thinker, in this article Marion focuses on showing the diverse range of usages of the term substance in the Augustinian corpus. Marion observes: first, whenever substance seems a fixed definition, the term allows for equivocity; second, God is substance in an indeterminate sense or by negation; third, human beings are substances fundamentally to capture the mutability of human existence. As such, Marion concludes, the Augustinian use of substance is insufficient to inelude Augustine in the history of metaphysics.
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Barnes, Elizabeth. "Metaphysically indeterminate existence." Philosophical Studies 166, no. 3 (November 20, 2012): 495–510. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11098-012-9979-3.
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Van Inwagen, Peter. "Indeterminacy and Vagueness: Logic and Metaphysics." European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 1, no. 2 (September 23, 2009): 1–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.v1i2.338.
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Cohen, Wouter A. "Fictional realism and metaphysically indeterminate identity." Analysis 77, no. 3 (May 9, 2017): 511–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/analys/anx056.
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keefe, R. "Review: Indeterminate Identity: Metaphysics and Semantics." Mind 111, no. 442 (April 1, 2002): 466–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mind/111.442.466.
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López de Sa, Dan. "Vagueness as Semantic Indecision: Metaphysical Vagueness vs Indeterminate Reference." Metaphysica 14, no. 2 (May 30, 2013): 197–209. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12133-013-0121-6.
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Duits, Rufus. "Towards a teleo-semiotic theory of individuation." Semiotica 2016, no. 213 (November 1, 2016): 281–305. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/sem-2015-0103.
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AbstractThis article attempts to develop a sketch or working model of a semiotic theory of individuation from a formalization of basic teleological structures. After caveats and provisional definitions, a formal apparatus is introduced that schematizes teleological structures by way of mathematical category theory. This is then combined with a commutation test for formal systems. Once the formal construction is sufficient, the extent to which the model can account for the operation by which objects, modes, kinds, and attributes become individuated from the “pure multiplicity” of indeterminate being is analyzed. Subsequently, the model is applied to a series of well-known problems in metaphysics and ontology – persistence, change, vagueness, coincidence, mereology, and universals – in order to demonstrate its effectiveness. The metaphysical picture that results from this application is positioned between the conventional extremes of realism and anti-realism: a semiotic anti-/realism. Empirical evidence is then also marshalled in support of the model by way of invocation and analysis of recent research into the development of the perceptual capacities of infants.
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Bozovic, Miran. "Diderot’s ontology and Hollywood metaphysics." Filozofija i drustvo 24, no. 3 (2013): 177–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.2298/fid1303177b.
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Diderot?s universe is somewhat weird, often dreamlike and hallucinatory, and his ontology fluid and elusive. It comprises the existing, the non-existent and even contradictory entities, the boundaries between which cannot always be clearly delimited. This universe in which nothing is of the essence of a particular being and everything is more or less something or other, resembles the amorphous and oneiric world of Zhuangzi in which nothing is clearly defined, while essenceless things, floating in uncertainty and indeterminacy, literally blend into one another. The author examines what the early Hollywood comedies of Preston Sturges and the Marx brothers can teach us about the metaphysics and the principles at work in this complex and intricate world.
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Sverdiolas, Arūnas. "On the Edge of Meaning: the Thingness of Artwork." Semiotika 16 (July 29, 2021): 66–103. http://dx.doi.org/10.15388/semiotika.2021.9.
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Semiotics and philosophy both claim the status of a meta-language, hence enter into a dialogue with one another and each tries to translate the other into its own language. Contemporary analysis of material culture is informed by the so-called linguistic turn, which was performed by structuralism and affected all humanities. Ferdinand de Saussure’s semiology and the semiotics of Algirdas Julien Greimas and his colleagues work in this area by extrapolating the notion of the text to various fields of inquiry. The problematics of archeology, architecture, and other artifacts demand thinking through the issue of the matter. The paper provides proof that, in its attempts to respond to this demand, semiotics either stays within the frame of the idealistic semiotic existence of an indeterminate status or deploys metaphysical rudiments-and-supplements.
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Teitel, Trevor. "How to Be a Spacetime Substantivalist." Journal of Philosophy 119, no. 5 (2022): 233–78. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/jphil2022119517.
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The consensus among spacetime substantivalists is to respond to Leibniz’s classic shift arguments, and their contemporary incarnation in the form of the hole argument, by pruning the allegedly problematic metaphysical possibilities that generate these arguments. Some substantivalists do so by directly appealing to a modal doctrine akin to anti-haecceitism. Other substantivalists do so by appealing to an underlying hyperintensional doctrine that implies some such modal doctrine. My first aim in this paper is to pose a challenge for all extant forms of this consensus position. My second aim is to show what form substantivalism must take in order to uphold the consensus while addressing this challenge. The result is a novel “plenitudinous” substantivalist view, which predicts that certain modal facts about spacetime are vague or indeterminate. I then argue against this view on independent grounds, concluding that substantivalists should reject the consensus position. The paper also discusses the way forward for substantivalists in light of this conclusion.
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LaZella, Andrew. "ON THE NON-IDENTITY BETWEEN PRIME MATTER AND POTENCY IN SIGER OF BRABANT'S METAPHYSICS." Tópicos, Revista de Filosofía 39, no. 1 (November 28, 2013): 9. http://dx.doi.org/10.21555/top.v39i1.97.
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Para evitar la "reificación" de la materia prima, o del sustrato indeterminado pero determinable, que subyace a todo cambio, muchos lectores de Aristóteles han identificado a esta "cosa" incognoscible per se con su identidad funcional, es decir, como un marcador conceptual que sostiene la suma de las potencias formales abstraídas a partir de particulares concretos. A pesar de lo atractivo de esta reducción, se presentará una defensa de la irreductibilidad de la materia prima a partir de la Metafísica de Siger de Brabante. Esto implica otorgar a la materia prima una realidad "extra formal" que rebasa su papel funcional como un correlato que recibe pasivamente las formas de un agente sin aportar nada ella misma.
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Hewitt, Simon Thomas. "Theism and Realism: A Match Made in Heaven?" European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 10, no. 4 (December 13, 2018): 27–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.24204/ejpr.v10i4.2042.
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There is no interesting entailment either way between theism and various forms of realism. Taking its cue from Dummett’s characterisation of realism and his discussion of it with respect to theistic belief, this paper argues both that theism does not follow from realism, and that God cannot be appealed to in order to secure bivalence for an otherwise indeterminate subject matter. In both cases, significant appeal is made to the position that God is not a language user, which in turn is motivated by an account of understanding as aptitude possession. The resulting picture sits comfortably with the apophatism common within living religious traditions and with the view that the philosophy of religion ought to reorientate itself away from metaphysics towards more practical questions.
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PÉREZ-ESTÉVEZ, Antonio. "Entendimiento agente y abstracción en Duns Escoto." Revista Española de Filosofía Medieval 9 (October 1, 2002): 125. http://dx.doi.org/10.21071/refime.v9i.9343.
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Duns Scotus, following the saying that "without the phantasma there is no sensible knowledge and without the intelligible species there is no intellection", argues for the need of an active intellect in order to explain the transit from the particular to the universal knowledge. The universal knowledge from experience takes place in two different moments: first, the active intellect, as the main effective cause, together with the common nature in the phantasma, as the co-effective cause, produce the intelligible species, that is, the indeterminate universal in act or the metaphysical universal; second, the passive intellect, as the main effective cause, and the intelligibible species, as the effective instrumental cause, produce the intellection, that is, the full universal or the logic universal, that is a universal concept and name. The full universal or logical universal, is only a concept and a name that can be said of many individuals. It is a second intention that refers, immediately, to the first intention or intelligible species and, indirectly, to the phantasma, the representative of the physical individual.
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COAKLEY, MATHEW. "Interpersonal Comparisons of the Good: Epistemic not Impossible." Utilitas 28, no. 3 (September 24, 2015): 288–313. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0953820815000266.
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To evaluate the overall good/welfare of any action, policy or institutional choice we need some way of comparing the benefits and losses to those affected: we need to make interpersonal comparisons of the good/welfare. Yet sceptics have worried either: (1) that such comparisons are impossible as they involve an impossible introspection across individuals, getting ‘into their minds’; (2) that they are indeterminate as individual-level information is compatible with a range of welfare numbers; or (3) that they are metaphysically mysterious as they assume the existence either of a social mind or of absolute levels of welfare when no such things exist. This article argues that such scepticism can potentially be addressed if we view the problem of interpersonal comparisons as fundamentally an epistemic problem – that is, as a problem of forming justified beliefs about the overall good based on evidence of the individual good.
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Hnativ, Andriy. "JEAN-LUC MARION'S VEIL OF “THE ‘END OF METAPHYSICS’”. TOWARDS AN INDETERMINATE EXCESS OF SATURATION AND DEFICIENCE IN PHENOMENOLOGY." Visnyk of the Lviv University. Series Philosophical Sciences 20 (2018): 128. http://dx.doi.org/10.30970/vps.20.2018.12.
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Pietrogrande, Filippo. "Desire for Purity and Inevitable Contamination: Derrida and Prayer." Religions 13, no. 12 (November 23, 2022): 1133. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel13121133.
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The aim of this paper is to understand the reasons underlying Derrida’s interest in the phenomenon of prayer. The article traces the different directions taken by the topic in the over forty-year long reflection of the philosopher. I start off by highlighting the dichotomic structure around which Derrida lays out his entire analysis of prayer, describing it, in general terms, as an opposition between determination and indetermination: on the one side, the multiple concrete manifestations of prayer; on the other, the possibility of a pure address to the other as other, not marked by metaphysics. I proceed by examining the qualities of what Derrida calls the “pure prayer”, or “prayer in itself”, in direct contrast with the praising prayer. The issue concerning the autonomy and the specificity of this indeterminate act of addressing is especially taken into consideration. The fundamental question remains whether a pure prayer is truly conceivable, or whether its contamination is as inevitable as necessary for the actual possibility of religion, theology, and prayer itself.
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Tingting, Bao. "“The Goat” by M. Zoshchenko and “The Overcoat” by N. Gogol: To the question of intertextual connections." Izvestiya of Saratov University. Philology. Journalism 22, no. 4 (November 23, 2022): 434–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.18500/1817-7115-2022-22-4-434-438.
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Zoshchenko’s “The Goat” and Gogol’s “The Overcoat” have a strong intertextual connection. The quoted image of the “little man”, the plot, motif reminiscences, similar narrative peculiarities disclose the writers’ literary succession. In this article we will analyze the intertextuality of the writers’ prose on the example of “The Overcoat” and “The Goat”, and consider Zoshchenko’s transformation of Gogol’s plots, motifs; we will figure out what meaningful functions the intertexts are performing. The main results are summarized as follows. Firstly, Zabezhkin is an old-fashioned man, he is Bashmachkin’s double in the modern world. The sense of fluctuation and the immensity of the world led him to the pursuit of seeking familiar and soothing signs, the goat represents metaphysically a symbolic character of peace and happiness, which seemed to Zabezhkin to be the basis in a fragile world. The image of the “little man” quoted by Zoshchenko is a symbol of the disappearing past. The similarity between Zabezhkin and Bashmachkin’s fate demonstrates not the integrity and permanence of the past, but rather its irrevocability. Intertexts in the course of time become a measure of the old culture decline. Secondly, in “The Goat” Gogol’s techniques of grotesque and indeterminacy, changeability of the narration, are used. In the beginning of the novel the sentimental and comic, pathetic and familiar, tense and objective intonations intertwine. Just like Gogol’s language, Zoshchenko’s language is kaleidoscopic, it has a wide style range: from the bureaucratic language, clerical wording, newspaper and advertising clichés, literary speech to uneducated speech. The structural unification of the different language styles creates a humorous effect.
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Denisoff, Dennis. "Introduction: The Scales of Decadence." Victorian Literature and Culture 49, no. 4 (2021): 541–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1060150320000194.
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Recent scholars have been captivated by the indeterminate potentialities that decadence sets not in contradiction to, but in disarming misstep with, Victorian claims of individual, social, and global systems operating harmoniously toward a singular order. These systems also happened to privilege the aspirations of the middle class, the patriarchal machinery, white British colonial expansionism, and anthropocentric privilege. In a scene in The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), Oscar Wilde offers a particularly pithy encapsulation of this effective obliqueness and extensibility of decadence in relation to cultural norms. The character Algernon enters the room and, on seeing his endearing cousin Gwendolen, offers the complement, “Dear me, you are smart,” to which she replies, “I am always smart!” The retort's brash overconfidence is diluted by the sense that Gwendolen perhaps misunderstood what Algernon meant; he was complementing her looks, but she may have thought he was referring to her intellect. If so, then she is clearly not as sharp as she claims. But even if she did understand him and was, like him, referring to her appearance, the comment is destabilizing; it renders flat Algernon's attempt to complement her as particularly appealing at this particular moment. Either way, her response is somehow off. And when her suitor Jack follows up this bit of banter by declaring Gwendolen “quite perfect,” she again rebuffs the complement: “Oh! I hope I am not that. It would leave no room for developments, and I intend to develop in many directions.” The humor arises because of Gwendolen charmingly construing the conventional for the philosophical, her seeming inability quite to understand what others mean, her way of taking a simple compliment and scaling it up almost to the level of the epistemological or metaphysical.
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Corti, Alberto. "Yet again, quantum indeterminacy is not worldly indecision." Synthese, March 6, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03039-1.
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AbstractIt has been argued that non-relativistic quantum mechanics is the best hunting ground for genuine examples of metaphysical indeterminacy. Approaches to metaphysical indeterminacy can be divided into two families: meta-level and object-level accounts. It has been shown (Darby in Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88(2):27–245, 2010. 10.1080/00048400903097786; Skow in Philosophical Quarterly 60(241):851–858, 2010) that the most popular version of the meta-level accounts, namely the metaphysical supervaluationism proposed by Barnes and Williams (Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 103–148, 2011), fails to deal with quantum indeterminacy. Such a fact has been taken by many as a challenge to adapt supervaluationism to quantum cases. In this paper, I will focus on the very last of these attempts, i.e. the situation semantics account proposed by Darby and Pickup (Synthese 1–26, 2019). After having shown where quantum indeterminacy arises and having surveyed the assumptions endorsed by the participants of the debate, I turn to Darby and Pickup’s proposal. I argue that, despite the machinery introduced, their account still fails to account for quantum indeterminacy. After considering some possible counterarguments, I suggest in the conclusion that one can plausibly extend the argument to those meta-level approaches that treat quantum indeterminacy as worldly indecision.
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Calosi, Claudio. "INDETERMINATEZZA METAFISICA E MECCANICA QUANTISTICA." Istituto Lombardo - Accademia di Scienze e Lettere - Incontri di Studio, March 4, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.4081/incontri.2019.460.
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The paper argues that quantum mechanics provide examples of genuine metaphysical indeterminacy that cannot be accounted for in purely modal terms. The best account of quantum indeterminacy has it that quantum systems have determinable properties without thereby having a unique determinate of that determinable.
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Besson, Corine, and Anandi Hattiangadi. "Can truth relativism account for the indeterminacy of future contingents?" Synthese 200, no. 3 (May 19, 2022). http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03549-6.
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AbstractJohn MacFarlane has recently argued that his brand of truth relativism provides the best solution to the puzzle of future contingents: assertions about the future that express propositions that are metaphysically neither necessary nor impossible. In this paper, we show that even if we grant all of the metaphysical, semantic and pragmatic assumptions in terms of which MacFarlane sets and aims to solve the puzzle, his truth relativism is not apt to solve the problem of future contingents. We argue that the theory fails to vindicate the intuition that future contingent propositions are neither true nor false, leaving the theory open to a charge of Reductio. We show that these problems cannot be answered while preserving the core tenets of truth relativism.
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Calosi, Claudio. "Gappy, glutty, glappy." Synthese, July 13, 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03291-5.
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AbstractAccording to the Determinable Based Account (DBA) of metaphysical indeterminacy (MI), there is MI when there is an indeterminate state of affairs, roughly a state of affairs in which a constituent object x has a determinable property but fails to have a unique determinate of that determinable. There are different ways in which x might have a determinable but no unique determinate: x has no determinate—gappy MI, or x has more than one determinate—glutty MI. Talk of determinables and determinates is usually constructed as relative to levels of determination. In this paper I first (1) provide a formal construction for determinables and determinates that pays crucial attention to intermediate levels of determination, and then (2) explore the consequences for the DBA of introducing such intermediate levels. In particular, I argue that intermediate levels of determination highlight crucial differences between gappy and glutty cases of MI, and allow one to introduce a third way of indeterminacy, glappy MI.
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Boccuni, Francesca. "REALISMO E INDETERMINATEZZA NEI FONDAMENTI DELLA MATEMATICA." Istituto Lombardo - Accademia di Scienze e Lettere - Incontri di Studio, March 4, 2019. http://dx.doi.org/10.4081/incontri.2019.464.
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Two of the most influential foundational approaches in the philosophy of mathematics of the past thirty years, i.e. neologicism and ante rem mathematical structuralism, suffer from metaphysical and semantic indeterminacy. My present aim is to offer an explanation of this phenomenon and provide a solution in terms of arbitrary reference.
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Galván, Luis. "Counterfactual claims about fictional characters: philosophical and literary perspectives." Journal of Literary Semantics 46, no. 2 (January 1, 2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/jls-2017-0006.
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AbstractThe problems of making and evaluating counterfactual claims about fictional characters cannot be adequately handled without taking into account the practices of literary criticism, interpretation, and re-creation. The direct-reference theory of names explains only a subset of the phenomena of fiction and explains away the rest as irrelevant or pseudo-problems, whereas some criticisms of that theory bring in metaphysical concepts that may obscure the issue. This paper suggests that the indeterminacy of fictions and the conventions of the aforementioned practices are sufficient basis for explaining and assessing such counterfactual claims. In this view, fiction ceases to be understood as a phenomenon
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Gasparov, Igor G. "How soul could be the form of body? An Aristotelian-Scholastic approach to the question of the metaphysical nature of the human person." Philosophy Journal, 2021, 65–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.21146/2072-0726-2021-14-4-65-81.
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The article is devoted to the ontological aspect of the problem of personal identity. In contemporary analytical metaphysics this problem is traditionally stated as the question: What am I? The standard alternatives for solving this question (the Neolockean Psychological View, Parfit’s theory, Cartesian dualism and animalism) are considered and it is shown that all of them, with the exception of Cartesian dualism, face a common fundamental difficulty in accounting for the determinacy of our identity. We thus find ourselves confronted by an unattractive dilemma: either abandon the idea of a determinate identity of the human person or accept Cartesian dualism. It is further shown that the contemporary debate overlooks (without sufficient reasons) the Aristotelian-Scholastic approach to the understanding of the human person as a unity of soul and body. It is demonstrated that this approach has good potential for solving the problem of the indeterminacy of the identity of the human person.
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Mokriski, David. "The Eligibility of Rule Utilitarianism." Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 17, no. 3 (December 13, 2019). http://dx.doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v17i3.792.
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According to the eligibility theory of meaning, often attributed to David Lewis, the referent of a predicate is the property that best balances the twin constraints of charity (i.e. fit with our usage of the term) and eligibility, where eligibility is a function of metaphysical naturalness (i.e. how much of a natural kind the property is). This sort of metasemantics, which is motivated by its ability to resolve problems of indeterminacy and secure shared reference between disputing parties, can be somewhat friendly towards revisionary (i.e. counterintuitive) theories, since highly natural properties can act as “reference magnets,” securing our reference despite some mismatch with usage. In this paper, I apply these considerations to normative ethics and argue that the theory of rule utilitarianism achieves a high balance of charity and eligibility. I proceed by comparing rule utilitarianism to two of its well-known rivals, act utilitarianism and Rossian pluralism (a.k.a. “Commonsense Morality”). I show how the former achieves a high degree of eligibility but only at a significant cost of charity, while the latter does the opposite, fitting very nicely with our considered judgments but at the price of very low eligibility. Rule utilitarianism, on the other hand, strikes a good balance between these extremes; it assigns to our core moral term (‘moral permissibility’) a relatively natural property without doing too much damage to our moral convictions. Thus, rule utilitarianism should be regarded as a promising moral theory by any philosopher who takes seriously considerations of eligibility and naturalness.
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Pickup, Martin. "Unsettledness in times of change." Synthese 200, no. 2 (April 2022). http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03607-z.
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AbstractIf something changes from being in one state to being in another state, when exactly does it change? And what’s going on at that time? These questions are often discussed under the heading of the ‘moment’ or ‘instant’ of change. In this paper, I will investigate a view on which there is an intrinsically distinguished, atomic time at which something changes, and at that time it is metaphysically indeterminate what is the case. The background metaphysical picture is situationalism, a theory on which reality is composed of irreducibly conflicting parts. These conflicting parts give rise to unsettledness in reality as a whole, and also (I will suggest) at the point of change. I propose this view as a competitor for existing accounts of the time of change, and spell out a few reasons in its favour.
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Cazeaux, Clive. "Image and Indeterminacy in Heidegger’s Schematism." Ergo an Open Access Journal of Philosophy 7 (October 22, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/ergo.1132.
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This paper focuses on the work to which the concept of image is put by Heidegger in his retrieval of the schematism in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics. Whereas the schematic role of the image is never fully developed by Kant, Heidegger pays it much more attention, investing it with properties that have the potential to make the schema an active component in his own ontology. However, the motifs he uses to characterize the image depart from the conventional notion of an image as the representation of an object or scene, and are puzzling, if not to say mysterious. I show how the motifs acquire new relevance when they are considered in relation to (a) Boehm’s ‘indeterminacy’ theory of the image, and (b) the novel, ontological concept of time that Heidegger introduces. With these perspectives in mind, the motifs allow us to ‘image’ or imagine aspects of continuity that are central to Heidegger’s concept of primordial time, and therefore confirm the schema as a coherent element in his system. I also suggest how this clarified schema-image might act as a bridge between Heidegger’s philosophy before and after the turn.
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Young, DD. "Conditions for a Digital Metaphysic." eTopia, September 7, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.25071/1718-4657.36760.
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Through an interpretation of Plato and Aristotle, I argue that the founding values of traditional metaphysics were made possible by speci c conditions of language and metaphor. Using the premises drawn from these Greek philosophers, I evaluate the ways digital media do and do not diverge from those conditions. In order to comprehend the novelty of digital media theoretically, we must first understand which features of ‘thought’ are conserved between different media systems. My position contrasts particularly with that of N. Katherine Hayles who, in My Mother was a Computer (2005), asserts that the novelty of digital media renders the conceptual resources of ‘traditional media’ inadequate to theorize it. Most of Hayles’s analysis and comparison is devoted to the properties of digital code and the interaction between code and hardware. I argue, by employing a semiotic division of language between syntagmatic and associative axes, that programming languages lack the semantic indeterminacy required to constitute a new worldview, as Hayles proposes. Finally, I argue that Hayles’s argument fails to articulate specifically how epiphenomena come to affect thinking. While there are differences between print and digital text, instead of looking to epiphenomenal causation, I propose a line of inquiry that would compare their histories as systems. Far from casting off traditional metaphysics, digital technology may actually better approximate some of their goals, for it enables a more thorough self-erasure of its own material which never comes into a phenomenal purview. KEYWORDS: Media eory, Digital Humanities, Metaphysics, Visual Culture
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Green, Jerry. "“Was Pyrrho a Pyrrhonian?”." Apeiron 50, no. 3 (January 1, 2017). http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/apeiron-2016-0059.
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AbstractThis paper attempts a reconstruction of the views of Pyrrho of Elis. Many recent commentators, most notably Richard Bett, have made Pyrrho out to a metaphysical dogmatist who thinks the world is fundamentally indeterminate. Despite some criticisms of this view by Brennan and others, this metaphysical reading has continued to gain adherents. But there are serious textual and logical problems with these dogmatic interpretations. According to the evidence we have, a better view is that Pyrrho was an agnostic skeptic, i.e. one who refused to make assertions about the world outside of perceptual or intellectual appearances. But this does not mean that the traditional view of Pyrrho is correct either: the kind of skepticism Pyrrho endorsed is not Pyrrhonian, because it is grounded in the nature of our epistemic faculties rather than opposition between equally plausible theories, arguments, beliefs, or appearances. A secondary thesis of this paper is about methodology. Rather than focus on the most ambiguous and contentious passages in isolation, we should base our interpretation on the whole corpus, beginning with the easiest passages. Faulty interpretations of Pyrrho go wrong, I argue, partly by failing to follow this method.
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Spaak, Torben. "Legal Realism and Functional Kinds: Michael Moore’s Metaphysically Reductionist Naturalism." Archiwum Filozofii Prawa i Filozofii Społecznej, 2021, 83–107. http://dx.doi.org/10.36280/afpifs.2021.2.83.
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Michael Moore defends an account of scientific, mental, moral, and legal properties, according to which there are not only natural kinds, but also moral and functional kinds; and he maintains, more specifically that: 1) distinctively legal phenomena, such as legal rights, precedent, malice, etc. are functional kinds, in the sense that they have a nature that consists in the function they fulfill in law, 2) the function of a functional kind is that effect, or those effects, of the functional kind that causally contribute more than does any of its other effects to the goal of the larger system within which it occurs, and 3) functional kinds can be reduced to indefinitely large disjunctions of natural properties, 4) the relevant version of naturalism is metaphysically reductionist naturalism, and 5) functional kinds play an indispensable role in the explanation of human behaviour. I argue, however, 1) that the method for determining the function of a (purported) functional kind proposed by Moore is too indeterminate to be able to pin down the function. I also argue 2) that it turns out to be very difficult to identify the properties that are part of the indefinitely large disjunction of natural properties which, on Moore’s analysis, is identical to a functional kind, 3) that functional kinds cannot be part of the best explanation of human behaviour, because they lack nomological unity, and that they lack such unity because they are necessarily multiply realizable, and 4) that Moore will therefore have to give up: a) the view that functional kinds are identical to indefinitely large disjunctions of natural properties, b) the view that functional kinds are part of the best explanation of human behaviour, or both (a and b). I also argue 5) that the idea of a functional kind should not play a central role in any theory of law or legal reasoning.
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Lee, Chanwoo. "The structuralist approach to underdetermination." Synthese 200, no. 2 (April 2022). http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11229-022-03495-3.
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AbstractThis paper provides an exposition of the structuralist approach to underdetermination, which aims to resolve the underdetermination of theories by identifying their common theoretical structure. Applications of the structuralist approach can be found in many areas of philosophy. I present a schema of the structuralist approach, which conceptually unifies such applications in different subject matters. It is argued that two classic arguments in the literature, Paul Benacerraf’s argument on natural numbers and W. V. O. Quine’s argument for the indeterminacy of translation, can be analyzed as instances of the structuralist schema. These two applications illustrate different kinds of conclusions that can be drawn through the structuralist approach; Benacerraf’s argument shows that we can derive an ontological conclusion about the given subject matter, while Quine’s structuralist approach leads to a semantic conclusion about how to determine linguistic meanings given radical translation. Then, as a case study, I review a recent debate in metaphysics between Shamik Dasgupta, Jason Turner, and Catharine Diehl to consider the extent to which different instances of the structuralist schema are conceptually unified. Both sides of the debate can be interpreted as utilizing the structuralist approach; one side uses the structuralist approach for an ontological conclusion, while the other side relies on a semantic conclusion. I argue that this has a strong dialectical consequence, which sheds light on the conceptual unity of the structuralist approach.
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Jaeckel, Monika. "Listening as act of response-ability." Interactive Film & Media Journal 2, no. 2 (May 25, 2022). http://dx.doi.org/10.32920/ifmj.v2i2.1574.
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The central question of reverberating interferences – explorations into thingness, a recent performative research project, pertains to listening. Asking "How do things speak?" inspired investigation into what constitutes a thing, revealing potential imbalances arising from western metaphysics' denial of other matters' agency. Karen Barad's term of intra-action, which depicts a physicist-materialist interpretation of entanglement, is used to investigate this distortion theoretically and open up the question, “how can we listen?” Based on the conceptual framework of motion, the project's methodological focus was on the patterns of movement and countermovement created by human and animal bodies as intertwined indeterminacy (Barad) and the uncertainty of change (Rose). The aim of amplifying these ongoing interference reverberations before they become sedimentary and ingrained in planetary memory was to raise awareness that these interferences are manifestations of human and non-human planetary others, which include all mattering forms. Considering these 'noises' as an opaque, if not insignificant, voicing implies that what western modernity's metaphysics has declared non-belonging and irrelevant nevertheless matters in its warped and diverted forms. Movement-based intra-actions (Barad) are thus launched as audible noise, amplified via digital sensory devices as audible acoustic signals of resonant interferences. The project attempts to address a critical problematic in knowledge production intending to shift from a one one-world view (Law) towards a pluriversal approach. Emphasizing new materialism’s notion of situatedness establishes an opacity in which the researchers (performers) must confront their inability to classify ‘things’ outside of their educational epistemic realm. The flattening of de- and inhuMan categorizations (Wynter, 2015; Singh, 2018) necessitates a strategy to engage with other knowledges without appropriating them through 'our' inherited way of thinking. By considering critical positionality (Robinson), the notion of noise became an experimental indicator of the unknown or ignored. Noise increases the variability of information in information theory, with both extremes of too much or too little indicating a shift in the system’s exchange towards overload or flat sameness (Thompson, 2020; Malaspina, 2012). Inquiring as to how to facilitate a system's (ex)change with and towards the disregarded, suppressed, or simply denied, I wonder if allowing noise can enable a more balanced interaction with other matter and its knowings.
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Johns, Jeffrey M. "IAMBLICHUS APVD SIMPL. COROLLARIVM DE TEMPORE 794.21–7 DIELS." Classical Quarterly, September 22, 2021, 1–7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s000983882100077x.
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Abstract In his commentary on the Timaeus, the Neoplatonist Iamblichus argues that time is logically antecedent to change inasmuch as time is no mere aspect of change. Naturally, scholars appraise this thesis in light of Neoplatonic metaphysics. Nevertheless, they neglect the philological framing of this thesis, and thence the philosophical implications thereof. Only J.M. Dillon acknowledges this framing, though even Dillon does not acknowledge the philosophical implications thereof. This article illustrates the logic of said thesis vis-à-vis the Iamblichean exegesis of Ti. 38b7–c1 (Iambl. apud Simpl. in Phys. 1.794.21–7 Diels, Iambl. in Ti. fr. 67 Dillon). Beginning from the intuition that time is no mere aspect of change, Iamblichus argues that time can persist apart from change, and thereupon, given the Platonic notion that time is the everlasting image of Eternity qua paradigm, Iamblichus intuits that time is no mere image but everlasting in its own right, being itself a paradigm. Yet this thesis rests upon the indeterminateness of the Platonic title τὸ παράδειγμα τῆς διαιωνίας φύσεως (‘the paradigm of a thoroughly everlasting nature’) at Ti. 38b8 and, still more so, upon the reflexiveness of the ambiguous ΑΥΤΩΙ (that is, αὐτῷ ‘to it [the paradigm]’, if not αὑτῷ ‘to itself [as paradigm]’) at Ti. 38c1. Inasmuch as the subject of the Platonic title is indeterminate between Eternity and Eternal Being qua intelligible everlastingness, Iamblichus construes ΑΥΤΩΙ not as a mere reflexive but as self-reflexive, with αὑτῷ referring to Time qua intelligible paradigm. In this light, the Platonic lemma grounds the Iamblichean thesis.
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Lysell, Roland. "Hedda Gabler." Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap 51, no. 3-4 (March 25, 2022). http://dx.doi.org/10.54797/tfl.v51i3-4.1684.
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Hedda Gabler: A Woman's Will to Power Hedda Gabler (1890) is the eighth of Henrik Ibsen’s twelve social plays from The Pillars of Society (1877) to When We Dead Awaken (1899). Most critics and stage directors construe it as a play in the realist tradition and as a pièce bien faite. In this essay, I argue for a different kind of interpretation based on the important studies of the play by Else Høst, John Northam and Brian Johnston. Like Høst, I start with the protagonist’s (Hedda’s) comments about vine leaves in Ejlert Løvborg’s (her former suitor’s) hair. Through these comments, Hedda can be associated to the wineleaves of Emperor Julian in Ibsen’s Emperor and Galilean (1873), where the protagonists Julian and Maximos, a kind of mystic, discuss a utopian realm built on both the Dionysic Greek and the Christian mystical tradition. Hedda is a late follower of this mysticism. In this essay, I emphasize the existential aspect of Hedda’s searching for authentic values. I consider Hedda as an outsider, although she is involved in a fight for power, just as the other characters are. The other characters are described in detail and their actions are fully understandable, whereas Hedda’s character lacks determination. We do not know why she married Tesman. We do not know if she is pregnant. We do not know why she sets fire to Løvborg’s manuscript. Jealousy is too weak an explanation. Whereas the other characters search for the lukewarm indifference of everyday life, Hedda aims at the magnificent and the impossible. She represents the indeterminate aspect of the play, she is the character which does not fit into the realist structure, the character looking beyond and above the other characters, the character open to completely different interpretations, also on stage. Through her suicide she motivates the reader and the spectator to reflect on the metaphysical aspects of life.