Christopher Menzel
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In Defense of the New Actualism: Dispositional Modal Truthmakers and the Branching Conception of Possibility
IN DEFENSE OF THE NEW ACTUALISM: DISPOSITIONAL MODAL TRUTHMAKERS AND THE BRANCHING CONCEPTION OF POSSIBILITY by CHAD VANCE B.S., University of Florida, 1999 M.A., Southern Evangelical Seminary, 2006 M.A., University of Colorado Boulder, 2008 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy 2013 This thesis entitled: In Defense of the New Actualism: Dispositional Modal Truthmakers and the Branching Conception of Possibility written by Chad Vance has been approved by the Department of Philosophy ______________________________ Graeme Forbes, committee chair ______________________________ Robert Rupert, committee member Date ________________ The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. Vance, Chad (Ph.D., Philosophy) In Defense of the New Actualism: Dispositional Modal Truthmakers and the Branching Conception of Possibility Thesis directed by Professor Graeme Forbes Abstract: You could be going for a walk right now. This seems true—but what makes it true? Here is a popular answer : It is true that you could be going for a walk right now because there exists some possible world (beyond the actual world) where you are going for a walk now; or else, because there is some abstract, representational entity which represents you as going for a walk now. I think this is mistaken. I take a more common-sense approach, arguing instead that the modal truths (i.e., truths about metaphysical possibility and necessity) are made true by the capabilities, or dispositional properties, of actual objects. -
Haecceitism, Chance
HAECCEITISM, CHANCE, AND COUNTERFACTUALS Boris Kment Abstract. Anti-haecceitists believe that all facts about specific individuals—such as the fact that Fred exists, or that Katie is tall—globally supervene on purely qualitative facts. Haecceitists deny that. The issue is not only of interest in itself, but receives additional importance from its intimate connection to the question of whether all fundamental facts are qualitative or whether they include facts about which specific individuals there are and how qualitative properties and relations are distributed over them. Those who think that all fundamental facts are qualitative are arguably committed to anti-haecceitism. The goal of this paper is to point out some problems for anti-haecceitism (and therefore for the thesis that all fundamental facts are qualitative). The article focuses on two common assumptions about possible worlds: (i) Sets of possible worlds are the bearers of objective physical chance. (ii) Counterfactual conditionals can be defined by appeal to a relation of closeness between possible worlds. The essay tries to show that absurd consequences ensue if either of these assumptions is combined with anti-haecceitism. Then it considers a natural response by the anti-haecceitist, which is to deny that worlds play the role described in (i) and (ii). Instead, the reply continues, we can introduce a new set of entities that are defined in terms of worlds and that behave the way worlds do on the haecceitist position. That allows the anti-haecceitist to formulate anti-haecceitist friendly versions of (i) and (ii) by replacing the appeal to possible worlds with reference to the newly introduced entities. -
Naturalism and the a Priori Penelope Maddy
5 Naturalism and the A Priori PenelopeMaddy The naturalism I aim to practise is a descendantof Quine's. I My goal here is to place this naturalism in what I hope to be an illuminating historical context, to trace the status of the a priori through its various twists and turns, and eventu- ally to draw some tentative conclusions about the naturalistic status of the a priori. To do this, I first return to Kant. While it's surely no surprise that an examination of the a priori should start from Kant, perhapshis relevanceto natu- ralism is less obvious. Let me begin, then, with an introductory word on that connection. Though my naturalism differs from Quine's in a couple of significant ways, these disagreements won't matter until the very end. so we can begin with Quine's leading idea: the 'abandonmentof the goal of a first philosophy' (Quine 1975: 72). The interconnectionsbetween Quine and Carnap will take centre stage later, but for now we needonly note that the bare rejection of first philosophy can be seen as evolving out of Carnap's classification of many traditional metaphys- ical claims as 'pseudo-statement[s] without cognitive content' (Carnap 1950: 250). Carnap's idea is that legitimate scientific questions, 'theoretical questions', are asked within the linguistic framework of scientific language,with its associ- ated principles of evidence; in contrast, metaphysical pseudo-questionsare posed outside of all linguistic frameworks; perhaps as preamble to the adoption of a linguistic framework, as such, they are asked without the backing of associated evidential rules that would make them answerable,and indeed, that would give them sense. -
In Chapters 6, 7, and 9, a Number of Normative Principles Were Discussed and Criticized
ApPENDIX TABLE OF CONSEQUENTIALIST PRINCIPLES In Chapters 6, 7, and 9, a number of normative principles were discussed and criticized. I have claimed that a principle purporting to give a criterion of obligatoriness, in the 'fundamental' moral sense, should satisfy NI and SNI (in 'normal' cases), as well as CSIP. It should also make S-optimality necessary for obligatoriness. (This requirement is abbreviated as 'SNO' in Table 2.) If such a principle is supplemented with a principle giving a criterion of wrongness, the two principles should together also satisfy NH. In Table 2 I have listed the principles we have encountered, and for each (set of) princi ple(s) indicated which of these five requirements that are satisfied. C'J&Pl' refers to Jackson's and Pargetter's first principle, concerning whether or not a given action ought to be done. 'J&P2' refers to their second principle, concerning what an agent ought to do during a certain time-interval.) Table 2 Author Principle Section Requirements satisfied NI SNI NH CSIP SNO Bergstriim V 6.1 Yes No - No No Prawitz Tl 6.4 Yes Yes - No No " T, 6.4 Yes Yes - No No Aqvist I*-III* 6.5 No No Yes No No " IV*-VI* 6.5 No No Yes No No Bjiirnsson VO-UW 6.6 Yes No No Yes No Smith 4 7.2 Yes Yes - Yes No Jackson & J&Pl 7.3 Yes No - No No Pargetter J&P2 7.3 Yes No - No No Sobel S 7.4 Yes No - Yes No ! Feldman MO 7.5 Yes Yes - Yes No , McKinsey L 7.6 Yes No - No No Carlson KO-KW 6.3 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes " KO*-KW* 6.3 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes " PO-PW 7.7 Yes Yes Yes Yes No " IO-IW 7.7 Yes Yes Yes Yes No " KOG-KWG 9.2 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes " POG-PWG 9.2 Yes Yes Yes Yes No " IOG-IWG 9.2 Yes Yes Yes Yes No 162 REFERENCES ANSCOMBE(l): G.E.M. -
Believing the Axioms. I Penelope Maddy the Journal of Symbolic
Believing the Axioms. I Penelope Maddy The Journal of Symbolic Logic, Vol. 53, No. 2. (Jun., 1988), pp. 481-511. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-4812%28198806%2953%3A2%3C481%3ABTAI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3 The Journal of Symbolic Logic is currently published by Association for Symbolic Logic. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/asl.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. http://www.jstor.org Tue Apr 3 15:14:09 2007 THEJOURNALOF SYMBOLICLOGIC Volume 53, Number 2, June 1988 BELIEVING THE AXIOMS. I PENELOPE MADDY Nothing venture, nothing win, Blood is thick, but water's thin. -Gilbert & Sullivan $0. Introduction. Ask a beginning philosophy of mathematics student why we believe the theorems of mathematics and you are likely to hear, "because we have proofs!" The more sophisticated might add that those proofs are based on true axioms, and that our rules of inference preserve truth. -
Logic Colloquium 2007 Edited by Francoise¸ Delon, Ulrich Kohlenbach, Penelope Maddy and Frank Stephan Frontmatter More Information
Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-76065-2 - Logic Colloquium 2007 Edited by Francoise¸ Delon, Ulrich Kohlenbach, Penelope Maddy and Frank Stephan Frontmatter More information Logic Colloquium 2007 The Annual European Meeting of the Association for Symbolic Logic, also known as the Logic Colloquium, is among the most prestigious annual meetings in the field. The current volume, Logic Colloquium 2007, with contributions from ple- nary speakers and selected special session speakers, contains both expository and research papers by some of the best logicians in the world. This volume covers many areas of contemporary logic: model theory, proof theory, set theory, and computer science, as well as philosophical logic, including tutorials on cardinal arithmetic, on Pillay’s conjecture, and on automatic structures. This volume will be invaluable for experts as well as those interested in an overview of central contemporary themes in mathematical logic. Fran¸coiseDelon was Directrice d’´etudesat the Centre de Formation des PEGC of Reims and Humboldt Stipendiatin at Freiburg and is presently a Directrice de Recherche at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Ulrich Kohlenbach is a Professor of Mathematics at TU Darmstadt (Germany). He is the coordinating editor of Annals of Pure and Applied Logic and the president of the Deutsche Vereinigung f¨urMathematische Logik und f¨urGrundlagen der Exakten Wissenschaften. Penelope Maddy is a Distinguished Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of California, Irvine. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is currently the president of the Association for Symbolic Logic. Frank Stephan is an Associate Professor in the departments of mathematics and computer science at the National University of Singapore. -
Frick, Johann David
'Making People Happy, Not Making Happy People': A Defense of the Asymmetry Intuition in Population Ethics The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Frick, Johann David. 2014. 'Making People Happy, Not Making Happy People': A Defense of the Asymmetry Intuition in Population Ethics. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:13064981 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA ʹMaking People Happy, Not Making Happy Peopleʹ: A Defense of the Asymmetry Intuition in Population Ethics A dissertation presented by Johann David Anand Frick to The Department of Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Philosophy Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts September 2014 © 2014 Johann Frick All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisors: Professor T.M. Scanlon Author: Johann Frick Professor Frances Kamm ʹMaking People Happy, Not Making Happy Peopleʹ: A Defense of the Asymmetry Intuition in Population Ethics Abstract This dissertation provides a defense of the normative intuition known as the Procreation Asymmetry, according to which there is a strong moral reason not to create a life that will foreseeably not be worth living, but there is no moral reason to create a life just because it would foreseeably be worth living. Chapter 1 investigates how to reconcile the Procreation Asymmetry with our intuitions about another recalcitrant problem case in population ethics: Derek Parfit’s Non‑Identity Problem. -
LIBRARIES 2 0 2002 ARCHIVES4 Actualism, Singular Propositions, and Possible Worlds: Essays in the Metaphysics of Modality
Actualism, Singular Propositions, and Possible Worlds: Essays in the Metaphysics of Modality by Aviv Hoffmann BA Philosophy The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1993 SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS AND PHILOSOPHY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN PHILOSOPHY AT THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY SEPTEMBER 2002 C 2002 Aviv Hoffmann. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part. Signature of Author: Department of Linguistics and Philosophy September 6, 2002 Certified by: - - 0 - Robert C. Stalnaker Professor and Chair Thesis Supervisor Accepted by: M ST Vann McGee Professor -MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE Chairman, Committee on Graduate Students OF TECHNOLOGY SEPLIBRARIES 2 0 2002 ARCHIVES4 Actualism, Singular Propositions, and Possible Worlds: Essays in the Metaphysics of Modality by Aviv Hoffmann Submitted to the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy on September 6, 2002 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy ABSTRACT My dissertation consists of three essays in the Metaphysics of Modality: In "A Puzzle about Truth and Singular Propositions," I consider two theses that seem to be true and then an argument for the conclusion that they form an inconsistent pair. One thesis is that a proposition that is singular with respect to a given object implies that the object exists. This is so because the proposition predicates something of the object. The other thesis is that some propositions are true with respect to possible worlds in which they do not exist. -
CURRICULUM VITAE Penelope Maddy
CURRICULUM VITAE Penelope Maddy Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science 949-824-1520 (dep’t) University of California at Irvine 949-824-4133 (office) Irvine, CA 92697-5100 [email protected] Education Princeton University, 1974-1978 PhD in Philosophy, January, 1979 University of California at Berkeley, 1968-1972 B. A. in Mathematics, June, 1972 Professional Positions UCI Distinguished Professor, 2007-present Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science, 1998-present Professor of Mathematics, 1989 - present Professor of Philosophy, 1989 - 1998, 2014-present Associate Professor of Philosophy and of Mathematics, 1987-1989 University of California at Irvine Associate Professor, 1983-1987 Department of Philosophy University of Illinois at Chicago Assistant Professor, 1979-1983 Lecturer, 1978-1979 Department of Philosophy Department of Mathematics University of Notre Dame Honors Phi Beta Kappa-Romanell Professor, 2014-2015 UCI Distinguished Professor, November 2007- present Ambrose/Tymoczko Lecture, Smith College, February 2007 Gauss Lecture, Dresden, Germany, October 2006 Lakatos Prize for Naturalism in Mathematics, November 2002 Chancellor’s Professor, April 2002-November 2007 UCI Distinguished Faculty Lecturership for Research, March 2002 Patrick Romanell Lecture on Philosophical Naturalism, APA, December 2001 Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences, April 1998 NSF Research Grant, 1994-95 NSF Research Grant, 1990-91 UCI Academic Senate Research Fellowship, 1990-91 NSF Research Grant, 1988-89 UC President's Research Fellowship, 1988-89 Postdoctoral Scholar, UCLA Department of Mathematics, 1986 NSF Research Grant, Calendar Year 1986 NEH Fellowship, Summer 1984 UIC Short Research Leave, Spring 1984 AAUW Fellowship, 1982-1983 Notre Dame Faculty Research Grant, Summer 1981 Marshall Scholarship, 1972-1973 UC Berkeley, Mathematics Department Citation, 1972 B. -
Set-Theoretic Foundations
Contemporary Mathematics Volume 690, 2017 http://dx.doi.org/10.1090/conm/690/13872 Set-theoretic foundations Penelope Maddy Contents 1. Foundational uses of set theory 2. Foundational uses of category theory 3. The multiverse 4. Inconclusive conclusion References It’s more or less standard orthodoxy these days that set theory – ZFC, extended by large cardinals – provides a foundation for classical mathematics. Oddly enough, it’s less clear what ‘providing a foundation’ comes to. Still, there are those who argue strenuously that category theory would do this job better than set theory does, or even that set theory can’t do it at all, and that category theory can. There are also those who insist that set theory should be understood, not as the study of a single universe, V, purportedly described by ZFC + LCs, but as the study of a so-called ‘multiverse’ of set-theoretic universes – while retaining its foundational role. I won’t pretend to sort out all these complex and contentious matters, but I do hope to compile a few relevant observations that might help bring illumination somewhat closer to hand. 1. Foundational uses of set theory The most common characterization of set theory’s foundational role, the char- acterization found in textbooks, is illustrated in the opening sentences of Kunen’s classic book on forcing: Set theory is the foundation of mathematics. All mathematical concepts are defined in terms of the primitive notions of set and membership. In axiomatic set theory we formulate . axioms 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 03A05; Secondary 00A30, 03Exx, 03B30, 18A15. -
Actualism and Higher-Order Worlds”
Hayaki, Reina (2003). “Actualism and Higher-Order Worlds”. Philosophical Studies 115 (2), 149-178. Actualism and Higher-Order Worlds Actualism is the ontological thesis that everything that exists is actual. Although it seems so common-sensical as to be platitudinous, it has been attacked as being inadequate on various counts. In particular, opponents have alleged that actualism is incompatible with the standard semantics for quantified modal logic, because it cannot handle iterated modality. I shall argue that an honest actualist can accommodate both iterate modality and quantified modal logic generally by adopting a revised semantics. First, a point of terminology: there are at least two distinct theses that sometimes go by the name of ‘actualism’. As I shall use the term, actualism is contrasted with possibilism, according to which there exist (in some broad sense) objects which are strictly non-actual. They do not inhabit this world, but they do inhabit others, so they exist outright by virtue of existing somewhere in modal space. The most famous proponent of possibilism is, of course, David Lewis, especially in Lewis (1986). This issue is distinct from the issue of whether every possible object is in fact (identical to) an actual object, i.e., whether all possible worlds contain exactly the same inhabitants. A positive view on this latter issue is occasionally called ‘actualism’ as well. Actualism2 (fixed domains across worlds) implies actualism1 (no non-actual objects), but not vice versa. In this paper I shall use the term ‘actualism’ to refer only to actualism1. Interestingly, the problems that confront the actualist1 are easily dissolved if one also adopts actualism2. -
Your Actual Eternalism, Without Metaphysics∗
Your Actual Eternalism, Without Metaphysics∗ Huw Price December , Introduction Is there a genuine disagreement between presentists and eternalists? The skeptic, in Sider’s terminology, is the person who argues that there is not. Sider suggests that the ‘skeptic’s challenge is a special case of a more general challenge to ontology’, a challenge he describes as follows: The core of ontology is disagreement over what there is, over whether there exist numbers, events, sets, physical objects, fusions, past and future objects, and so on. Skeptics say this disagreement is merely verbal since apparently disagreeing ontolo- gists use ‘exists’ in different ways. Each theorist is right given her own use of ‘exists’; there is nothing to fight over. On one meaning for ‘exist’, numbers “exist”, on an- other they do not; fusions “exist” under one meaning but not another, and so on. No one of these meanings is “better” than the rest; no one is a more genuine sort of existence than the rest. One might sensibly disagree over which is meant by ‘exists’ in a given linguistic community, or over which would be most useful to mean for a given purpose. But the ontologists’ debate concerns neither meaning nor utility, and cannot survive this proliferation of meanings for ‘exists’. Sider cites a number of sources for the skeptical view just described, including Carnap’s classic paper, ‘Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology’. I have two concerns about this description of the skeptical position. First, I think that many people would want to maintain that there is a merely verbal dispute in this case, without committing themselves to Carnap’s radical metaphysical deflationism.