Real Metaphysics

Real Metaphysics Does time fl ow? Do the past and future exist? What are facts? What is causation? Do truths have truthmakers? If so, what are they? The chapters in this collection offer new answers to these fundamental questions, which have preoccupied Hugh Mellor, one of the outstanding metaphysicians of our time and author of titles including The Matter of Chance (1971), Matters of Metaphysics (1991) and The Facts of Causation (Routledge 1995). Real Metaphysics brings together new articles by leading metaphysicians to honour Mellor’s contribution to metaphysics. Some of the most outstanding minds of current times shed new light on all the main topics in metaphysics: truth, causation, dispositions, properties, explanation, and time. At the end of the book, Hugh Mellor responds to the issues raised in each of the fourteen contributions and gives us new insight into his own highly infl uential work on metaphysics. Real Metaphysics stands as a highly original exploration and assessment of some of the most central issues in metaphysics, and will make fascinating reading for anyone interested in contemporary philosophy. Contributors: David Armstrong, Alexander Bird, Tim Crane, Chris Daly, Frank Jackson, Arnold Koslow, Isaac Levi, Hallvard Lillehammer, David Lewis, Hugh Mellor, Peter Menzies, Paul Noordhof, L. Nathan Oaklander, Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra, Gideon Rosen, Peter Smith. Routledge studies in twentieth-century philosophy 1 The Story of Analytic 8 Peter Winch’s Philosophy of Philosophy Social Sciences Plot and heroes Rules, magic and instrumental Edited by Anat Biletzki and Anat reason Matar Berel Dov Lerner 2 Donald Davidson 9 Gaston Bachelard Truth, meaning and knowledge Critic of science and the Edited by Urszula M. Zegle´· n imagination Cristina Chimisso 3 Philosophy and Ordinary Language 10 Hilary Putnam The bent and genius of our Pragmatism and realism tongue Edited by James Conant and Oswald Hanfl ing Urszula M. Zegle´· n 4 The Subject in Question 11 Karl Jaspers Sartre’s critique of Husserl in Politics and metaphysics The Transcendence of the Ego Chris Thornhill Stephen Priest 12 Collingwood and the 5 Aesthetic Order Metaphysics of Experience A philosophy of order, beauty A reinterpretation and art Giussepina D’Oro Ruth Lorand 13 From Husserl to Davidson 6 Naturalism The idea of the transcendental A critical analysis in twentieth-century philosophy Edited by William Lane Craig and Edited by Jeff Malpas J. P. Moreland 14 Real Metaphysics 7 Grammar in Early Twentieth- Edited by Hallvard Lillehammer Century Philosophy and Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra Richard Gaskin Real Metaphysics Essays in honour of D. H. Mellor Edited by Hallvard Lillehammer and Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra First published 2003 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. © 2003 Selection and editorial matter, Hallvard Lillehammer and Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra. Individual essays, the contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-16429-6 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-25845-2 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–24981–3 (Print Edition) Contents List of contributors vii Introduction 1 HALLVARD LILLEHAMMER AND GONZALO RODRIGUEZ-PEREYRA 1 Truthmakers for modal truths 12 DAVID ARMSTRONG 2 Things qua truthmakers 25 DAVID LEWIS Postscript to ‘Things qua truthmakers’: negative existentials 39 GIDEON ROSEN AND DAVID LEWIS 3 Defl ationism: the facts 43 PETER SMITH 4 Truth and the theory of communication 54 CHRIS DALY 5 Subjective facts 68 TIM CRANE 6 From H2O to water: the relevance to a priori passage 84 FRANK JACKSON 7 Epiphenomenalism and causal asymmetry 98 PAUL NOORDHOF vi Contents 8 Is causation a genuine relation? 120 PETER MENZIES 9 Dispositions and conditionals 137 ISAAC LEVI 10 Structural properties 154 ALEXANDER BIRD 11 Laws, explanations and the reduction of possibilities 169 ARNOLD KOSLOW 12 What is wrong with the relational theory of change? 184 GONZALO RODRIGUEZ-PEREYRA 13 Presentism: a critique 196 L. NATHAN OAKLANDER 14 Real Metaphysics: replies 212 D. H. MELLOR D. H. Mellor: a bibliography 239 Index 246 Contributors David Armstrong is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Sydney University. He is the author of, among other books, A Materialist Theory of the Mind (Routledge & Kegan Paul 1968) and A World of States of Affairs (Cambridge University Press 1997). He currently works in metaphysics and truthmaker theory. Alexander Bird is Reader in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Philosophy of Science (UCL 1998) and Thomas Kuhn (Acumen 2000). Tim Crane is Professor in Philosophy at University College London and Director of the Philosophy Programme of the School of Advanced Study, University of London. He is the author of The Mechanical Mind (Penguin 1995; 2nd edn, Routledge 2003) and Elements of Mind (Oxford University Press 2001). Chris Daly is Lecturer in Philosophy at Manchester University. He works mainly in metaphysics. Frank Jackson is Professor of Philosophy, Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University. He has held positions at the University of Adelaide, La Trobe University and Monash University and a number of visiting appointments outside Australia. He is the author of, among other books, Perception (Cambridge University Press 1977) and From Metaphysics to Ethics (Oxford University Press 1998). Arnold Koslow is Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. His recent work has focused mainly on logic, the philosophy of mathematics and the philosophy of science. He is the author of A Structuralist Theory of Logic (Cambridge University Press 1992). Isaac Levi is John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. He has written extensively on topics concerning decision-making and changes in viii Contributors beliefs and values from a pragmatist standpoint. He is the author of, among other books, The Fixation of Belief and its Undoing (Cambridge University Press 1991) and The Covenant of Reason (Cambridge University Press 1997). David Lewis (deceased) was Class of 1943 University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. He wrote extensively on metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and epistemology. He was the author of, among other books, Counterfactuals (Basil Blackwell 1973) and On the Plurality of Worlds (Basil Blackwell 1986). Hallvard Lillehammer is Fellow of King’s College and University Assistant Lecturer in the Faculty of Philosophy at Cambridge University. He works mainly in ethics. D. H. Mellor is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge University. He is the author of, among other books, The Facts of Causation (Routledge 1995) and Real Time II (Routledge 1998). Peter Menzies is Associate Professor and Head of the Philosophy Department, Macquarie University, Sydney. Much of his published research centres on the subject of causation. Paul Noordhof is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Nottingham. His book, A Variety of Causes, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press. L. Nathan Oaklander is Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at the University of Michigan-Flint. He is the author of Temporal Relations and Temporal Becoming (University Press of America 1984) and (with Quentin Smith) Time, Change and Freedom (Routledge 1995). Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra is Gilbert Ryle Fellow of Hertford College and Lecturer in the Faculty of Philosophy at Oxford University. He is the author of Resemblance Nominalism (Oxford University Press 2002). Gideon Rosen is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. He is the author (with John Burgess) of A Subject with No Object (Oxford University Press 1997). Peter Smith is a Fellow of Jesus College and Lecturer in the Faculty of Philosophy at Cambridge University. He was editor of Analysis for 12 years, and is the author of Explaining Chaos (Cambridge University Press 1998) and (with O. R. Jones) The Philosophy of Mind (Cambridge University Press 1986). Introduction Hallvard Lillehammer and Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra The following chapters, all previously unpublished, have been written in honour of Hugh Mellor, who has recently retired as Professor of Philosophy at the Uni- versity of Cambridge. The chapters are all concerned with metaphysical topics about which Mellor has written. They are followed by Mellor’s replies. Hugh Mellor was born in London on 10 July 1938. He read Natural Sciences and Chemical Engineering at Pembroke College, Cambridge, from 1956 to 1960. His fi rst formal study of philosophy was in the United States, where, on a Harkness Fellowship (1960–2), he studied for an MSc degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. While there, he completed a Minor in Philosophy of Science under Herbert Feigl. Later, after a year work- ing for ICI as a chemical engineer, he returned to Pembroke in 1963 as a PhD student, supervised by Mary Hesse, and submitted his thesis, ‘The Matter of Chance’, in 1968. He became a Research Fellow of Pembroke in 1964, and University Assistant Lecturer in the Faculty of Philosophy in 1965. In 1986 he was elected Professor of Philosophy, a chair from which he retired in 1999. After his retirement he was University Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research for two years, 2000–1. He has been a Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge, since 1970, and became a Fellow of the British Academy in 1983. Hugh Mellor’s contribution to philosophy is rich, varied and original.

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