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How metaphysics is special: comments on Bennett

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Abstract

Karen Bennett argues that there is no distinct problem with metaphysics, and she proposes a disjunctive conception of the subject matter of metaphysics. This paper critically examines her arguments and positive view. I defend that metaphysics prima facie is distinctly problematic, and I raise some questions about Bennett’s disjunctive conception of the subject matter of metaphysics and the a priori aspect of its methodology.

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Notes

  1. All page references are to the final draft of Bennett (2015).

  2. I will not address Bennett’s characterization of what makes a problem distinct, besides this footnote. The notion is intuitively clear enough for the present discussion, and I agree with basically everything she says in the section of her paper about the attempts to characterize it more precisely. One possible improvement on the last proposal (5) would be to restate it in terms of generics, and thereby to free it from purely extensional considerations without relying on unclear notions like ‘flowing from the nature of’ or the like. So, the proposal could use a formulation like ‘metaphysicians have this problem’ in its generic reading, rather than a strict or “proportional” reading (and similarly for the other way round: non-metaphysicians don’t have this problem). A generic understanding of a problem being distinctly metaphysical, i.e. one as metaphysician do, and others don’t, have this problem (understood as generic statements) might avoid some of the worries that proposal (5) faces, but for our purposes here an intuitive understanding of ‘distinct’ is good enough.

  3. See Hofweber (2009a) and, in particular, chapter 12 of Hofweber (2014) for more on the issues in this section.

  4. What ‘a question of fact’ is is, of course, not completely clear, but I hope clear enough for present purposes.

  5. Of course, taking recourse to a notion of fundamentality or a related notion is often done to try to solve this problem. Bennett rejects tying the subject matter of metaphysics to such notions, and I agree with her here, although maybe for different reasons.

  6. I should note that Bennett does not list ‘are there properties?’ as an example question in her spelling out of the toolbox metaphor, although the metaphor in general is partly spelled out as finding out what there is and what it is like. Instead she uses the question “ … what […] properties might be, or whether we can somehow do without them?” (p. 14) The latter part, whether we can do without them, could be taken to be a part of the task of metaphysics that isn’t in the domain, since it is not a question about what the world is like but whether we can describe it in a different way than we in fact do. Although this might be suggestive, I take this not the be her official view.

  7. See Fine (2001).

  8. For example, Amie Thomasson, in Thomasson (2007), and Alan Sidelle, in Sidelle (2002), have argued that certain metaphysical problems about ordinary objects are based on a mistake. I have argued that the problem of change falls into this category in Hofweber (2009b). And, of course, Carnap argued that ontology as a whole belongs there, in Carnap (1956). Although Carnap would be happy to reject much of metaphysics with ontology, this is certainly not true for others who reject particular metaphysical problems.

  9. I believe this to be the case for certain problems in ontology, including the problem whether there are properties. In Hofweber (2009a) and Hofweber (2014) I also argue that the problem whether there are properties, as well as several other ones, belongs in the domain of metaphysics conceived as its own domain, while the problem whether there are material objects does not. I could explain why, but it would take a little bit longer than I have space here.

References

  • Bennett, K. (2015). There is no special problem with metaphysics. Philosophical Studies. doi:10.1007/s11098-014-0439-0.

  • Carnap, R. (1956). Empiricism, semantics, and ontology. In R. Carnap (Ed.), Meaning and Necessity: A Study in Semantics and Modal Logic, Supplement A (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  • Fine, K. (2001). The question of realism. Philosophers’ Imprint, 1(1). www.philosophersimprint.org/001001/

  • Hofweber, T. (2009a). Ambitious, yet modest, metaphysics. In D. Chalmers, D. Manley, & R. Wasserman (Eds.), Metametaphysics: New essays on the foundations of ontology (pp. 269–289). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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  • Hofweber, T. (2009b). The meta-problem of change. Noûs, 43(2), 286–314.

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  • Hofweber, T. (2014). Ontology and the ambitions of metaphysics. Book manuscript.

  • Mackie, J. L. (1977). Ethics: Inventing right and wrong. London: Harmondsworth Press.

  • Sidelle, A. (2002). Is there a true metaphysics of material objects? Philosophical Issues, 12(1), 118–145.

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  • Thomasson, A. L. (2007). Ordinary Objects. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Hofweber, T. How metaphysics is special: comments on Bennett. Philos Stud 173, 39–48 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0435-4

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