7 What Do the Folk ! ink about Composition and Does it Matter? Daniel Z. Korman and Chad Carmichael Intuitively, a hammer head and the handle to which it is " rmly a# xed compose something. Intuitively, there is nothing composed of your pinky and the moon. ! eories of composition are sometimes rejected on the grounds that they con- $ ict with intuitions like these. For example, nihilism- the thesis that there are no composites- is widely rejected on such grounds. Parties to these debates commonly frame these sorts of objections in ways that suggest that the intuitions at issue are those of nonphilosophers, or "the folk." 1 ! is looks to make it an empirical question whether a given theory is at odds with the relevant intuitions. David Rose and Jonathan Scha% er (2017 ) have taken up the empirical question of what intuitions the folk have about composition, and they present some results that purport to show that teleological thinking has a substantial in$ uence on folk intuitions. ! ey take these results to impugn those intuitions, which in turn is meant to show that intuitions about when composition occurs can pose no threat to philosophical theories of composition. If they are right about this, much work in materialobject metaphysics is undermined, including our own attempts to defend a conservative metaphysics of material objects on the basis of intuitions about composition. 2 Here is how we understand their argument: ! e In" uence ! esis : Whether some objects have a collective function has a substantial in$ uence on folk intuitions about whether those objects compose something. ! e Debunking ! esis : If so, then we should not rely on folk intuitions about whether some objects compose something. 9781474278621_pi-236.indd 187 2/17/2017 11:45:01 AM 188 Daniel Z. Korman and Chad Carmichael 188 189 ! e Liberation ! esis : If so, then we should not reject theories of composition on the basis of intuitions about whether some objects compose something. Conclusion : So, we should not reject theories of composition on the basis of intuitions about whether some objects compose something. ! e In$ uence ! esis is meant to be supported by a series of survey results. ! e Debunking ! esis is meant to be supported by the contention that the folk's teleological thinking is largely "unscienti" c" and "illegitimate." Finally, the Liberation ! esis is motivated by the thought that folk intuitions are the only intuitions that could serve as reasons for rejecting theories of composition. ! e obvious alternative would be to rely on the intuitions of experts, but Rose and Scha% er contend that, because there is so little consensus among metaphysicians, no intuitions have a claim to being the intuitions of experts. A' er reviewing the aforementioned survey results in section 1 , we raise some concerns about each of the premises. In section 2 , we challenge the In$ uence ! esis, by calling attention to competing explanations of Rose and Scha% er's results. In section 3 , we challenge the Debunking ! esis by questioning whether the putative teleological in$ uences involve an objectionable kind of teleology. In section 4 , we challenge the Liberation ! esis, by showing how one can reject theories of composition on the basis of intuitions without relying either on folk intuitions or "the expertise defense." Finally, in section 5 , we o% er some re$ ections on the place of experimental philosophy in metaphysics. ! e upshot will be a vindication of intuitionbased approaches to materialobject metaphysics. 1. Four studies We will now brie$ y summarize the four studies that Rose and Scha% er o% er in support of the In$ uence ! esis (see 2017: 147–158). In all four, participants are presented with a case involving a plurality of things and are asked to provide an answer between 1 and 7, where 7 indicates complete agreement that those things compose something. 3 In the " rst study, participants are presented with a case in which two politicians are shaking hands. Given just that information, the mean response is 2.48 (SD = 1.84). When the vignette goes on to say that, by shaking hands, they are serving the function of posing for a sculptor, the mean response is 4.86 9781474278621_pi-236.indd 188 2/17/2017 11:45:02 AM What Do the Folk ! ink about Composition? 189 189 (SD = 1.60). We'll call these cases Handshake NF ('NF' for 'no function') and Handshake F ('F' for 'function') respectively. In the second study, participants are presented with a case in which a researcher glues together two previously unheard of objects ("gollywags"). Given just that information ( Gollywag NF ), the mean response is 3.85 (SD = 1.94). When the vignette goes on to say that they provide excellent back support a' er being glued together and placed on a chair ( Gollywag F ), the mean response is 5.15 (SD = 1.99). In the third study, participants are presented with a case in which two mice are glued together. Given just that information ( Mice NF ), the mean response is 3.0 (SD = 1.73). When the vignette goes on to say that the mice are better and faster at detecting explosives when glued together ( Mice F ), the mean response is 4.7 (SD = 1.15). In the fourth study, participants are presented with a case in which an avalanche leaves some rocks scattered across someone's lawn. Given just that information ( Avalanche NF ), the mean response is 3.05 (SD = 1.34). When the vignette goes on to say that the homeowner decides to leave them there because they make the lawn beautiful ( Avalanche AF , for 'accorded function'), the mean response is 5.05 (SD = 1.77). When the vignette instead goes on to say that he rearranges the rocks in a way that makes the lawn beautiful ( Avalanche DF , for 'designed function'), the mean response is 5.84 (SD = 1.52). In all four cases, the added information plainly has a substantial in$ uence on the prompted answers. ! e In$ uence ! esis provides a natural account of these results. ! e thesis draws further support from additional psychological research attesting to people's general teleological tendencies (see 2017: 141–147). Nevertheless, we are not convinced. In the following section, we explore some competing explanations of their results, which we " nd su# ciently plausible to cast signi" cant doubt on the In$ uence ! esis. 2. ! e In$ uence ! esis 2.1 Creative intentions ! e withfunction and nofunction cases di% er with respect to the apparent presence of functions. But there is a further di% erence between the withfunction and the nofunction cases that underwrites a plausible, alternative account of participants' intuitions, which we will call the creative intentions account . 9781474278621_pi-236.indd 189 2/17/2017 11:45:02 AM 190 Daniel Z. Korman and Chad Carmichael 190 191 To get the idea, let us begin by distinguishing between two ways of thinking about a given thing: (i) as having a function and (ii) as being the product of intentions to make something of a speci" c kind. To be sure, these two ways of thinking about a thing are closely connected. If one regards an object as having been made with an intention that it be a certain kind of thing, it will o' en be natural to regard it as serving some function, and vice versa. Can these come apart? We think so. For example, suppose that a child were to stack her stu% ed animals in a particular way with the intention of making what she calls an "animal pyramid." If asked what it is for, she replies, "It's not for anything!" We would say that, in that case, the animal pyramid is the product of creative intentions but has no function. But, really, it's neither here nor there whether we're right about this or whether the folk would share our judgment. All that matters is that these are two di% erent ways of thinking about a thing. Even if they turn out to be coextensive, they nevertheless underwrite importantly di% erent hypotheses about what exactly is accounting for the di% erences in intuitions. 4 According to the creative intentions account, what accounts for the di% erences in intuitions is that participants are thinking of the withfunction cases as involving the relevant creative intentions. (On this view, thoughts of function, whether or not participants have them, do not explain the di% erences in intuitions.) And indeed, all of the withfunction cases, but none of the nofunction cases, do involve sortalspeci" c creative intentions. In Handshake F , the sculptor and politicians intend to make a model. In Gollywag F , the researcher intends to make a back support. In Mice F , the researcher intends to make a bomb detector. In Avalanche DF , the homeowner intends to make a rock garden. 5 By contrast, Handshake NF and Avalanche NF involve no creative intentions whatsoever. In Gollywag NF and Mice NF , the characters in the vignettes do take themselves to have created something, but there is no indication either that there was any particular kind of thing that they were trying to make, or even that they had creative intentions at the time that they were gluing the relevant objects together. Moreover, our creative intentions account of Rose and Scha% er's results " ts well with Paul Bloom's ( 1996 ) intentionalhistorical account of folk intuitions about artifacts. According to this account, we will tend to have the intuition that an object belongs to a given artifactual kind K when we infer (or are informed) that it exists as a result of an intention to make a K. 6 Indeed, Bloom ( 1996 : section 2 ) speci" cally argues that the psychological evidence favors this sort of account over a teleological account, citing numerous cases in which subjects classify things as belonging to a given kind even when they lack the characteristic functions of that kind, and vice versa. 9781474278621_pi-236.indd 190 2/17/2017 11:45:02 AM What Do the Folk ! ink about Composition? 191 191 Finally, suppose that Rose and Scha% er are right to suggest that teleological in$ uences are illicit (more on this below). In that case, the creative intentions account looks to be more charitable than their teleological account, for the latter would then be ascribing to the folk the deeply misguided view that collectively having a function is relevant to whether some things compose something. ! e creative intentions account, by contrast, ascribes to them the view that the presence of creative intentions is relevant to whether some things compose something. ! is prima facie plausible view has been championed by numerous metaphysicians, who will think that the folk are on to something if indeed the intuitions are being in$ uenced by the presence of such creative intentions. 7 Some will no doubt disagree with us here: they will maintain that what was going on inside someone's head cannot be relevant to whether some things compose something. 8 Suppose they are right. In that case, if the folk's intuitions are in$ uenced by the mere presence or absence of creative intentions, then they are making an error that is just as ripe for debunking as the error that the teleological account attributes to them. Settling this dispute obviously lies beyond the scope of this chapter. But it is a dispute that would have to be settled before we could tell whether the creative intentions account could ground a debunking argument against folk intuitions. 2.2 Answers without intuitions Even if we were to grant that Rose and Scha% er's results demonstrate the in$ uence of teleology on participants' answers to survey questions, we would still worry that the answers do not express intuitions. It may be that participants are giving these answers without having any intuition one way or the other, or it may even be that they are giving these answers despite having intuitions to the contrary. Either way, the prompted answers would not be expressions of folk intuitions about composition. 9 ! ere is prima facie reason to think that this really is what is going on. We " nd it extremely plausible- partly because of our own experiences in the classroom- that participants who have no prior experience with philosophy will be confused about how to engage with philosophical questions about composition. And the data in several of the studies bear this out. For instance, in Handshake F , over half of participants gave answers of 3, 4, or 5 on a sevenpoint scale, which plausibly indicates some uncertainty. 10 In Avanlanche NF , nearly 40 percent gave such answers. 11 ! is is not at all what one would expect if 9781474278621_pi-236.indd 191 2/17/2017 11:45:02 AM 192 Daniel Z. Korman and Chad Carmichael 192 193 participants were simply having and reporting intuitions that composition does not occur or that it does occur. But if they are not reporting their intuitions, then what are they doing? A natural answer is that they are thinking through the cases and reporting their considered judgments, perhaps a' er talking themselves out of their intuitive reactions. For instance, as Simon Cullen ( 2010 ) has observed, the use of such scales can sometimes exacerbate the problem of answers deviating from intuitions: Respondents might interpret the presence of a Likert scale as indicating that researchers regard a question as being somewhat complex. When the question appears at " rst blush exceedingly obvious . . . this might prompt subjects to search for unintended subtleties . . . [W] hen asked a seemingly obvious question, people look for an alternative interpretation, one to which they can provide an intelligent response. (291– 292) For another illustration of how participants might talk themselves out of reporting their intuitions, take Handshake F . In the vignette, Rose and Scha% er have two characters, Liz and Andy, arguing about whether the handshaking politicians compose something. Liz insists that they do, while Andy insists that they don't. Perhaps, like the two of us, participants begin with the intuition that the politicians do not compose anything. But they then start thinking about Liz's stated reason for saying that composition does occur- namely, that the politicians function as a model. ! is strikes them as a pretty good reason, perhaps in light of further re$ ection on other paradigm cases of composition (tables, chairs, cars). By contrast, Andy's reason for thinking the politicians don't compose anything falls $ at. (He says that merely coming into contact doesn't su# ce for composition. But the politicians aren't merely in contact; their hands are clasped together, not so unlike the parts of tables, chairs, and cars.) Participants then indicate more agreement with Liz than with Andy because they take Liz to have given a better argument, not because they have the intuition that the politicians compose something. To be sure, this hypothetical reconstruction of participants' reasoning still involves a teleological in$ uence, insofar as participants are moved by Liz's reasons. So we are not right here disagreeing with Rose and Scha% er's claim that participants give the answers they do "partly on the basis of considering when that plurality serves a purpose" (2017: 147 ). Indeed, we are suggesting that their answers may well be based on such considerations as opposed to being based on intuitions. Some may object that it is bad enough if the answers are in$ uenced by teleology. But in fact this will not do for Rose and Scha% er's purposes. ! eir ultimate 9781474278621_pi-236.indd 192 2/17/2017 11:45:02 AM What Do the Folk ! ink about Composition? 193 193 goal is to impugn the reliance on intuitions about composition in metaphysics. If all they can impugn is the teleological reasoning that informs the folk's answers, then metaphysicians are in the clear so long as they avoid being led away from their own intuitions by such teleological reasoning (more on this in section 4 ). 12 2.3 Imaginative variation Our third worry is that there is every reason to expect that, in some of the studies, di% erent participants are picturing utterly di% erent things. To see what we have in mind, contrast a prompt that reads, "I glued some objects together. Do they compose something?" with one that reads, "I glued some boards together so that I could use them to $ oat from one island to the next. Do they compose something?" ! e second prompt leads us to imagine a ra' of some kind. ! e " rst leaves it entirely open as to how we are to imagine the case- perhaps it was an earthworm glued to the end of a blade of grass. Depending on how participants imagine the " rst case, there are any number of nonteleological di% erences between the cases that could explain a di% erence in the responses. Likewise, there can be no expectation that participants given Gollywag NF are picturing even roughly the same thing as participants given Gollywag F . In Gollywag NF , participants are given no guidance whatsoever either about what gollywags look like (only "nobody has ever [before] seen or heard of such a thing" (2017: 150–151)) or the way in which they are glued together. Participants could be picturing just about anything- perhaps two alien creatures glued together at the tips of some of their antennae. In Gollywag F , by contrast, their imaginative freedom is far more constrained, insofar as they must be picturing something seatlike that can be placed on a chair and sat on comfortably. 13 Similarly, in Mice NF , participants are given no guidance about how the mice are glued together- perhaps one's tail has been glued to the other's belly and they are $ ailing around chaotically. In Mice F , by contrast, they are presumably glued side by side and running together like a single eightlegged creature. As in the ra' example, given the inevitable imaginative variation, there are any number of nonteleological di% erences in how participants imagine the cases that could be accounting for the di% erent responses. 14 2.4 Suggestive wording Finally, a concern about the wording of some of the vignettes. In Handshake F , participants are told that the politicians "will be providing a model for the 9781474278621_pi-236.indd 193 2/17/2017 11:45:02 AM 194 Daniel Z. Korman and Chad Carmichael 194 195 sculpture." Signi" cantly, these words are not put in the mouths of the characters in the vignettes (Liz and Andy). Rather, it is the questioners themselves using the singular 'a model'. ! is may lead participants to infer that the questioners themselves take the politicians to compose a model, thereby encouraging participants to meet the questioners' expectations by answering in the a# rmative. Similarly, in Gollywag F , the questioners say in their own voice that the researcher "places the GollywagSupporter on his desk chair." It is not unlikely that participants were in$ uenced by the questioners' use of the singular 'the GollywagSupporter'. 15 2.5 ! e way forward We have raised a variety of concerns about the di% erent studies. With Handshake, we raised concerns about the debating characters and the use of the singular 'a model'. With Gollywag, we were concerned about the use of 'the GollywagSupporter', and in both Gollywag and Mice we were concerned about imaginative variation. Finally, in all cases, we were concerned that participants' answers do not express intuitions and that the results were better explained by the presence of creative intentions than by the (apparent) presence of collective functions. Let us end on a constructive note, indicating how our concerns might be addressed in future psychological work on folk intuitions about composition. First, if the same vignettes are used in future work, 'providing a model for' could be replaced with 'posing for', and 'the GollywagSupporter' could be replaced with 'the superglued gollywags', to address the indicated problems of suggestive wording. Second, worries about imaginative variation can largely be dealt with by presenting participants with images of the objects under discussion, to help ensure that they are picturing the same thing across the di% erent versions of the vignettes. ! ird, one can test the hypothesis that it is the di% erences in creative intentions that are in$ uencing participants' intuitions, as opposed to teleological di% erences, by examining cases involving artifacts that aren't for anything. One might, for instance, use the aforementioned case of the child who stacks her stu% ed animals with the intention of making an "animal pyramid." When asked what animal pyramids are for, she replies (in one version) that they are not for anything or (in another) that they are for scaring o% the boogeyman. Ensuring that prompted answers express intuitions will likely be more di# cult, and we do not ourselves see clearly how to achieve this. Dropping the debating characters that appear in some of the vignettes, and asking more directly 9781474278621_pi-236.indd 194 2/17/2017 11:45:02 AM What Do the Folk ! ink about Composition? 195 195 whether composition occurs, would begin to address some of the concerns we raised in section 2.2 . However, there would still remain the more general worry that the questions are so bizarre that participants won't know what to do with them, and that their answers do not express anything that anybody would want to call "intuitions." Perhaps participants can be eased into questions of composition by training them with some clear cases, in something like the following way. ! ey are shown an image of a hammer and told "there is a single thing composed of all the things in this picture, since there is something composed of the handle and head." ! ey are then shown a picture of a dog standing by a tree and are told "there is no single thing composed of all the things in this picture, since there is nothing composed of the tree and the dog." Participants can then be shown further images- with captions giving teleological or nonteleological descriptions- and asked to rate their agreement with the claim that there is a single thing composed of all the things in the image. 16 Admittedly, this sort of training procedure still won't address many other reasons for worrying that participants' answers do not express their intuitions, and indeed it may introduce new problems. 17 3. ! e Debunking ! esis We have thus far been challenging the In$ uence ! esis, according to which there are substantial teleological in$ uences on folk intuitions about composition. We turn now to the Debunking ! esis, according to which we should not rely on folk intuitions about composition if the In$ uence ! esis is true. ! e idea behind the Debunking ! esis is that there is something deeply problematic about teleology. But if teleology is wrong, we don't want to be right. Lots of things obviously do have functions- artifacts, if nothing else. ! ere is nothing unscienti" c, illegitimate, or "benighted" about the idea that umbrellas are for blocking the rain. If it were only legitimate teleology of this sort that had an in$ uence on folk intuitions, we would have little reason to accept the Debunking ! esis. What reason, then, is there to accept the Debunking ! esis? In their defense of the thesis, Rose and Scha% er present psychological evidence indicating that the folk have a tendency to engage in clearly illegitimate teleological thinking, extending well beyond the realm of human artifacts. For instance, they point to studies suggesting that children are willing to give teleological accounts of just about anything: pointy rocks are for scratching itches, clouds are for raining, and 9781474278621_pi-236.indd 195 2/17/2017 11:45:02 AM 196 Daniel Z. Korman and Chad Carmichael 196 197 lions are "for going to the zoo" (2017: 143). Additional evidence suggests that the e% ect persists into adulthood, particularly in conditions of cognitive strain (2017: 144–145). We of course agree that these are misattributions of function and purpose. Perhaps all nonartifactual teleology is illegitimate. Nevertheless, we do not see how this is relevant to the cases at hand. In all of the withfunction cases, if the candidate composers do indeed compose something, what they compose is an artifact: a model for a sculpture, a back support, a bomb detector, or a rock garden. 18 For these reasons, Rose and Scha% er's studies should not convince us that folk intuitions about composition involve an unacceptably promiscuous application of teleological concepts. Still, they might try to motivate the Debunking ! esis by claiming that the aforementioned promiscuity reveals a misunderstanding of function, and that, given this misunderstanding, the in$ uence of teleology on folk intuitions is always illicit. What exactly is the misunderstanding supposed to be? Rose and Scha% er insist that the folk are "teleomentalists," by which we understand them to mean that the folk take functions always to be rooted in intentions or other mental states. Perhaps what they have in mind is that, according to the folk's understanding of function, whenever things have functions, there must be agents who bestow those functions upon them. Rose and Scha% er (2017: 145) point to evidence that the folk are deeply inclined to believe that animals have the functional parts they do (e.g., gira% es' long necks) because "nature" intended for them to have those functions. ! is, we agree, would be a mistake. But it is utterly plausible that human artifacts have the functions that they do as a result of intentions. We don't see anything wrong with teleomentalism (so understood) as long as it is restricted to the realm of artifacts. And, since the studies all involve both artifacts and agents to bestow functions upon them- the sculptor, the researchers, the homeowner- there is nothing problematic about this sort of teleomentalist understanding of the cases at hand. Alternatively, perhaps what Rose and Scha% er have in mind in calling the folk "teleomentalists" is that the folk attribute agential characteristics to the bearers of function. On this view, when the folk claim that an umbrella is for blocking rain, they bizarrely think that the umbrella intends to block the rain. We " nd it very hard to believe that the folk think about artifacts in this way. Rose and Scha% er may suggest that the view draws some support from people's general willingness to take up "the intentional stance"- as when subjects describe moving geometric " gures on a screen as "trying to escape" (2017: 146)- though we 9781474278621_pi-236.indd 196 2/17/2017 11:45:02 AM What Do the Folk ! ink about Composition? 197 197 are skeptical. 19 In any case, this still falls short of establishing the Debunking ! esis. For the folk would still be correct in thinking that the items in question have the functions they do- even if they're wrong about the source of the functions- in which case it's unproblematic that (correct) teleological judgments are in$ uencing their intuitions about composition. We have just been considering two ways in which the folk might be thought to misunderstand teleological concepts, as always involving agential bestowers or as always involving agential bearers. A more radical approach to motivating the Debunking ! esis is to claim, not that the folk misunderstand teleological concepts, but rather that, in thinking of teleology in these ways, they correctly understand their own, defective teleological concepts, which do not apply to anything at all. By 'function', the idea goes, we "serious theorists" express the concept function lite , and indeed some things do have functions lite . ! e folk, on the other hand, express the concept function heavy , and are mistaken even when they say "umbrellas have functions," for they are wrongly saying that umbrellas have functions heavy . But we " nd it completely implausible- on wellknown externalist grounds (see Burge 1979 )- that the folk mean something di% erent from us by 'function' ('purpose', 'for'), even if their understanding of teleological concepts is substantially di% erent from ours. Here is one " nal way that Rose and Scha% er might try to explain the badness of the folk's teleological tendencies. ! ey might say that the relevant problem is the folk's tendency to give teleological explanations . While there may be nothing wrong in saying that a particular pointy rock is for scratching itches (e.g., if you have been using it as an itchscratcher), there is something wrong with supposing that it is pointy because it is for scratching itches. Be that as it may, there are cases in which teleological explanations are entirely unproblematic: there is nothing unscienti" c about explaining what makes this or that object an umbrella partly in terms of the fact that it functions as an umbrella. So the mere fact that teleology plays an explanatory role in the folk's thinking is not itself problematic. Rose and Scha% er might concede that teleological explanations are sometimes correct but insist that teleological explanations of why composition occurs are never correct. And, for what it's worth, we would agree with that. 20 ! is is in part because we think that there are counterexamples to teleological accounts of composition (see section 4 ), and in part because we think that there are more promising explanations of why composition occurs when it does. 21 Nevertheless, even granting that teleological explanations of composition are wrongheaded, this is not enough to secure the Debunking ! esis. For that, we would need evidence, not just that folk intuitions are in some way in$ uenced by the perceived 9781474278621_pi-236.indd 197 2/17/2017 11:45:02 AM 198 Daniel Z. Korman and Chad Carmichael 198 199 presence of teleology, but, more speci" cally, that they are in$ uenced by dubious teleological explanations. However, the studies do not seem to support anything as speci" c as that. In conclusion: ! e Debunking ! esis rests on the idea that folk intuitions about composition involve a teleological mistake. We have argued that Rose and Scha% er have failed to identify any mistake that the folk are making and that is plausibly responsible for their (allegedly) teleologicallyin$ uenced intuitions. ! e folk may indeed be in$ uenced by the assumption that there is teleology in the realm of human artifacts, but this is no mistake. And they may indeed have mistaken teleological assumptions about the nonartifactual realm, but we have no reason to think that those mistakes underwrite their intuitions about Rose and Scha% er's artifactual cases. We see no good reason to accept the Debunking ! esis. 4. ! e Liberation ! esis We have raised some doubts about both the In$ uence ! esis and the Debunking ! esis. But suppose these are true and that folk intuitions about composition cannot be trusted on account of illicit teleological in$ uences. What does this tell us about the metaphysics of composition? Rose and Scha% er contend that, in undermining the folk intuitions, they have thereby liberated theories of composition from any pressure to conform to intuitions. ! e Liberation ! esis : If we should not rely on folk intuitions about whether some objects compose something, then we should not reject theories of composition on the basis of intuitions about whether some objects compose something. ! e liberation from intuitions about composition is meant to be total: metaphysicians working on theories of composition are supposed to be liberated, not only from folk intuitions about when composition occurs, but from anyone's intuitions about when composition occurs. Why accept the Liberation ! esis? Even supposing that folk intuitions have successfully been debunked, why can't a philosopher rely on his or her own intuitions? For instance, we (Chad and Dan) reject nihilism on the basis of the intuition that atoms arranged dogwise compose something. We do not accept that they compose something on the basis of folk intuitions (i.e., the intuitions of nonphilosophers). Rather, each of us, neither of whom is any longer a member 9781474278621_pi-236.indd 198 2/17/2017 11:45:02 AM What Do the Folk ! ink about Composition? 199 199 of the folk, accepts it on the basis of his own intuition that atoms arranged dogwise compose something. Other philosophers may accept it on the basis of the intuitions that they speculatively attribute to the folk. So much the worse for them. Some may object that it is unrealistically optimistic to suppose that our intuitions, unlike those of virtually everyone else on the planet, have somehow escaped the nearly ubiquitous in$ uence of teleology. But, setting aside our concerns from section 2 , Rose and Scha% er's results would seem to provide excellent reason for thinking that we do not have the teleologicallyinfused intuitions that they attribute to the folk. We have a clear intuition that the politicians do not compose anything in Handshake F . We have an intuition that the mice do not compose anything when you glue them together in Mice F . We have an intuition that no new object comes into existence when the homeowner sees the rocks in Avalanche AF and realizes that they make his lawn beautiful. We don't share the folk's alleged intuitions about these cases, which is reason to think that we are immune, or at least resistant, to teleological in$ uences. 22 Additional evidence of our immunity to teleological in$ uences appears in our intuitive reactions to antiteleological arguments in the literature. Consider the following simple teleological account of composition: some x s compose something i% the x s together serve some function. We take this view to have been soundly refuted by H. Scott Hestevold: Consider a counterexample . . . which will provide a case in which two objects together serve the requisite purposive function and yet there is no object strictly made up of those two things. ! e purposive function of twoway communication is served by the twoway radio located at the $ ightcontrol center at Cape Kennedy and by the twoway radio located in a space capsule orbiting on the other side of the Earth. Although the [proposed conditions for composition are] satis" ed in this situation, the two things [do not compose anything]. 23 Hestevold's counterexample evokes in us (Chad and Dan) an utterly compelling intuition: that the radios do not compose anything. ! e counterexamples are even clearer in the other direction. Atoms arranged pebblewise typically do not together serve any function. But we have the intuition that they do compose something, namely, a pebble. Once again, we have somehow escaped the alleged in$ uence of teleology. Recognizing that we do not share the folk's intuitions about cases like Handshake F and Mice F may give rise to another objection, namely, that intuitional disagreement with the folk is a defeater for our own intuitive beliefs. In 9781474278621_pi-236.indd 199 2/17/2017 11:45:02 AM 200 Daniel Z. Korman and Chad Carmichael 200 201 response, we are happy to grant (at least for the sake of argument) that intuitional disagreement is typically a defeater, and even that folk intuitions typically trump philosophers' intuitions. But, in the present context, where we are supposing that the folk's intuitions have indeed been debunked, diverging from their intuitions cannot be cause for concern. To be clear, we don't here take ourselves to be invoking the socalled expertise defense. 24 We're not saying that the intuitions of trained philosophers are generally of higher quality than those of the untrained folk. Nor are we saying that our training is in this case responsible for our resistance to the teleological in$ uences. 25 We are not o% ering any hypothesis about the source of our resistance. For all we have said here, this may just be a selection e% ect: we have managed to become professional philosophers because we lack the teleological tendencies, not the other way around. Once again, all we are saying is that, in cases in which folk intuitions have been debunked, failing to share the folk's intuitions isn't a defeater. Finally, one might object that di% erences among metaphysicians ' intuitions about when composition occurs makes our reliance on our own intuitions problematic. 26 Again, we agree that intuitional disagreement can in principle be problematic. But do metaphysicians have di% erent intuitions about composition? To be sure, plenty of them would give di% erent answers from us about whether composition occurs in this or that case. But there is good reason to doubt that intuitions about when composition occurs motivate their answers. For one thing, these philosophers have been very explicit about why they give the answers that they do: because accepting that composition sometimes occurs leads to violations of anticolocation principles, or because accepting composition in some cases but not others leads to vague existence or intolerable arbitrariness. 27 ! is suggests that their answers to questions about when composition occurs are based not on competing intuitions- the intuition that my pinky and the moon do compose something or the intuition that a hammer head and handle don't compose anything- but rather on philosophical arguments. 28 Of course, the fact that they argue for their answers doesn't mean that they don't also have intuitions directly in support of those answers. But if they truly did have such intuitions, one would expect to " nd them treating their views as natural, intuitive starting points. What one " nds, however, are concessions that their views are odd or incredible. Sometimes, these concessions are supplemented by attempts to impugn the intuitions that tell against their views. Other times, they are supplemented with attempts to show that we have somehow misunderstood or misdescribed the intuitions that seem to tell against their views. 29 9781474278621_pi-236.indd 200 2/17/2017 11:45:02 AM What Do the Folk ! ink about Composition? 201 201 ! e fact that they go to such lengths to impugn or explain away the intuitions strongly suggests that they share our intuitions and accept the views they do despite having the intuitions. 30 5. Experimental philosophy and its place in metaphysics We have cast doubt on the In$ uence ! esis: there is reason to think that something other than teleology is in$ uencing participants' answers and reason to suspect that the answers don't express intuitions at all. We have challenged the Debunking ! esis by arguing that, to the extent that folk intuitions have been shown to be in$ uenced by teleology, it is not teleology of the bad sort but rather the completely innocuous sort that we expect to " nd in the world of artifacts. Finally, we have challenged the Liberation ! esis by showing that one can reasonably rely on intuitions about composition without having to rely on the intuitions of nonphilosophers. Let us close with a brief word about how we see the role of experimental philosophy in the metaphysics of composition. First, an analogy: You believe that it is 4:15 because you check your phone and seem to see '4:15' displayed on the screen. You are justi" ed in believing that it is 4:15 on that basis, and you are justi" ed despite not having checked in with your neighbor or an optometrist or a psychiatrist. Of course, there are things you can learn from these people that would undermine your justi" cation. If your neighbor's phone says that it is 4:51, or if an optometrist tells you that your eyes are playing tricks on you, or if a psychiatrist says that you are completely delusional and do not even own a phone, it is probably time to suspend belief. ! e point is that, although these investigations can in principle undermine belief, you can be justi" ed in believing that it is 4:15 without undertaking them. Similarly, we think that each metaphysician's primary evidence for assessing theories of composition is her own intuitions. She does not, for example, need to base her belief that nihilism is false on any empirical hypothesis about what intuitions the folk have. Nor is there any problem with basing one's beliefs on one's own intuitions without " rst checking what intuitions the folk or other philosophers have. 31 ! is is not to deny that revelations about the intuitions of the folk or other philosophers can a% ect our justi" catory status. As mentioned earlier, intuitional disagreement can sometimes undermine our intuitive beliefs. Indeed, experimental philosophy can in principle undermine our intuitive beliefs in just the 9781474278621_pi-236.indd 201 2/17/2017 11:45:02 AM 202 Daniel Z. Korman and Chad Carmichael 202 203 way Rose and Scha% er think: by revealing that they are in$ uenced by factors that by our own lights are irrelevant. 32 But so can " nding out that you have taken a pill that disrupts your ability to think clearly about composition. Our point is that you do not " rst have to investigate and rule out all of these inprinciple defeaters in order to be justi" ed in forming beliefs about composition on the basis of your own intuitions. 33 Notes 1 See, for example, Sanford ( 1993 : 220) on "naive, commonsense, folk mereology," Markosian ( 1998 : 211) on "standard, prephilosophical intuitions," ! omasson ( 2007 : 128) on "our pretheoretic sense of what objects there are," Korman ( 2009 ) on "pretheoretical beliefs," Hirsch ( 2011 : 182) on "prephilosophical assertions of commonsense," and Kriegel ( 2011 : 198) on "folk's intuitive verdicts." 2 See Carmichael ( 2015 ) and Korman ( 2015 ). 3 In some cases, participants are directly asked the extent to which they agree that the objects compose something. In others, the vignettes feature two characters disagreeing about whether composition occurs, and participants are asked which of the two characters they agree with (e.g., on a scale with 1 marked 'Smith is right', 4 marked 'Neither is right', and 7 marked 'Jones is right'). 4 Even enemies of teleology should acknowledge the di% erence, since they won't want to think of anything as having a function , but they will presumably agree that some things are the products of creative intentions . 5 Even Avalanche AF involves something like, but not exactly like, sortalspeci" c creative intentions. No one, in this case, sets out to make a rock garden, but there at least is an intention that it be a rock garden. ! is may help explain why subjects lean more toward procomposition judgments in Avalanche AF than in Avalanche NF . 6 Bloom ( 1996 : 10) suggests an additional requirement that one successfully bestow upon the object features characteristic of the intended kind; cf. ! omasson ( 2003 : 598). ! is may help explain the di% erent judgments in Rose and Scha% er's rope cases (2017: 162–163). ! ough the di% erences may be better explained in some of the ways we described in section 2.2 and section 2.3 . 7 See ! omasson ( 2003 : section 3.1), Wasserman ( 2004 : 700), Korman ( 2010 : section 7, 2015 : ch. 8.4), and Evnine ( 2013 ); cf. Baker ( 2000 : 38– 39, 2007 : 11– 13). ! e view that the presence of creative intentions is relevant to which objects there are can be motivated by re$ ection on cases like the following. When a sculptor deliberately chisels a hunk of stone into some statuesque shape, a statue comes into existence. But suppose that a meteoroid, as a result of random collisions with 9781474278621_pi-236.indd 202 2/17/2017 11:45:02 AM What Do the Folk ! ink about Composition? 203 203 space junk, temporarily comes to be a qualitative duplicate of some actual statue. Intuitively, nothing new comes into existence which, unlike the meteoroid, cannot survive further collisions that deprive the meteoroid of its statuesque form. 8 See van Inwagen ( 1990 : 12– 13), Rea ( 1998 : 352), and Hudson ( 2001 : 111). 9 See Bengson ( 2013 ) who makes a powerful case that answers do not express intuitions in many of the most prominent studies in experimental philosophy. Cf. Wright (2009, 2013 ) and Cullen ( 2010 ). 10 No participants answered 1, three answered 2, two answered 3, seven answered 4, six answered 5, four answered 6, and six answered 7. 11 Sixteen participants answered 1, nine answered 2, eleven answered 3, nine answered 4, two answered 5, " ve answered 6, and four answered 7. 12 Cf. Wright ( 2013 : 498). 13 ! is is particularly troubling since the experiment uses a betweensubjects design: the group of participants responding to Gollywag F was disjoint from the group responding to Gollywag NF . 14 One might object that, if indeed participants are imagining di% erent things, one would expect a random distribution in Gollywag NF and Mice NF , which is not what Rose and Scha% er found. However, even if the vignettes provide little guidance to participants' imaginations, the resulting imaginative variation is not completely unconstrained. We would expect certain psychological defaults here. For example, if asked to imagine a dog and given no further guidance, most participants would surely imagine a dog with four legs. ! anks to David Rose and Jonathan Livengood here. 15 Cf. Cullen ( 2010 : 280– 281) on the in$ uence of seemingly insigni" cant features of the experimental design. 16 Even better, following Wright (2009), participants could be asked a "yes/ no" question about whether composition occurs and then given a scale for rating their con" dence in their answer. We think this would go some way toward addressing Cullen's concern about scales (mentioned in section 2.2 ). 17 One potential problem is that it may encourage participants to report judgments of similarity between test cases and training cases, as opposed to reporting intuitions about the test cases (cf. Bengson 2013 : section 5.1). In addition, the proposed training is problematic if we want to leave open whether the folk are nihilists or universalists. But it seems reasonable to set nihilism and universalism aside, especially in light of Rose and Scha% er's results on pp. 158–159. 18 Some may say that the rock garden is not an artifact in Avalanche AF . Even if that's true, insofar as it belongs to a kind most of whose instances are designed artifacts (viz., rock gardens), it is similar enough to an artifact to render the ascription of teleology not clearly inappropriate. 19 ! e example of the moving shapes is from Heider and Simmel ( 1944 ). Heider and Simmel themselves describe their experiment in mentalistic terms, saying, "a few 9781474278621_pi-236.indd 203 2/17/2017 11:45:02 AM 204 Daniel Z. Korman and Chad Carmichael 204 205 'anthropomorphic' words are used since a description in purely geometrical terms would be too complicated and too di# cult to understand" (245). We suspect that participants do so for similar reasons. 20 ! ough some would disagree. See Bowers ( manuscript ) for a defense of a teleological account of composition; cf. Simons ( 2006 : section 5 ). 21 See Carmichael ( 2015 ) and Korman ( 2015 : ch. 8.4). 22 We are also evidently immune to the folk's alleged tendency to attribute function or purpose to everything in nature: we " nd the suggestion that arbitrary pebbles have a function or purpose absurd. 23 Hestevold ( 1981 : 374). 24 See, for example, Weinberg et al. ( 2010 ), Sosa ( 2011 ), Williamson ( 2011 ), and Sytsma and Livengood ( 2015 : ch. 4.3) for discussion. 25 ! ough we do think that training helps ensure that people report their intuitions (rather than other mental states) about p (rather than q) when asked for their intuitions about p. 26 See Rose and Scha% er (2017: 173). 27 See Korman ( 2015 : ch. 2, 2016 ) for an overview of the arguments. 28 Of course, the premises of these arguments are themselves motivated by intuitions, but not intuitions about whether composition occurs in this or that case. Accordingly, the fact that they are moved by these arguments is no indication that have di% erent intuitions about which things compose something. 29 See Korman ( 2015 : chs. 5– 7) for an overview. 30 See Korman ( 2015 : ch. 4.3.3) for more on intuitional disagreement. 31 Why then are we always asking each other about our intuitions? O' en, it is because we are about to use an intuitiondriven argument to convince someone of something, and we are checking whether they share the intuitions that underwrite the argument. 32 ! ough, as we emphasized in section 4 , it's far less troubling if all that can be shown is that other people, ourselves not included, are having intuitions that are in$ uenced by irrelevant factors. 33 ! anks to John Bengson, Zach Horne, David Kovacs, Jonathan Livengood, David Rose, Jonathan Scha% er, and Jen Wright for helpful comments. References Baker , L. R. ( 2000 ). Persons and bodies . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . Baker , L. R. 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