Why Care About What There Is? Daniel Z. Korman Forthcoming in The Question of Ontology (OUP) 1. Why Eliminate When You Can Demote? Metaphysicians have taken a keen interest in the question of which if any ordinary macroscopic objects there are, with a number of brave souls defending the surprising answer that there are none-or at least, not as many as you would think.1 There has also been increasing interest in a further range of questions about ordinary objects: whether they are fundamental (Schaffer 2009), or are in the domain of the most fundamental quantifier (Sider 2011), or enjoy a fundamental mode of being (McDaniel 2017), or "ultimately" exist (Dorr 2005), or are "worldly" (Azzouni 2017), or are truthmakers for sentences about ordinary objects (Cameron 2008), or are referenced in the most perspicuous account of reality (Hawthorne and Cortens 1995), or whether the existence of such things is "constitutive of reality" (Fine 2001). I'll refer to these further questions as questions about the ultimacy of ordinary objects. One can think of these questions as pointing to two different ways of "doing without" ordinary objects: doing without them in one's account of what there is and doing without them in one's account of what's ultimate. Eliminativists do without ordinary objects by denying that there are ordinary objects of this or that kind.2 Demotionists (as I'll call them) do without ultimate ordinary objects, acknowledging that there are ordinary objects but "demoting" them to some nonultimate status. The question of whether to eliminate ordinary objects and the question of whether to demote ordinary objects both strike me as perfectly good ontological questions. My aim here, though, is not to assess what the correct answers are. Indeed, I'll just assume that the correct answer is yes there are ordinary objects and no they are not ultimate. My aim, rather, is to assess an oftrepeated complaint that the former question should never have been what's at issue: those who 1 See, e.g., Unger (1979, 1980), van Inwagen (1981, 1990), Heller (1990), Horgan (1993), Olson (1995), Hoffman and Rosenkrantz (1997), Hossack (2000), Merricks (2001, 2016), Dorr (2002), Horgan and Potrč (2008), and Benovsky (2015, 2018). 2 The qualification "this or that kind"-which I omit in what follows-is needed in order to cover those eliminativists who do think there are some ordinary objects (e.g. animals). 2 have been denying that (or debating whether) there are ordinary objects should only ever have been denying (or debating) their ultimacy. Some examples: It is not important that the ontological nihilist assent to the claim 'Strictly speaking, there are no objects.' What is crucial instead is that the ontological nihilist insist that object talk and the concept of an object have no place in a perspicuous account of reality. (Hawthorne and Cortens 1995: 157). The debate over [composite objects] should not be pursued... by trying to work out what sentences [about which composites there are] are true. The debate should be pursued by trying to work out whether there is any truthmaking work to be done by complex objects that cannot be done solely by collections of simples. (Cameron 2008: 17) [T]he answers to ontological questions are non-trivial. Thus whatever the answer to the ontological question of whether numbers exist, it is neither trivially true nor trivially false; and similarly for the existence of chairs and tables or the like. However, the answer to the corresponding quantificational questions are trivial... given the evident fact that I am sitting on a chair, it trivially follows that there is a chair. (Fine 2009: 158) Ontology isn't concerned with what there is-or at least it shouldn't be... [T]he ontologist's concern should be: what must the quantificational structure of the world be like to ground the true English claims we make? (Cameron 2010b: 16-17) [W]e should reformulate nihilism as the view that in the fundamental sense, there are no composite entities (Sider 2013a: 253). Instead of arguing about whether or not tables exist ... metaphysicians ought to argue about whether simples make true sentences about tables. (Rettler 2016: 1413-1414) Once we recognize that [ordinary objects] might be beings by courtesy [i.e., things that don't enjoy a fundamental mode of being], should we shift focus away from the questions of whether these entities exist and focus instead on the question of how they exist? Yes. (McDaniel 2017: 162) The common thread running through these passages is the normative thesis that it is only demotionism, and not eliminativism, that should be advanced by ontologists inclined to do without ordinary objects and that is a proper subject of ontological inquiry.3 Let's call this normative thesis retreatism, since it's calling on eliminativists to retreat to demotionism, and calling upon those of us who have been engaged in the debate over whether there are ordinary objects to retreat to a debate about the ultimacy of ordinary objects. 3 See also Schaffer (2009: 361), Williams (2012: 169-171), and Dershowitz (2018). 3 In saying that eliminativists should stop denying that there are ordinary objects and should instead deny only their ultimacy, I understand retreatists to be saying something more substantive than just that eliminativists should believe true things (like demotionism) instead of false things (like eliminativism). Rather, the idea is that given their very reasons for wanting to do without ordinary objects, eliminativists should only ever have been embracing demotionism. By way of analogy, imagine an old-fashioned analytic utilitarian who, in pursuit of a naturalistically respectable reduction of moral facts, identifies the concept of rightness with the concept of maximizing utility. Once the distinction between identifying the concepts and identifying the associated properties comes clearly into view, it would arguably be perverse for this utilitarian to persist in identifying the concepts. After all, merely identifying the properties gives her everything she wants-a naturalistic reduction on which rightness is just a matter of maximizing utility-while at the same time sidestepping the objections that arise specifically for those who identify the concepts, for instance that it is blindingly obvious that these are two different concepts. Because it's so obvious that the concepts are different and because there is no longer any good reason to affirm their identity, there is just no sensible debate to be had about whether they are identical. All parties to the debate should happily grant the distinctness of the concepts, and carry on with their debate more or less as before but recast in terms of property identity. The envisaged ethical retreatism isn't merely saying that we should stop embracing or discussing analytic utilitarianism because there are better views around. She's saying that the analytic utilitarian's own motivations provide no reason to embrace or even discuss this needlessly strong view once the availability of the property identity view comes into focus. Likewise for the ontological retreatist: the eliminativist's own motivations provide no reason to embrace or even discuss the needlessly strong view that there are no ordinary objects once the demotionist option is on the table. I will be defending a more ecumenical view about ontological questions. There are importantly different reasons for wanting to do without ordinary objects. Those gripped by the concerns that permeate the traditional debates about eliminativism, for instance avoiding certain sorts of indeterminacy and arbitrariness, are right to be advancing or debating views about whether there are ordinary objects. Those gripped by the quite different concerns that typically animate demotionists, for instance securing a maximally parsimonious ontology, are right to be advancing 4 and debating views about the ultimacy of ordinary objects. If the question of ontology is the question properly at issue when we are wondering whether to "do without" such and such entities, then nothing is the question of ontology. One question of ontology addresses what there is, and one addresses what's ultimate. In what follows, I address two different motivations for retreatism. The first is that demotionism looks to be an offer eliminativists can't refuse: it gives them everything they want (a way to do without ordinary objects) with none of the costs. Second, there is reason to think that the question of whether there are ordinary objects cannot possibly be what's at issue, because that would render ontological questions easily answerable or insufficiently philosophical. After explaining why these motivations fall short, I close by looking at some other metaontological reactions to the easy answerability of questions about what there is-Amie Thomasson's deflationism and Thomas Hofweber's solution to the so-called "puzzle about ontology"-and advancing an alternative, moderate Moorean approach, according to which disputed questions about what there is can sensibly be debated despite being easily answerable (§6). 2. Why Not Eliminate? Retreatism is meant to be motivated, at least in part, by the idea that demotionism gives the eliminativist everything she wants without any of the disadvantages of eliminativism.4 The supposed disadvantage is that denying that there are ordinary objects seems to fly in the face of common sense. Happily, common sense has little if anything to say against the demotionist's esoteric claims about the nonultimacy of ordinary objects. Demotionism would seem to be an offer they can't refuse. It's true that some eliminativists care deeply about respecting common sense and are loathe to cross it.5 But it's at least as common for eliminativists to address the conflict with common sense by advancing "debunking arguments", arguments meant to undermine the commonsense beliefs about objects by revealing them to have a disreputable source. These, to my mind, are some of the strongest arguments in the eliminativist's arsenal.6 4 See, e.g., Cameron (2008), Schaffer (2009), Williams (2012), and Rettler (2016). 5 See, e.g., van Inwagen (1990: chs. 10-11); though, for van Inwagen, what's to be avoided is conflict with "universal belief", not "common sense" (1990: 103). 6 See Heller (1990: §2.6), Merricks (2001: 72-76, 2003: §3), Dorr (2002: ch.2), Daly and Liggins (2010: 224-225), and Benovsky (2015, 2018: ch. 1.4 and ch. 2); cf. Sider (2013a: §2 and §5) and 5 The debunking arguments tend to come in one of two varieties. First there are those that turn on the insensitivity of the perceptual source of our object beliefs. We seem to see tables only because we are hard-wired to experience regions filled by atoms arranged tablewise as being filled by a single macroscopic object. Accordingly, the idea goes, we would have had table experiences in the presence of atoms so arranged regardless of whether they composed a table. This realization is meant to undermine your perceptual belief in tables, in just the way that realizing you're wearing green-tinted lenses would undermine your belief that you're surrounded by green things (Merricks 2003: 739). Second, there are those that turn on imaginative exercises involving communities who are naturally inclined to conceptually divide up the world into strange kinds of objects. The point of these exercises is to convince us that which conceptual scheme we ended up with is just a reflection of our peculiar interests or hard-wiring, not a reflection of which arrangements of atoms do in fact compose objects or this or that kind. And once we realize that we believe what we do about which objects there are for reasons having nothing to do with which objects there in fact are, that serves as a defeater for our beliefs.7 It would be incoherent for eliminativists who advance these debunking arguments to retreat to demotionism on the grounds that they would thereby avoid conflict with common sense. Once it has been debunked, there is no reason (even ceteris paribus, even pro tanto) to prefer views that respect the deliverances of common sense, just as there is no reason to prefer views that respect the verdicts of a magic eight-ball toy.8 The apparent advantage of demotionism would be merely apparent, and retreat to demotionism would be at best a lateral move-hardly an "offer they can't refuse". Azzouni (2017: 152-153). Even van Inwagen himself, in earlier work (1981: 127), advances a sort of debunking argument against our affinity for undetached body parts like legs. See my (2015: ch. 7, forthcoming a) for further discussion of debunking arguments. 7 See, e.g., Heller (1990: §2.6). 8 Cf. Sider (2013a: 259-260) on how perceptual justification is not merely "outweighed", but rather "vanishes" altogether, in the face of undercutting defeaters. 6 3. Why Eliminate? We have been examining eliminativists' reasons for being unfazed by conflicts with common sense, and found that (by their lights) there is little if anything to be gained by retreating to demotionism. Worse, when we examine eliminativists' reasons for wanting to do without tables, what we find is that their hands are tied: whatever advantage there may be to merely demoting and not eliminating, their reasons prevent them from retreating to demotionism. Far from being an offer they can't refuse, demotionism is an offer they can't accept. Let's remind ourselves, then, of the arguments for eliminativism. I present them here as arguments for eliminating a certain table. ARBITRARINESS: When the army bulldozes some sand in the desert to barricade their caravan, no new object comes to be as a result. Yet there is no difference between arranging some pieces of wood "tablewise" and arranging some sand "barricadewise" that could account for a new object being created in the one case but not the other. So, by parity of reason, nothing comes to be as a result of arranging some wood tablewise. But if there is a table here, it's something that came to be as a result of arranging some wood tablewise.9 COINCIDENCE: Suppose that there is a wooden table here. If so, then there is also a hunk of wood here that coincides with the table and yet differs from it modally. But it is impossible for there to be coinciding objects that differ modally.10 EXISTENTIAL INDETERMINACY: If there is a table here, then there is at least one composite object. But if composition ever occurs, then it will sometimes be vague whether some things compose something, in which case it will sometimes be vague what there is. But it is impossible for there to be vagueness with respect to what there is.11 OVERDETERMINATION: If there is a table here, there must be some events that it causes; certainly it's not a mere epiphenomenon. But there is nothing for it to cause that isn't already caused by atoms arranged tablewise. So (on pain of overdetermination), nothing that happens is caused by any table here.12 9 See van Inwagen (1990: 124-126), Horgan (1993), Olson (1995: §1), Hoffman and Rosenkrantz (1997: 177–178), and Benovsky (2018: 15) for arguments in the vicinity. 10 See Heller (1990: §2.7), van Inwagen (1990: 125-127), Merricks (2001: §2.3), and Benovsky (2018: 20-22). Cf. van Inwagen (1981), Olson (1995), and Hoffman and Rosenkrantz (1997: §5.2) for a related coincidence-based argument for eliminativism. 11 The type of argument is usually advanced as an argument for unrestricted composition, but as Sider (2013a: 244) observes it can also be marshalled against composite objects. 12 See Merricks (2001: ch.3, 2016), Dorr (2002: ch.2), and Benovsky (2018: 22-23). 7 PROBLEM OF THE MANY: If there is a table here, then for each of the trillions of atomic parts of the table there is an object composed of all of the table's parts but that one. Each of these every-so-slightly smaller objects would have everything it takes to be a table, and must therefore itself be a table. But certainly there aren't trillions of tables here.13 SORITES: Suppose that there is a table composed of the atoms arranged tablewise here. If so, then the object that results from removing just one favorably selected atom would likewise be a table. More generally, whenever there is any table, the result of removing one such atom is itself a table. But this entails, absurdly, that there is a table even when we are left with only one atom.14 VAGUE IDENTITY: If there is a table here, then it is possible for there to be cases in which a table at some later time neither definitely is nor definitely is not identical to it-cases involving, for instance, replacing all the parts of the table one by one. But it is impossible for there to be things that are indeterminately identical.15 Call these "the usual arguments". I cannot think of any eliminativist who doesn't advance at least one of these arguments, in some form or other. And the conclusion of these arguments isn't merely that tables aren't ultimate; it's that there is no table here at all. Denying only the ultimacy of the table, and stopping short of concluding that there is no table here, just isn't an option for those who embrace these lines of reasoning. (Some may insist that there is no different between concluding that there are no tables and concluding that tables aren't ultimate, the idea being that 'there are no tables' means different things inside and outside the ontology room, and when uttered inside the ontology room what it means is that tables aren't ultimate.16 We'll revisit this sort of view in §6. For now, though, we can set it aside since this line of response of course isn't open to retreatists: it takes eliminativists to already be advancing the very view that retreatists say they should instead be advancing.) Retreatists might suggest that eliminativists abandon the arguments as well, thereby liberating them from the conclusion that there are no tables. But then eliminativists would have to join the rest of us in finding some premise in each one to deny. And, as eliminativists will be the 13 See Unger (1980), Heller (1990: 38), Horgan (1993: §2), Horgan and Potrč (2008: §2.4.4), and Benovsky (2018: 9-10). 14 See Unger (1979), Heller (1990: ch.3), Merricks (2001: §2.2), Horgan and Potrč (2008: §2.4), and Benovsky (2018: 10-14). 15 See van Inwagen (1990: 128-135), Hoffman and Rosenkrantz (1997: §5.4), and Hossack (2000: 428). 16 See e.g., Dorr (2005: §7, 2008: §1) and Chalmers (2009). See Fine (2009: 162-165), my (2015 ch.5), and Daly and Liggins (2016) for criticism. 8 first to tell you, denying the premises of any one of these arguments almost invariably has one of three unpalatable consequences. First, overpopulating the world with things that seem not to be there, be it too many tables, or too many things in one place, or too many causes of the same events, or a plenitude of objects with extraordinary mereological or modal profiles. Second, unpalatable arbitrariness, be it arbitrariness concerning which kinds of objects there are, which objects do and don't belong to a given kind, which modal profiles are instantiated by which objects, or which objects together compose a further object. Third, unpalatable indeterminacies, be it indeterminate truth values, indeterminate identities, nonlinguistic vagueness, or existential indeterminacy. To stop short of denying that there are tables is to be saddled with an overpopulated, arbitrary, and/or indeterminacy-ridden metaphysic-exactly what eliminativists want to avoid.17 Those who wish to do without tables for any of the usual reasons have no choice but to draw the stronger conclusion that there are no tables. Their hands are tied. Thus, far from being an offer they can't refuse that gives them everything they want, the retreatist is offering them something they can't have and none of what they want. Similar points apply to analogues of retreatism in other domains. Nominalists deny that there are numbers. Should they instead be denying merely the ultimacy of numbers? As with ordinary objects, whether it makes sense to retreat from elimination to demotion depends entirely on one's reasons for wanting to do without numbers. Suppose the nominalist in question wants to do without numbers for something like the following familiar reason: KNOWLEDGE: If there are numbers, then they are both causally inert and are what arithmetical truths are about. If arithmetical truths are about causally inert objects, then we would have no way of knowing those truths-because there is a causal constraint on knowledge and/or because there would be no conceivable explanation of our accuracy about them. Yet we do have arithmetical knowledge. So, there are no numbers.18 If this is the source of the nominalist's aversion to numbers, then she should indeed be eliminating numbers, not merely demoting them. Mere demotion will not enable her to escape a causally inert subject matter of arithmetic truths and the very epistemic mystery that motivated her to want to do without numbers in the first place. Even if she can see the attraction of a more modest nominalism that denies only the ultimacy of numbers, her hands are tied. (Suppose, on the other hand, the 17 See my (2015) for my own preferred blend of arbitrariness, indeterminacy, and overpopulation. 18 See Benacerraf (1973) and Field (1989: 25-30) for versions of the argument, and see Daly and Liggins (2014: 464-465) for related discussion. 9 nominalist's one and only reason for eliminating numbers is that the most parsimonious empirically adequate theory of everything makes no reference to numbers. In that case, for reasons discussed below, retreatists are probably right: that sort of nominalist ought to be demoting rather than eliminating numbers.) 4. Why Not Renounce the Arguments? As we just saw, the usual arguments are arguments for elimination, not demotion. A retreat from eliminating to demoting would therefore require eliminativists to renounce the very arguments that led to them to eliminativism in the first place. So those who are calling on eliminativists to retreat must explain why and how they should renounce those arguments. Of course, the retreatist can always enter the fray and try to expose some flaw in the arguments. She may, for instance, suggest responding to COINCIDENCE by allowing coincident objects to differ modally; she might advance some solution to the grounding problem for modal differences among coincidents; she might offer rebuttals to known problems for such solutions. But notice that the retreatist is now doing exactly what she said we shouldn't be doing: debating whether there are tables. (If advancing responses to arguments that there are no tables and defending them against the eliminativist's rebuttals doesn't count as debating whether there are tables, I don't know what does.) Perhaps retreatists will say that eliminativists should renounce the arguments because the conclusion is so obviously false that the only rational conclusion to draw is that they've gone wrong somewhere. But in the present context of assessing whether demotionism is an offer the eliminativist can't refuse, this suggestion is problematic for a number of reasons. First, those moved by the debunking arguments from §2 won't see the affront to common sense as any reason to think that something has gone wrong in the arguments. Second, one does not simply "renounce" an argument; one must also find some premise to deny. But denying any one of the premises will likely saddle the eliminativist with the sorts of overpopulation, arbitrariness, and indeterminacy she wants so badly to avoid. Third, unless demotionism can somehow be shown to serve their argumentative goals (avoiding objectionable arbitrariness, indeterminacy, or overpopulation), 10 suggesting that eliminativists instead be demotionists is just as much a non sequitur as suggesting that they instead be utilitarians or ornithologists.19 What's needed from the retreatist is some rationale for renouncing the arguments that does justice to the eliminativist's reasons for wanting to eliminate. The way to do this would be to expand retreatism to apply to the premises of the arguments: those too, the idea goes, should be renounced and recast as premises about what's ultimate, so as to establish only the nonultimacy of ordinary objects. In certain cases, the proposed retreat to an argument for demotionism makes perfect sense. Although it's rare, some eliminativists-for instance, Horgan and Potrč (2008: 95)-argue that there are no ordinary objects on grounds of parsimony. But the parsimony of a theory is arguably measured by what it takes (or is committed to taking) to be ultimate; non-ultimate entities don't count against the parsimony of a theory except to the extent that postulating them adds complexity one's account of how things ultimately are.20 So they should retreat to an argument from a suitably revised principle of parsimony to the conclusion that ordinary objects aren't ultimate. And if this were their only reason for wanting to do without ordinary objects, then the retreatist would arguably at least be right about them, that demotionism gives them everything they want (parsimony) at none of the cost (flouting common sense).21 What I would like to show is that no such "recasting" strategy will be successful when applied to any of the usual arguments (enumerated in §3). That, however, is a tall order, since there are endless permutations of the strategy, targeting different arguments, recasting different premises, and invoking different varieties of ultimacy. What I can do is examine some representative examples of recasting strategies, to illustrate the sorts of problems that can arise. The challenge for the retreatist will be to develop recasting strategies that avoid these problems. 19 Cf. Kim (1988: 391) in response to Quine (1969): "if normative epistemology is not a possible inquiry, why shouldn't the would-be epistemologist turn to, say, hydro-dynamics or ornithology rather than psychology?" 20 See Schaffer (2009: 361, 2015), Cameron (2010a: 262), and Bennett (2017: §8.2); though see Daly and Liggins (2014: 474-476) and Baron and Tallant (2018) for a dissenting voice. 21 As it happens, it isn't their only reason. As Horgan and Potrč immediately go on to say (2008: 95), "quite apart from considerations of comparative parsimony, this proffered position [on which there are tables] is decisively precluded by the impossibility of ontological vagueness," alluding to their primary argument for eliminativism, a version of SORITES. 11 Let's start with COINCIDENCE, and imagine a retreatist who recommends that the eliminativist instead endorse COINCIDENCEF: COINCIDENCEF: Suppose that there is a fundamental wooden table here. If so, then there is also a fundamental hunk of wood here that coincides with the table and yet differs from it modally. But it is impossible for there to be coinciding fundamental objects that differ modally. Now, as desired, all that follows is that there is no fundamental table here. So if it's true that the eliminativist should retreat to COINCIDENCEF, then retreatists are right: she should demote rather than eliminate. The eliminativist who likes COINCIDENCE need have no objection to COINCIDENCEF. But there are two problems for the suggestion that she should renounce the former and retreat to the latter. The first is a problem of prior plausibility. The call to retreat from the conclusion of COINCIDENCE seems reasonable since it's a retreat from the implausible claim that there are no tables to the plausible claim that they aren't ultimate. The premise of COINCIDENCE prohibiting modally-differing coinciding objects, by contrast, already seems plausible (albeit controversial) as it stands. And certainly there is no plausibility in the suggestion that we only ever had the intuition that coinciding fundamental things cannot differ modally, as evidenced by the very fact that statues and lumps-which virtually no one takes to be fundamental-are the go-to example of objects whose coincidence is supposed to be intolerable. So the rationale for retreat is unclear; the eliminativist who was bothered by this kind of overpopulation has been given no reason to think she should be bothered only by coinciding fundamentalia. The second problem for the suggestion that eliminativists retreat from COINCIDENCE to COINCIDENCEF is a problem of auxiliary arguments. Just as her endorsement of COINCIDENCE obliges the eliminativist to eliminate and not merely demote, the auxiliary arguments she deploys in defense of the anti-coincidence constraint oblige her to endorse the unqualified version of the constraint that appears in COINCIDENCE. Why think there can't be modal differences between coincidents? Because, the idea goes, modal differences between two objects cannot be brute (on pain of arbitrariness), yet if there were coinciding modally differing objects, there could be no explanation for their modal differences. Here again, the reasoning yields the stronger anticoincidence constraint that underwrites COINCIDENCE. A retreat to the premises of COINCIDENCEF 12 would be unmotivated and unintelligible for someone who is attracted to anti-coincidence constraints for the usual reasons. Next, consider the suggestion that EXISTENTIAL INDETERMINACY-an argument from the impossibility of vague existence to the conclusion that there are no tables-be recast as an argument from the impossibility of vague fundamental existence to the nonultimacy of tables. Ross Cameron tells us that "if vague existence is bad, it is only bad if it infects fundamental ontology" (2008: 16) and that mere vagueness in whether some thing exists "does not seem like the allegedly objectionable kind of ontic vagueness that people were objecting to concerning vague existence" (2010a: 263). To see whether Cameron is right that eliminativists should find mere existential indeterminacy unproblematic, let's check whether the usual reasons for opposing existential indeterminacy fall short of establishing that there is no existential indeterminacy at all (even at nonultimate levels). And what we find is that some do and some don't. One reason for opposing existential indeterminacy is that the very possibility of metaphysics requires that there be some natural, and therefore nonvague, candidate meaning for quantificational expressions. If this is one's reason, then the envisaged recasting of EXISTENTIAL INDETERMINACY would make sense. For in order to have some quantifier meaning for metaphysical discussions that's natural and nonvague, it needn't be the actual meaning of the existential quantifier. One could happily grant that the existential quantifier is vague-with a domain that definitely includes some composites and admits of some borderline cases as well-but then insist that the natural nonvague quantifier has no ordinary objects in its domain.22 There are, however, other reasons for opposing existential indeterminacy. Here's one: for there to be any existential indeterminacy, there would have to be some thing such that "it sort of is so and sort of isn't that there is any such thing," which is manifestly incoherent.23 Here's another: existential indeterminacy gives rise to vague identity, which has been shown to be impossible.24 Here's another: it is a category mistake to ascribe vagueness or precision to things themselves, and not just to thoughts, words, and other such representational entities; but existential indeterminacy 22 Indeed, Sider himself (2013a: 244) retreats from his earlier argument against existential indeterminacy (2001) in just this way. 23 See Lewis (1986: 213). 24 See Hershenov (2014). 13 can never be accounted for in terms of vague representations.25 If these are the eliminativist's reasons for opposing existential indeterminacy, then we again face the problem of auxiliary arguments. Retreating to a prohibition only on fundamental existential indeterminacy is not an option for such an eliminativist, for these concerns apply equally to existential indeterminacy at nonfundamental entities. Her hands are tied. This is hardly an exhaustive survey of possible recasting strategies and is only meant to illustrate problems that are likely to arise for such strategies.26 I hereby challenge the retreatist to identify a recasting strategy for each of the usual arguments that is not beset by the problem of prior plausibility and the problem of auxiliary arguments. I don't think it can be done. 5. Why Can't What There Is Be What's At Issue? We have examined one potential motivation for retreatism, namely that demotionism gives the eliminativist everything she wants with none of the costs. We turn now to a different sort of reason for accepting retreatism, namely that the question of whether there are ordinary objects just can't be what's properly at issue in these ontological debates. I consider four putative reasons that ontological questions cannot be questions about what there is: that ontological questions are supposed to be hard to answer (§5.1), that they are supposed to be philosophical (§5.2), that they are supposed to be autonomous (§5.3), and that they are supposed to be about things that "really" exist (§5.4). 5.1 The Argument from Easy Answerability Ontological debates about ordinary objects are meant to be deep and serious debates, debates that evidently can be settled only by sustained philosophical reflection. This, in turn, may seem to suggest that the ontological questions about ordinary objects cannot simply be "quantificational questions", that is, questions about whether there are any. Fine (2009: 158) puts the worry as follows: 25 See Russell (1923: 84-85) against nonrepresentational vagueness and Sider (2001: §4.9.3, 2003) on why existential indeterminacy is supposed to require nonrepresentational vagueness. 26 See also Schaffer (2007: 189) on recasting OVERDETERMINATION, and see my (2015: 194-195) on how a version of the the problem of auxiliary arguments arises here as well. 14 It is usually supposed that the answers to ontological questions are non-trivial. However, the answer to the corresponding quantificational questions are trivial.... given the evident fact that I am sitting on a chair, it trivially follows that there is a chair.27 Fine doesn't elaborate on what it means for an answer to a question to be "trivial", but presumably the idea is that the question is easily answerable, that is, there is a way of knowing the answer that doesn't rely on any complicated line of reasoning. For instance, the correct answer ("yes") to the quantificational question ("are there chairs?") is "trivial" insofar as it can easily be known by inferring it from the evident fact that I'm sitting on a chair. Indeed, it can presumably be known even more easily simply by noninferentially believing that there is a chair on the basis of my chair experience. The argument can then be rendered as follows: (A1) Questions about whether there are ordinary objects are easily answerable (A2) Ontological questions about ordinary objects are not easily answerable (A3) So, questions about whether there are ordinary objects are not ontological questions As indicated at the outset, I am assuming that eliminativism is false and that there are such things as chairs. Moreover, I agree that that it is easily (perceptually) knowable that there are chairs.28 A1 is true. But why accept A2? Perhaps the idea behind A2 is meant to be something like this: (B1) There can be no sensible debate about easily answerable questions (B2) Ontological questions about ordinary objects can be sensibly debated (A2) So, ontological questions about ordinary objects are not easily answerable Certainly B2 is true, as evidenced by the sprawling literature on the usual arguments. But B1 is open to obvious counterexamples like the following: ENROLLMENT: Professor Tanya wants to know whether Neal dropped her class, so she checks the class roster on eGrades, and finds that it shows him as still enrolled. Along comes Meg, who tells Tanya that eGrades doesn't immediately report drops and that there's a five-day lag. Tanya (correctly) insists that Meg is confused and that it's a different online roster that has the lag. Meg stands her ground and even produces some (misleading) evidence that Neal has dropped the class. They continue to debate whether Neal dropped the class. 27 Cf. Schaffer (2009: §2.1). 28 The eliminativist of course will deny A1, insisting that, despite (debunked) appearances to the contrary, the answer to the question of whether there are chairs is that there are none, and this can be known only through philosophical investigation. Fine's "evident fact that I am sitting on a chair" is, by her lights, no fact at all, let alone an easily knowable one. 15 How are they able to have a sensible debate about whether Neal dropped, despite the fact that they have available to them an easy way of knowing the correct answer: checking eGrades? The answer is that Meg has introduced putative defeaters for Tanya's belief that Neal dropped: a rebutting defeater (the evidence that Neal dropped) as well as an undercutting defeater (the lag hypothesis). Those defeaters, and attempts to address them, can then be scrutinized and debated. Likewise for the question of whether there are chairs. There is an easy way of knowing the answer: open your eyes, have a chair experience, and believe on that basis that there is a chair. But there is nonetheless a sensible debate to be had about it because the eliminativist offers rebutting defeaters (the usual arguments) and undercutting defeaters (the debunking arguments) for the belief that there are chairs, and one can sensibly debate whether these defeaters-and attempts to deflect them-are successful. Alternatively, perhaps the idea behind A2 is that easily answerable questions are of no philosophical interest and therefore can't be the questions ontologists mean to be asking: (C1) Easily answerable questions aren't philosophically interesting (C2) Ontological questions about ordinary objects are philosophically interesting (A2) So, ontological questions about ordinary objects are not easily answerable Again, the problem is the first premise. What's true is that the question of whether there are ordinary objects, like the question of whether anyone knows anything, would be philosophically uninteresting if there were no interesting philosophical arguments for the opposite conclusion. But there are such arguments (see §3), and if those arguments are successful then they reveal a deep fissure between appearance and reality-a perennial philosophical concern if anything is. And there is philosophically interesting work to be done: identifying where the arguments go wrong and defending the overpopulated, indeterminate, and/or arbitrary worldview we are left with after resisting them. 5.2 The Argument from Philosophy A second line of argument has it that the ontological questions about ordinary objects can't be questions about whether there are any because the former are supposed to be philosophical questions. Here again is Fine (2009: 158): 16 It is also usually supposed that ontological questions are philosophical. They arise from within philosophy, rather than from within science or everyday life, and they are to be answered on the basis of philosophical enquiry. But... the question of whether there are chairs or tables is an everyday matter that is to be settled on the basis of common observation. What exactly is the argument here? Certainly the suggestion isn't that no question that arises from within philosophy can be settled by anything other than philosophical inquiry, or that nothing other than philosophical inquiry can have any bearing on questions that arises from within philosophy. A mathematical proof that there are more reals than naturals can settle a philosophical debate about whether infinite sets come in different sizes, and a scientific study of Molyneux's problem (which arose from within philosophy) would have clear evidential bearing upon the question of whether there are innate ideas (which arose from within philosophy). Perhaps the idea is just that no ontological question that arises from within philosophy can be settled by common observation-where "common observation" is understood to exclude observation supplemented by scientific or mathematical reasoning. Why accept even this more restricted claim? Perhaps the idea is that a question whose answer can be known that easily cannot possibly be what ontologists are debating. But in that case we have just circled back to the argument from B1, dispensed with above. Retreatists might propose a twist on the Finean argument, suggesting that because the questions about ordinary objects arise from within metaphysics, which is the study of how things ultimately are, they therefore cannot be questions about the nonultimate matter of whether there merely are any. Never mind whether this is the right view of the subject matter of metaphysics. (It isn't.29) As we saw in §3, the usual arguments for eliminativism-even if they were originally intended by metaphysicians qua metaphysicians to address metaphysical questions narrowly construed-are, whether they like it or not, arguments for a conclusion about what there is. 29 Cf. Merricks (2013: §1), Barnes (2014), Mikkola (2017), Bennett (2016: §4, 2017: §8.3), and Fine (2017) against Sider (2011), who has since conceded the point (2017). 17 5.3 The Argument from Autonomy Let's turn now to a third reason Fine (2009: 159) presents for thinking that the ontological questions cannot be about what there is. Here the idea is that ontological questions are supposed to be autonomous, in that one is supposed to be able to answer them however one likes without thereby taking a stand on mathematical or scientific discoveries. Suppose we answer the quantificational question in the affirmative. We go along with the mathematician in asserting that there are prime numbers between 7 and 17, for example, or go along with the scientist in asserting that this chair is partly composed of electrons. Then surely the ontological questions of interest to philosophy will still arise. The philosopher may perhaps be misguided in so readily agreeing with his mathematical or scientific colleagues. But surely his willingness to go along with what they say, of accepting the established conclusions of mathematics or science, should not thereby prevent him from adopting an anti-realist position. What's true is that going along with the scientist in agreeing that there are chairs partly composed of electrons doesn't prevent the ontologist from adopting certain anti-realist positions, for instance that chairs are mind-dependent. It may, however, prevent her from accepting that antirealist position that she actually argued for-if, for instance, the conclusion of that argument is that there are no chairs and, a fortiori, no chairs partly composed of electrons. Ontologists are permitted to accept only what their arguments permit them to accept. It would be wishful thinking to suppose that one can never end up with serious reasons for doubting something that seems obviously true or for disagreeing with someone to whom one would really rather be able to defer. (As an aside: Those who are overly eager to defer to scientists should remind themselves of those neuroscientists who, upon discovering internal causes that determine our conscious decisions, declare that we have no free will. If our colleagues and students can be criticized for overlooking the possibility of free-will compatibilism, then so can scientists. Not every step in the scientist's or mathematician's reasoning is a reflection of some expertise that philosophers don't share.30) 30 Cf. Daly and Liggins (2014: §3). 18 I find that, when one keeps the arguments for eliminativism clearly in mind, these three initially plausible Finean arguments start to lose their grip. This is especially clear when we turn our attention from debates about tables and chairs to, for instance, debates about motion. Yes, the answer to the question of whether things move is easily known on the basis of common observation; no, Zeno evidently doesn't take the question he's answering to be settled by common observation (since he presumably thinks that our experiences are misleading in this regard); yes, his arguments arise from within philosophy; and sure, those moved by his arguments would likely rather not have to deny that objects move towards the earth at 9.8 m/s2. None of this gives us any reason to think that Zeno's question cannot be properly construed as a question of whether things move, as is clear when one looks at his arguments and finds that they're arguments whose initially plausible premises together entail that nothing moves. This is even easier to see if we imagine, anachronistically, that he supplements his arguments against motion with a debunking argument (à la Paul 2010: 347-353 and Benovsky 2015: §3) that we are hard-wired to experience motion even where there is none. 5.4 The Argument from Real Existence Let's consider one last argument that ontological questions can't properly be about what there is. Here the idea is that it would be senseless to have ontological scruples about things one takes to be nonultimate, since these are things that don't really exist and to which one isn't even ontologically committed. Cameron (2008: 16), for instance, maintains that mere existential indeterminacy couldn't possibly be objectionable: After all, this wouldn't be a case of it being indeterminate whether there is some thing in our ontology. We can suppose that it's determinate that every thing in our ontology is precise and that there's no X such that it is indeterminate whether or not we are ontologically committed to X. Admittedly, it does seem puzzling how existential indeterminacy can be bad if nothing in your ontology or that you're ontologically committed to indeterminately exists. But Cameron is here exploiting an equivocation between the usual understanding of these italicized phrases and his own idiosyncratic use. On the usual understanding, what's in your ontology or what you're ontologically committed to is what you believe (or are committed to believing) there to be, and so understood his explanation of why mere existential indeterminacy is unobjectionable amounts to 19 the incoherent assertion that indeterminacy in what you take there to be doesn't amount to any indeterminacy in what you take there to be. On his idiosyncratic use, by contrast, what's "in your ontology" and your "ontological commitments" consist not of everything you take there to be but only the special subset of things that you take to exist fundamentally (2008: 4). So understood, his protests amount to the unilluminating suggestion that nonfundamental indeterminacy can't be bad because it wouldn't be a case of fundamental indeterminacy. Nor should one be taken in by retreatist rhetoric to the effect that overpopulation, arbitrariness, and indeterminacy at nonultimate levels is unobjectionable, since nonultimate objects don't really exist. This too exploits an equivocation between a natural and idiosyncratic use of "really".31 As Barry Stroud (1984: 36) puts it in a related context: When we ask whether we really know something we are simply asking whether we know that thing. The "really" signifies that we have had second thoughts on the matter, or that we are subjecting it to more careful scrutiny, or that knowledge is being contrasted with something else, but not that we believe in something called "real knowledge" which is different from or more elevated than the ordinary knowledge we are interested in.32 Likewise, when an eliminativist says that there aren't really any tables, the 'really' signifies that she has given the question of whether there are tables unusually careful scrutiny, or emphasizes that the view that there are tables is being contrasted with there merely being atoms arranged tablewise or table-shaped hunks of wood. So understood, even the demotionist thinks there really are tables. The rhetoric must therefore involve an idiosyncratic, technical use of 'really', signifying what's ultimate.33 But now, again, the explanation of why we are supposed to be unconcerned about counterintuitive views about what there is is unilluminating. For it now just amounts to the claim that overpopulation, arbitrariness, and indeterminacy at nonultimate levels are unobjectionable because objects at nonultimate levels aren't ultimate. (Additionally, the underlying suggestion that intuitions about how things are at nonultimate levels are not to be taken seriously is in tension with the idea that demotionists have a major advantage over eliminativists in being able to say that there are ordinary objects (see §2). 31 Cf. Sider (2013b: 751-752). 32 There are actually a number of parallels between my response to retreatism and Stroud's (1984: 34-37) response to the idea that external-world skeptics have shown only that we lack knowledge "of some exotic, hither-to-unheard-of domain" which they call 'reality'. 33 Cf. Cameron (2008: 7). 20 If one can say what one likes about what there merely is, then it should be unobjectionable to deny that there are tables. What reason could there possibly be for holding our intuitions about which things there nonultimately are at in such high regard while dismissing our intuitions about how things can nonultimately be?) One last epicycle. Cameron might object that I've missed the point, by thinking of nonultimate indeterminacy or arbitrariness or overpopulation as something exhibited by entities that are genuinely out there in the world. As he puts it (2008: 7): "Do not think of the distinction [between what exists and what really exists] as dividing the entities in the world into the privileged real existents and the impoverished unreal existents. All there is in the world are the real existents." Obviously, by "all there is in the world" he cannot just mean "all there is", since he does think there are things (e.g. tables) that are not "real" existents. 'In the world' must therefore be making some nontrivial contribution, presumably restricting the quantifier to real existents. But then "all there is in the world are real existents" is just the trivial claim that among the real existents there are only real existents, and the explanation is again unilluminating. 6. Whither Metaontology? I want to close by revisiting the observation that hotly debated questions about what there is appear to be easily answerable. What are we to make of this easy answerability? Fine, as we saw, takes the lesson to be that ontological questions about ordinary objects are not questions about what there is, and I have already explained why I think he's mistaken (§5.1). In particular, I advanced what we might call a moderate Moorean metaontology, on which these ontological questions are easily answerable, but can be sensibly debated nonetheless. It's Moorean in that it regards seeing that one has hands and believing on that basis that there are hands as a perfectly good way of knowing that one has hands and that eliminativism is mistaken. But it is moderate in its Mooreanism, in that it rejects the characteristic Moorean thesis that the only sensible response to an argument against a "Moorean fact" (e.g., that there are hands, or that there are even numbers) is to conclude that something has gone wrong in the argument-though it does regard this as one sensible response to such arguments. It is worthwhile to compare this moderate Mooreanism to two other metaontological reactions to easy answerability. Both can be seen as drawing inspiration from Carnap (1950), and both are aligned with the moderate Moorean (and depart from Fine) in taking the questions 21 disputed by ontologists to be about what there is. According to the first, the lesson to draw from the easy answerability of questions about what there is is that there is no sensible debate to be had about ontological questions. According to the second, the lesson is that there must be multiple questions of "what there is": one that's easily answerable and another that's sensibly debated.34 As a representative of the first sort of reaction to easy answerability, let's take Amie Thomasson's deflationism about ontological disputes, according to which debates about numbers and the like are "misguided and pointless" (2015: 159).35 Why are they supposed to be misguided and pointless? Because "we have such convincing reasons for thinking that the realist side is correct that there is no room for serious dispute" (167), where those convincing reasons are "easy arguments" like the following: There are lots of numbers between one and a thousand If so, then there are numbers So, there are numbers There are properties you and I have in common If so, then there are properties So, there are properties I have two hands If so, then there are hands So, there are hands I agree that these arguments are sound and that they provide us with an easy way of knowing the answer to the associated ontological questions. But as we saw above (remember Tanya and Meg), it is entirely possible for there to be a serious debate even when there is a readily available, easy way of knowing the correct answer. This is possible when naysayers are able to provide putative defeaters, which can then be debated. And this is exactly what realists are doing when they engage with anti-realists. The point of debating the anti-realist is to see where the arguments against realism go wrong, to see where the attempts to debunk the commonsense beliefs underwriting the easy arguments go wrong, to see if we can convince the anti-realist by her own lights that her arguments fail, and to assess the tenability of the metaphysical and epistemological picture we are left with once we have resisted those arguments. 34 Carnap himself, as I understand him, thinks that there are multiple questions, neither of which can be sensibly debated (unless one is debating the usefulness of a certain way of talking). 35 Cf. Hirsch (2002: 107-108). 22 Admittedly, there is something peculiar about responding to Thomasson by calling attention to the importance of engaging with one's opponents' arguments. Thomasson has a whole book devoted to addressing arguments for the elimination of ordinary objects (2007) and another addressing challenges to easy arguments (2015). Given her willingness to engage in these debates in such depth, she must think there some point in debating these issues. So, I'm not entirely sure what she means when she says the debates are pointless. Perhaps she just means that there's no point in seeking out some sophisticated philosophical argument for numbers or chairs, since there's a perfectly good, easy way of knowing that there are such things. If so, then she and I agree. Or perhaps she thinks that it is pointless to debate someone when you already know that you're right and they're wrong. But I don't see why that should be so. In any event, the mere availability of easy ways of knowing that there are numbers or tables is not by itself reason to think that the debates are somehow misguided or pointless. As a representative of the second sort of reaction to easy answerability, let's consider Thomas Hofweber's resolution of what he dubs "the puzzle about ontology" (2005, 2016: ch.1). What is supposed to be puzzling is how it can be such a hard philosophical question whether there are numbers when at the same time it follows trivially from common sense and well-known mathematical theorems that there are numbers. His resolution is to postulate two different questions that one could be asking in asking "are there numbers?": an easy question that is easily settled on nonphilosophical grounds and a hard question that can be settled only by serious philosophical inquiry.36 This reaction strikes me as an overreaction. There is no need to multiply questions; all we need is two respects in which a single question can be or fail to be easily answerable. I know that 110, and then you show me an alleged proof that 1=0 (after all, ∞+1=∞, and we should be able to subtract ∞ from both sides). Astoundingly, you find the proof convincing. We argue for a while about whether 1=0. Is the question of whether 1=0 easy or hard to answer? It's easy for me to know the answer: I know it now in the same way I knew it before you came along with your proof, namely on the basis of my intuition that 110. But it's hard for me to put my finger on the flaw in your argument or to convince you that it fails. There is no need for two senses of '110', one that's 36 Cf. Dorr (2008: §1) and Chalmers (2009). 23 obviously true and another for us to debate. All that's needed is one question that's easy to answer in one sense of 'easy to answer' and not easy to answer in another sense of 'easy to answer'. Likewise for the question of whether there are numbers. The question is easy to answer in the sense that we have a way of knowing that there are numbers that does not require any intricate or sophisticated line of reasoning. But that same question is, in another sense (of 'easy to answer'), not easy to answer in that it can be hard to put your finger on the flaw in the anti-realist's arguments and even harder to find a dialectically effective response that the anti-realist herself will find convincing. There is nothing puzzling here that requires multiplying senses of 'there is'. What my moderate Moorean metaontology shares in common with the others is that it regards the easy arguments-at least on one reading, in my view the only reading-as sound. It differs from Hofweber's metaontology insofar as it takes the easy arguments to establish an affirmative answer to the very questions that ontologists have been debating. It differs from Thomasson's deflationism insofar as it takes ontological debates about what there is to be entirely sensible. By moderate Moorean lights, the easy arguments are no different in kind from other sound arguments in philosophy. Like any other sound argument, there is no barrier to someone raising sensible challenges to one of the premises (which must then be addressed), or advancing sensible arguments for the opposite conclusion (which must then be addressed). We can get a useful taxonomy of the different reactions to easy answerability by looking at how they address two questions: (i) whether the questions that ontologists have traditionally been debating are easily answerable and (ii) whether there is a sensible debate to be had about the disputed questions: Ontological debates are sensible Ontological debates are not sensible Ontological questions are easily answerable Moderate Mooreanism Thomasson Ontological questions are not easily answerable Hofweber, Fine Carnap To be clear, my aim here has not been to show that moderate Mooreanism is all-thingsconsidered superior to its competitors. 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