Interlevel Metaphysics, Misc

Abstract artifacts such as musical works and fictional entities are human creations; they are intentional products of our actions and activities. One line of argument against abstract artifacts is that abstract objects are not the kind of objects that can be created. This is so, it is argued, because abstract objects are causally inert. Since creation requires being caused to exist, abstract objects cannot be created. One common way to refute this argument is to reject the causal inefficacy of abstracta. (...) I argue that creationists should rather reject the principle that creation requires causation. Creation, in my view, is a non-causal relation that can be explained using an appropriate notion of ontological dependence. The existence and the creation of abstract artifacts depend on certain individuals with appropriate intentions, along with events of a certain kind that include but are not limited to creations of certain concrete objects. (shrink)

Many years later, many people (many countries, many domains, many of my ideas – some of them are “great” names from great USA and Germany universities!!) have published UNBELIVABLE similar ideas to my ideas Because so many “famous” people (Physics, Philosophy, Cognitive Science) have plagiarized my ideas, I should receive Noble prize for Physics and Medicine (Cognitive Neuroscience), but I will not receive it just because I am Romanian (this is the reason so many people from so many countries, from (...) so many domains, on so many topics have plagiarized my ideas!!!) Discovering the EDWs, I HAVE CHANGED EVERYTHING in human thinking! My EDWs is the greatest CHALLANGE in the history of human thinking… Gabriel Vacariu, (April 2020 to 2014) The UNBELIEVABLE SIMILARITIES between the ideas of some people (2011-2016) and my ideas (2002-2008) in physics (quantum mechanics, cosmology), cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and philosophy (this manuscript would require a REVOLUTION in international academy environment!) here If I were American or German, I would have received at least one Noble prize... I should receive TWO Noble prizes (Physics and Biology (cognitive neuroscience) but I will receive nothing just because I am Romanian (and philosopher!). I am still "conferentiar" and not professor at my department, I have had great problems there regarding my employment (since I have a much better CV than all my colleagues!)... I have been living with a very smal income, paying the rate of a bank... and writing 11 books until now!, one being published at Springer (a summary of my first 5 books!)... (shrink)

Many metaphysicians often appeal to Hume’s dictum (HD), according to which there are no necessary connections between distinct entities (or states of entities), in order to resist theories that commit us to such connections. Some have argued that HD is an unsupported dogma of metaphysics. But theories that commit us to necessary connections between distinct goings-on can also be resisted by invoking a normative twist on HD, which I call the Humean Solvent (HS): “Do not connect distinct entities (or states (...) of entities) beyond necessity”. HS is a principle of structural parsimony – assuming that a theory is structurally more parsimonious than another when the latter is committed to a more connected ontology than the former is. Just as Ockham’s ‘razor’ encourages us to cut down superfluous ontological commitments, the Humean ‘solvent’ encourages us to dissolve dispensable metaphysical glue: we ought not to glue elements of our ontology beyond necessity. HS has both a qualitative and a quantitative dimension: qualitatively, it encourages us to avoid using metaphysical glues that are unnecessarily strong, the strongest of which being metaphysically necessary connections; quantitatively, it encourages us not to metaphysically glue things that need no gluing. Thus, given HS, other things being equal, what is worst is a theory that entails that everything is metaphysically necessarily connected to anything else and what is best is a theory that leaves all things loose and separable. In this paper, I will first compare HD and HS as grounds for paradigmatic Humean doctrines in contemporary metaphysics, then I will argue that structural parsimony is neither a variety of ontological nor of ideological parsimony; finally, I will offer an argument for HS. (shrink)

The game of life is an excellent framework for metaphysical modeling. It can be used to study ontological categories like space, time, causality, persistence, substance, emergence, and supervenience. It is often said that there are many levels of existence in the game of life. Objects like the glider are said to exist on higher levels. Our goal here is to work out a precise formalization of the thesis that there are various levels of existence in the game of life. To (...) formalize this thesis, we develop a set-theoretic construction of the glider. The method of this construction generalizes to other patterns in the game of life. And it can be extended to more realistic physical systems. The result is a highly general method for the set-theoretical construction of substances. (shrink)

We uncover a surprising discovery about the basis of thoughts. We begin by giving some plausible axioms about thoughts and their grounds. We then deduce a theorem, which has dramatic ramifications for the basis of all thoughts. The theorem implies that thoughts cannot come deterministically from any purely “thoughtless” states. We expect this result to be too dramatic for many philosophers. Hence, we proceed to investigate the prospect of giving up the axioms. We show that each axiom’s negation itself has (...) dramatic consequences that should be of interest to philosophers of mind. Our proof of the theorem provides a new guiderail for thinking about the nature and origin of thoughts. (shrink)

Suppose that A explains B. Do A and B need to be true? Provided that we have metaphysical explanation in mind, orthodoxy answers “yes:” metaphysical explanation is factive. This article introduces and defends a non-factive notion of metaphysical explanation. I argue that we need a non-factive notion of explanation in order to make sense of explanationist arguments where we motivate a view by claiming that it offers better explanations than its competitors. After presenting and rejecting some initially plausible rivals, I (...) account for non-factive metaphysical explanation by drawing on existing applications of structural equation models to metaphysical grounding. (shrink)

What distinguishes causation from grounding? One suggestion is that causation, but not grounding, occurs over time. Recently, however, counterexamples to this simple temporal criterion have been offered. In this paper, we situate the temporal criterion within a broader framework that focuses on two aspects: locational overlapping in space and time and the presence of intermediaries in space and time. We consider, and reject, the idea that the difference between grounding and causation is that grounding can occur without intermediaries. We go (...) on to use the fact that grounding and causation both involve intermediaries to develop a better temporal criterion for distinguishing causation from grounding. The criterion is this: when a cause and effect are spatially disjoint, there is always a chain of causal intermediaries between the cause and the effect that are extended in time. By contrast, when the grounds and the grounded are spatially disjoint, there is always a chain of grounding intermediaries, but the chain need not be extended in time, it can be purely spatial. The difference between grounding and causation, then, is that causation requires time for chaining in a way that grounding does not. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to provide an accurate grounding-based formulation of positivism in the philosophy of law. I start off by discussing some simple formulations, based on the ideas that social facts are always either full or partial grounds of legal facts. I then raise a number of objections against these definitions: the full grounding proposal rules out possibilities that are compatible with positivism; the partial grounding proposal fails, on its own, to vindicate the distinctive role that is (...) played by social facts within positivist accounts of law. Then, I present a more adequate and insightful formulation capable of solving their problems, which crucially relies on a robust notion of a social enabler. Finally, I model inclusive and exclusive positivism on the resulting template, and set out the advantages of the ground-enablers proposal. (shrink)

Over the last few decades, philosophers and social scientists have applied the so-called powers ontology to the social domain. I argue that this application is highly problematic: many of the alleged powers in the social realm violate the intrinsicality condition, and those that can be coherently taken to be intrinsic to their bearers are arguably causally redundant. I end the paper by offering a diagnosis of why philosophers and social scientists have been tempted to think that there are powers in (...) social realm. (shrink)

These comments are part of a book symposium on Karen Bennett's book, _Making Things Up_.

The topic of this article is the analysis of the relations between different levels of reality. The core argument is based on considerations of both an epistemology of action and manipulative causality as a criterion of object identity. The argumentation is extended towards the concepts of self-organization and self-regulation. Finally, several views on reduction and the problems of emergence and complexity are discussed.

Law being a derivative feature of reality, it exists in virtue of more fundamental things, upon which it depends. This raises the question of what is the relation of dependence that holds between law and its more basic determinants. The primary aim of this paper is to argue that grounding is that relation. We first make a positive case for this claim, and then we defend it from the potential objection that the relevant relation is rather rational determination (Greenberg 2004, (...) 2006). Against this challenge, we argue that the apparent objection is really no objection, for on its best understanding, rational determination turns out to actually be grounding. Finally, we clarify the framework for theories on law-determination that results from embracing our view; by way of illustration, we offer a ground-theoretic interpretation of Hartian positivism, and show how it can defuse an influential challenge to simple positivist accounts of law. (shrink)

‘Space does not exist fundamentally: it emerges from a more fundamental non-spatial structure.’ This intriguing claim appears in various research programs in contemporary physics. Philosophers of physics tend to believe that this claim entails either that spacetime does not exist, or that it is derivatively real. In this article, I introduce and defend a third metaphysical interpretation of the claim: reductionism about space. I argue that, as a result, there is no need to subscribe to fundamentality, layers of reality and (...) emergence in order to analyse the constitution of space by non-spatial entities. It follows that space constitution, if borne out, does not provide empirical evidence in favour of a stratified, Aristotelian in spirit, metaphysics. The view will be described in relation to two particular research programs in contemporary physics: wave function realism and loop quantum gravity. (shrink)

This paper develops and articulates a metaphysics of intersectionality, the idea that multiple axes of social oppression cross-cut each other. Though intersectionality is often described through metaphor, theories of intersectionality can be formulated using the tools of contemporary analytic metaphysics. A central tenet of intersectionality theory, that intersectional identities are inseparable, can be framed in terms of explanatory unity. Further, intersectionality is best understood as metaphysical and explanatory priority of the intersectional category over its constituents, akin to metaphysical priority of (...) the whole over its parts. (shrink)

It is often thought that metaphysical grounding underwrites a distinctive sort of metaphysical explanation. However, it would be a mistake to think that all metaphysical explanations are underwritten by metaphysical grounding. In service of this claim, I offer a novel kind of metaphysical explanation called metaphysical explanation by constraint, examples of which have been neglected in the literature. I argue that metaphysical explanations by constraint are not well understood as grounding explanations.

In Spinoza’s metaphysics, we encounter many puzzling doctrines that appear to entangle metaphysical notions with cognitive, logical, and epistemic ones. According to him, a substance is that which can be conceived through itself and a mode is that which is conceived through another. Thus, metaphysical notions, substance and mode, are defined through a notion that is either cognitive or logical, being conceived through. He defines an attribute as that which an intellect perceives as constituting the essence of a substance. Intellectual (...) perception, something cognitive, is used to define an attribute, something metaphysical. And he claims that if something exists there is a reason why it exists and if something doesn’t exist there is also a reason why it doesn’t. Thus, a reason, something cognitive or epistemic, is necessary for existence or nonexistence. What are we to make of the intimate connections that Spinoza sees between metaphysical, cognitive, logical, and epistemic notions? Between being and reason? In this book, I argue for what might be called a realist interpretation: although Spinoza is confident that the order of being mirrors the order of reason, he believes that they are two orders, not one. There is inherence over and above conceptual dependence; there is causation in addition to causal explanation; the world has a nature that we can grasp and that our way of grasping it does not interpose an impenetrable conceptual veil between it and us. (shrink)

En tout généralité, le concept d’émergence capture une relation entre deux entités, un « émergent » E et sa « base d’émergence » B, de telle manière que l’on puisse affirmer que E dépend de B et que, malgré cette dépendance, E s’avère irréductible à B. Une façon classique de concrétiser cette idée est de considérer E comme un « tout » et B comme les « parties » de ce tout. Dans l’esprit de la maxime classique selon laquelle « (...) Le tout est plus que la somme de ses parties », l’émergence cristallise ainsi un double refus : celui de la simple assimilation du tout à ses parties, ainsi que celui de la radicale déconnexion entre le tout et ses parties. À cet égard, affirmer par exemple qu’une cellule vivante émerge d’une base moléculaire inerte sous-jacente revient à considérer que, d’une part, la nature de la cellule est bien dépendante de la nature des molécules qui la composent et que, d’autre part et malgré cette dépendance, certaines propriétés de la cellule ne peuvent être réduites aux propriétés de ces molécules. Ainsi posée, l’émergence se révèle un outil philosophique prometteur pour constituer et défendre une voie médiane entre le réductionnisme et le dualisme, positions selon lesquelles, respectivement, « le tout n’est que la somme de ses parties » et « le tout est hétérogène à ses parties ». Elle permet alors de faire droit à l’intuition selon laquelle les sciences comme la biologie ou la psychologie, ainsi que les objets que ces sciences étudient – par exemple les organismes ou l’« esprit » – témoignent d’une relative autonomie par rapport aux sciences étudiant les constituants élémentaires de la réalité naturelle. -/- Dans la présente entrée, après avoir introduit à l’idée générale de l’émergence et au projet philosophique initiateur de l’émergentisme, et après avoir fait recension de différents phénomènes possiblement émergents, nous tâchons d’élucider les déterminants historiques des différentes théories contemporaines de l’émergence. Dans un effort ensuite plus conceptuel, nous nous attachons à distinguer les différents sens dans lesquels une entité peut être considérée comme émergente. Nous concluons cette entrée en identifiant les apories majeures de l’émergentisme actuel dans sa version dominante. (shrink)

Le réductionnisme consiste en la thèse selon laquelle toute entité Y « se réduit », ou est en principe « réductible », à une entité unique de base (ou un ensemble unique d’entités de base) X(i). Ceci étant, la thèse du réductionnisme ne peut être rendue intelligible qu’au travers d’une explicitation première de ce en quoi consiste la « réduction » de Y à X(i). Une telle explicitation s’opère le long de deux dimensions, l’une associée à la nature des relata (...) de la réduction, l’autre à la nature de la relation de réduction. Lorsque les relata de la réduction ressortissent à nos modalités de représentation du monde naturel, on parle de réductionnisme épistémologique, dont les deux variétés les plus répandues sont les réductionnismes théorique et explicatif. L’enjeu de cette première famille de réductionnisme consiste essentiellement à savoir si notre connaissance du monde peut en principe prendre la forme d’un discours unifié ou, au contraire, se révèle inexorablement fragmentée. Lorsque les relata de la réduction ressortissent aux entités qui peuplent le monde naturel lui-même, on parle plutôt de réductionnisme ontologique, dont une sous-variété sensible est le réductionnisme causal, c’est-à-dire, en substance, la thèse selon laquelle les pouvoirs causaux naturels, comme les pouvoirs vivants, mentaux ou sociaux, ne sont en réalité que des combinaisons de pouvoirs physiques sous-jacents. Relativement à cette seconde famille de réductionnisme, l’enjeu principal consiste en la défense de la spécificité, et d’ailleurs aussi de l’existence même, de réalités supérieures, telles que, par exemple, le libre arbitre humain. (shrink)

This is a review of John Heil's "The Universe as We Find It".

In their recent book Every Thing Must Go, Ladyman and Ross claim: (i) Physics is analytically complete since it is the only science that cannot be left incomplete. (ii) There might not be an ontologically fundamental level. (iii) We should not admit anything into our ontology unless it has explanatory and predictive utility. In this discussion note I aim to show that the ontological commitment in implies that the completeness of no science can be achieved where no fundamental level exists. (...) Therefore, if claim requires a science to actually be complete in order to be considered as physics,, and if Ladyman and Ross's “tentative metaphysical hypothesis ... that there is no fundamental level” is true,, then there simply is no physics. Ladyman and Ross can, however, avoid this unwanted result if they merely require physics to ever strive for completeness rather than to already be complete. (shrink)

Physicalism is frequently understood as the thesis that everything depends upon a fundamental physical level. This standard formulation of physicalism has a rarely noted and arguably unacceptable consequence—it makes physicalism come out false in worlds which have no fundamental level, for instance worlds containing things which can infinitely decompose into smaller and smaller parts. If physicalism is false, it should not be for this reason. Thus far, there is only one proposed solution to this problem, and it comes from the (...) so-called via negativa account of physicalism. Via negativa physicalism identifies the physical with the non-mental, such that if everything in the world ultimately depends only on non-mental things, then physicalism is true. To deal with the possibility of worlds without a fundamental level, this account says that physicalism is false in worlds with either a fundamental mental level or an infinite descent of mental levels. Here I argue that there could be a world with an infinite descent of all-mental levels, yet in which physicalism might plausibly be true—thus contradicting the sufficient-for-false condition meant to save physicalism from the threat of infinitely decomposable worlds. This leaves the need for a new dependence-based account of physicalism. (shrink)

Each thing is fundamental. Not only is no thing any more or less real than any other, but no thing is prior to another in any robust ontological sense. Thus, no thing can explain the very existence of another, nor account for how another is what it is. I reach this surprising conclusion by undermining two important positions in contemporary metaphysics: hylomorphism and hierarchical views employing so-called building relations, such as grounding. The paper has three main parts. First, I observe (...) hylomorphism is alleged by its proponents to solve various philosophical problems. However, I demonstrate, in light of a compelling account of explanation, that these problems are actually demands to explain what cannot be but inexplicable. Second, I show how my argument against hylomorphism illuminates an account of the essence of a thing, thereby providing insight into what it is to exist. This indicates what a thing, in the most general sense, must be and a correlative account of the structure in reality. Third, I argue that this account of structure is incompatible not only with hylomorphism, but also with any hierarchical view of reality. Although hylomorphism and the latter views are quite different, representing distinct philosophical traditions, I maintain they share untenable accounts of structure and fundamentality and so should be rejected on the same grounds. (shrink)

Many ideas of this paper are UNBELIEVABLE similar to my ideas published long time ago! Let me introduce paragraphs.

Many ideas of this paper are UNBELIEVABLE similar to my ideas published long time ago! Let me introduce paragraphs.

In the last decade, Systems Biology has emerged as a conceptual and explanatory alternative to reductionist-based approaches in molecular biology. However, the foundations of this new discipline need to be fleshed out more carefully. In this paper, we claim that a relational ontology is a necessary tool to ground both the conceptual and explanatory aspects of Systems Biology. A relational ontology holds that relations are prior—both conceptually and explanatory—to entities, and that in the biological realm entities are defined primarily by (...) the context they are embedded within—and hence by the web of relations they are part of. (shrink)

When an entity ontologically depends on another entity, the former ‘presupposes’ or ‘requires’ the latter in some metaphysical sense. This paper defends a novel view, Dependence Deflationism, according to which ontological dependence is what I call an aggregative cluster concept: a concept which can be understood, but not fully analysed, as a ‘weighted total’ of constructive and modal relations. The view has several benefits: it accounts for clear cases of ontological dependence as well as the source of disagreement in controversial (...) ones; it gives a nice story about the evidential relevance of modal, mereological and set-theoretic facts to ontological dependence; and it makes sense of debates over the relation's formal properties. One important upshot of the deflationary account is that questions of ontological dependence are generally less deep and less interesting than usually thought. (shrink)

Do grounding claims entail corresponding supervenience claims? The question matters, as a positive answer would help grounding theorists address worries that their hyperintensional primitive is obscure, and also increase the argumentative strategies that are available within ground-theoretic frameworks for metaphysical inquiry. Leuenberger (Erkenntnis 79:227–240, 2014a) argues for a negative response, by specifying some candidate principles of entailment and then claiming that each of them is subject to counterexamples. In this paper, I critically assess those principles and the objections he raises (...) against them, and advocate a novel entailment principle that overcomes all the problems suffered by those other principles. The principle I defend places a supervenience-based constraint on grounding claims, and secures a substantive connection between grounding and modality, weaker than necessitation. (shrink)

This paper argues that two principles held by many metaphysicians and philosophers of mind are inconsistent: there is no systematic overdetermination, and some causal effects are also determined by their metaphysical grounds. Call this “The Problem of Secondary Effects.” After introducing the problem and noting philosophical theories that face it, the paper offers further clarification by considering three potential strategies for solving it. All fail. An approach that sacrifices ‘secondary effects’ is briefly sketched as a solution.

The central claim of this paper is that the Aristotelian metaphysics of objects is incompatible with physicalism. This includes the contemporary variant of Aristotelianism I call ‘sortalism’. The core reason is that an object’s identity as an instance of a (natural) kind, as well as its consequent persistence conditions, is neither physically fundamental nor determined by what is physically fundamental. The argument for the latter appeals to what is commonly known as ‘the grounding problem’; in particular I argue that the (...) physicalist has no solution, and this requires that the physicalist jettison the traditional concept of objects having kind-specific identity and persistence conditions. (shrink)

The central aim of this article is to specify the ontological nature of constitutive mechanistic phenomena. After identifying three criteria of adequacy that any plausible approach to constitutive mechanistic phenomena must satisfy, we present four different suggestions, found in the mechanistic literature, of what mechanistic phenomena might be. We argue that none of these suggestions meets the criteria of adequacy. According to our analysis, constitutive mechanistic phenomena are best understood as what we will call ‘object-involving occurrents’. Furthermore, on the basis (...) of this notion, we will clarify what distinguishes constitutive mechanistic explanations from etiological ones. 1 Introduction 2 Criteria of Adequacy 2.1 Descriptive adequacy 2.2 Constitutive–etiological distinction 2.3 Constitution 3 The Ontological Nature of Constitutive Mechanistic Phenomena 3.1 Phenomena as input–output relations 3.2 Phenomena as end states 3.3 Phenomena as dispositions 3.4 Phenomena as behaviours 4 Phenomena as Object-Involving Occurrents 4.1 What object-involving occurrents are and why we need them 4.2 The object in the phenomenon 4.3 The adequacy of option 5 Conclusion. (shrink)

Constitutive mechanistic explanations are said to refer to mechanisms that constitute the phenomenon-to-be-explained. The most prominent approach of how to understand this constitution relation is Carl Craver’s mutual manipulability approach to constitutive relevance. Recently, the mutual manipulability approach has come under attack (Leuridan 2012; Baumgartner and Gebharter 2015; Romero 2015; Harinen 2014; Casini and Baumgartner 2016). Roughly, it is argued that this approach is inconsistent because it is spelled out in terms of interventionism (which is an approach to causation), whereas (...) constitutive relevance is said to be a non-causal relation. In this paper, I will discuss a strategy of how to resolve this inconsistency, so-called fat-handedness approaches (Baumgartner and Gebharter 2015; Casini and Baumgartner 2016; Romero 2015). I will argue that these approaches are problematic. I will present a novel suggestion of how to consistently define constitutive relevance in terms of interventionism. My approach is based on a causal interpretation of mutual manipulability, where manipulability is interpreted as a causal relation between the mechanism’s components and temporal parts of the phenomenon. (shrink)

According to the new mechanistic approach, an acting entity is at a lower mechanistic level than another acting entity if and only if the former is a component in the mechanism for the latter. Craver and Bechtel :547–563, 2007. doi:10.1007/s10539-006-9028-8) argue that a consequence of this view is that there cannot be causal interactions between acting entities at different mechanistic levels. Their main reason seems to be what I will call the Metaphysical Argument: things at different levels of a mechanism (...) are related as part and whole; wholes and their parts cannot be related as cause and effect; hence, interlevel causation in mechanisms is impossible. I will analyze this argument in more detail and show under which conditions it is valid. This analysis will reveal that interlevel causation in mechanisms is indeed possible, if we take seriously the idea that the relata of the mechanistic level relation are acting entities and accept a slightly modified notion of a mechanistic level that is highly plausible in the light of the first clarification. (shrink)

This essay examines the relationship between monads and space in Kant’s early pre-critical work, with special attention devoted to the question of ubeity, a Scholastic doctrine that Leibniz describes as “ways of being somewhere”. By focusing attention on this concept, evidence will be put forward that supports the claim, held by various scholars, that the monad-space relationship in Kant is closer to Leibniz’ original conception than the hypotheses typically offered by the later Leibniz-Wolff school. In addition, Kant’s monadology, in conjunction (...) with God’s role, also helps to shed light on further aspects of his system that are broadly Leibnizian, such as monadic activity and the unity of space. (shrink)

Some claim that the notion of strong emergence as involving ontological or causal novelty makes no sense, on grounds that any purportedly strongly emergent features or associated powers 'collapse', one way or another, into the lower-level base features upon which they depend. Here we argue that there are several independently motivated and defensible means of preventing the collapse of strongly emergent features or powers into their lower-level bases, as directed against a conception of strongly emergent features as having fundamentally novel (...) powers. After introducing the project (Section 1), we motivate and present the powers-based account (Section 2); we then canvass the two main versions of the collapse objection, show how these apply to the powers-based account, and problematize certain strategies of response (Section 3); we then present and defend four better strategies of response (Section 4). (shrink)

Amidst the progress being made in the various (sub-)disciplines of the behavioural and brain sciences a somewhat neglected subject is the problem of how everything fits into one world and, derivatively, how the relation between different levels of discourse should be understood and to what extent different levels, domains, approaches, or disciplines are autonomous or dependent. In this paper I critically review the most recent proposals to specify the nature of interdiscourse relations, focusing on the concept of supervenience. Ideally supervenience (...) is a relation between different discourses which has all the advantages of reduction, but without its disadvantages. I apply the more abstract considerations to two concrete cases: schizophrenia and colour. Usually an interlevel or interdiscourse relation is seen as asymmetrical: the overlaying discourse depends on the underlying discourse (and not vice versa), where the out- or un-spoken assumption is that the ultimate underlying discourse is physical. Instead I argue that scientific categories referred to in interdiscourse relations are, ultimately, dependent on common sense categories and common sense normative criteria. It is the manifest categories and common sense ideas about what is reasonable and what is right that determine the relevant categorisations at the deeper, underlying levels. I suggest that the implications of this are not merely methodological or epistemological. (shrink)

In Chinese philosophy, although the concept of qi has numerous meanings, it is not completely without order or chaotic. Generally speaking, qi has several different levels of meanings, such as in philosophy, physics, physiology, psychology, ethics, and so on. On the philosophical level, qi is similar to air, and it is essentially similar to the matter-energy or field in physics, which refers to the origin or an element of all things in the world. It is from this point that the (...) meanings of qi in physiology, psychology, ethics as well as aesthetics are derived. This paper analyzes the meanings of qi on five levels and seeks to clarify misunderstandings about qi, such as its alleged pan-vitalistic, conscious and pan-ethical characters. (shrink)

In a scientific context, ontological commitments should be considered as supervenient over accepted scientific theories. This implies that the primarily ontological notions of reduction and emergence of entities of different kinds should be reformulated in terms of relations between existing empirical theories. For this, in turn, it is most convenient to employ a model-theoretic view of scientific theories: the identity criterion of a scientific theory is essentially given by a class of models. Accordingly, reduction and emergence are to be seen (...) as particular kinds of relations between models of different theories that subsume the same "experiential field". The set-theoretical notion of an echelon-set proves to be crucial for this purpose: The domains in the models of the reduced theory are echelon-sets over the domains of the reducing theory. Finally, it is argued that emergence may plausibly be interpreted as akin to but weaker than reduction. (shrink)

. My main claim is that explanations are fundamentally about relations between concepts and not, for example, essentially requiring laws, causes, or particular initial conditions. Nor is their linguistic form essential. I begin by showing that this approach solves some well-known old problems and then proceeds to argue my case using heuristic analogies with mathematical proofs. I find that an explanation is something that connects explanandum and explanans by apprehensible steps that penetrate into more fundamental levels than that of explanandum. (...) This leads to a deeper discussion of what it means to be more fundamental. Although I am not able to give a general definition, I argue that linguistic entities and empirical concepts are usually not fundamental, much relying on the distinction between complete and depleted ideas or experiences. (shrink)

The concept of levels of organization, despite its widespread scientific currency, has recently been criticized by a number of philosophers of science. This paper diagnoses the main source of problems facing theories of levels. On this basis, the problems with the usual criteria for distinguishing levels are evaluated: compositional relations, organizational types, and spatial scales. Drawing on some work on hierarchies in ecology, I argue in favor of an alternative conception of levels defined by the criterion of rates or time (...) scales of processes. (shrink)

Grand debates over reduction and emergence are playing out across the sciences, but these debates have reached a stalemate, with both sides declaring victory on empirical grounds. In this book, Carl Gillett provides new theoretical frameworks with which to understand these debates, illuminating both the novel positions of scientific reductionists and emergentists and the recent empirical advances that drive these new views. Gillett also highlights the flaws in existing philosophical frameworks and reorients the discussion to reflect the new scientific advances (...) and issues, including the nature of 'parts' and 'wholes', the character of aggregation, and thus the continuity of nature itself. Most importantly, Gillett shows how disputes about concrete scientific cases are empirically resolvable and hence how we can break the scientific stalemate. Including a detailed glossary of key terms, this volume will be valuable for researchers and advanced students of the philosophy of science and metaphysics, and scientific researchers working in the area. (shrink)