Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

What is involved in the primacy of metaphysics?

  • Published:
Philosophical Studies Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The notion of explanatory priority is clarified. For A to be explanatory prior to B is for the correct account of the individuation of B to mention A, but not conversely. Exploring the relations of explanatory priority between entities does not involve the impossible enterprise of explaining why individuating conditions are as they are. Use-theoretic accounts of meaning and content are consistent with the claims of The Primacy of Metaphysics if they essentially involve a reference relation; and otherwise not. In the case of thought about abstract objects, we must distinguish between the enterprise of defining an expression and individuating an entity. When we do so, Fregean complaints about the project endorsing the principle “Individuation Precedes Representation” evaporate. The treatment of subjects of mental states in The Primacy of Metaphysics does not let in Johnston’s problematic ‘personites’, proper temporal segments of genuine subjects, once we distinguish: between multiplicity over time and multiplicity at a given time; between metaphysical conditions of individuation and merely ‘conceptual connections’; between the conditions under which something comes into existence, and the nature of that thing.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Amongst his many important papers on the topic, see Kit Fine, ‘Ontological dependence’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society XCV (1995) 269–290.

  2. This is at best a thumbnail sketch. There is a vast literature on the explanatory conception. In addition to the writings of Chomsky, see Martin Davies, ‘Meaning, Structure and Understanding’, Synthese 48 (1981) 135–161, and his many later writings on the issue. On my own use of the notion as explanatory in connection with concept possession, see Ch. 4 ‘Implicit Conceptions’ of my Truly Understood (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), and ‘Understanding and Rule-Following; in Mind, Meaning, and Knowledge: Themes from the Philosophy of Crispin Wright, ed. A. Coliva (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).

  3. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992.

  4. Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).

  5. ‘The Philosophy of Language’, in Philosophy 2: Further Through the Subject, ed. A. Grayling (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

  6. Arthur Prior, ‘The Runabout Inference-Ticket’, Analysis 21 (1960) 38–39.

  7. Paul Horwich, Christopher Peacocke on the relationship between language and metaphysics, 8. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01541-9.

  8. Michael Dummett, The Logical Basis of Metaphysics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 13–14.

  9. Paul Horwich, Christopher Peacocke on the relationship between language and metaphysics, 10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01541-9.

  10. See my Truly Understood (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), and “The 1973 Strawson-Evans Discussion: Three Unanswered Questions” https://316am.site123.me/articles/the-1973-strawson-evans-discussion-three-unanswered-questions?c=flickering-shadows-truth-in-16mm-edited-by-huw-price.

  11. Mark Johnston, The subject and its apparatus: are they ontological trash?, 2. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01543-7.

  12. See footnote 11.

  13. Mark Johnston, The subject and its apparatus: are they ontological trash?, 3. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01543-7.

  14. Mark Johnston, The subject and its apparatus: are they ontological trash?, 12–13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01543-7.

  15. See my ‘Externalist Explanation’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society XCIII (1993) 203–230.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Columbia University, New York City, USA

    Christopher Peacocke

  2. The Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London, London, UK

    Christopher Peacocke

Authors
  1. Christopher Peacocke
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christopher Peacocke.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Peacocke, C. What is involved in the primacy of metaphysics?. Philos Stud 178, 2745–2757 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01544-6

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-020-01544-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation