13 found
Order:
Disambiguations
Michaela Markham McSweeney [7]Michaela McSweeney [4]Michaela M. McSweeney [2]
  1. Why Mary left her room.Michaela M. McSweeney - 2023 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 109 (1):261-287.
    I argue for an account of grasping, or understanding that, on which we grasp via a higher‐order mental act of Husserlian fulfillment. Fulfillment is the act of matching up the objects of our phenomenally presentational experiences with those of our phenomenally representational thought. Grasping‐by‐fulfilling is importantly different from standard epistemic aims, in part because it is phenomenal rather than inferential. (I endorse Bourget's (2017) arguments to that effect.) I show that grasping‐by‐fulfilling cannot be a species of propositional knowledge or belief, (...)
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  2. Metaphysics as Essentially Imaginative and Aiming at Understanding.Michaela Markham McSweeney - 2023 - American Philosophical Quarterly 60 (1):83-97.
    I explore the view that metaphysics is essentially imaginative. I argue that the central goal of metaphysics on this view is understanding, not truth. Metaphysics-as-essentially-imaginative provides novel answers to challenges to both the value and epistemic status of metaphysics.
    Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  3. Following logical realism where it leads.Michaela Markham McSweeney - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (1):117-139.
    Logical realism is the view that there is logical structure in the world. I argue that, if logical realism is true, then we are deeply ignorant of that logical structure: either we can’t know which of our logical concepts accurately capture it, or none of our logical concepts accurately capture it at all. I don’t suggest abandoning logical realism, but instead discuss how realists should adjust their methodology in the face of this ignorance.
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   21 citations  
  4. Logical Realism and the Metaphysics of Logic.Michaela Markham McSweeney - 2019 - Philosophy Compass 14 (1):e12563.
    Abstract‘Logical Realism’ is taken to mean many different things. I argue that if reality has a privileged structure, then a view I call metaphysical logical realism is true. The view says that, first, there is ‘One True Logic’; second, that the One True Logic is made true by the mind‐and‐language‐independent world; and third, that the mind‐and‐language‐independent world makes it the case that the One True Logic is better than any other logic at capturing the structure of reality. Along the way, (...)
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  5. Debunking Logical Ground: Distinguishing Metaphysics from Semantics.Michaela Markham McSweeney - 2020 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 6 (2):156-170.
    Many philosophers take purportedly logical cases of ground ) to be obvious cases, and indeed such cases have been used to motivate the existence of and importance of ground. I argue against this. I do so by motivating two kinds of semantic determination relations. Intuitions of logical ground track these semantic relations. Moreover, our knowledge of semantics for first order logic can explain why we have such intuitions. And, I argue, neither semantic relation can be a species of ground even (...)
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   16 citations  
  6. Understanding in Science and Philosophy.Michaela McSweeney - forthcoming - In Sanford C. Goldberg & Mark Walker (eds.), Attitude in Philosophy. Oxford University Press.
    I first quickly outline what I think grasping is, and suggest that it is both among our basic aims of inquiry and not essentially tied to belief, justification, or knowledge. Then, I briefly look at some places in the metaphysics of science in which it looks like our aim of grasping and our aim in knowing—or perhaps more specifically in knowing the explanations for things—might seem to conflict. I will use this conflict to support a broader view: sometimes, we might (...)
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  7. An Epistemic Account Of Metaphysical Equivalence1.Michaela Markham McSweeney - 2016 - Philosophical Perspectives 30 (1):270-293.
    I argue that, in order for us to be justified in believing that two theories are metaphysically equivalent, we must be able to conceive of them as unified into a single theory, which says nothing over and above either of them. I propose one natural way of precisifying this condition, and show that the quantifier variantist cannot meet it. I suggest that the quantifier variantist cannot meet the more general condition either, and argue that this gives the metaphysical realist a (...)
    Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  8. Logic (earlier draft titled 'Grounding Logically Complex Facts').Michaela McSweeney - 2020 - In Michael J. Raven (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Grounding. New York: Routledge.
  9. Theories as recipes: third-order virtue and vice.Michaela Markham McSweeney - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (2):391-411.
    A basic way of evaluating metaphysical theories is to ask whether they give satisfying answers to the questions they set out to resolve. I propose an account of “third-order” virtue that tells us what it takes for certain kinds of metaphysical theories to do so. We should think of these theories as recipes. I identify three good-making features of recipes and show that they translate to third-order theoretical virtues. I apply the view to two theories—mereological universalism and plenitudinous platonism—and draw (...)
    Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  10. Maladjustment.Michaela McSweeney - 2022 - Philosophical Studies 180 (3):843-869.
    Martin Luther King Jr. claimed that “the salvation of the world lies in the hands of the maladjusted”. I elaborate on King’s claim by focusing on the way in which we treat and understand ‘maladjustment’ that is responsive to severe trauma (e.g. PTSD that is a result of military combat or rape). Mental healthcare and our social attitudes about mental illness and disorder will prevent us from recognizing real injustice that symptoms of mental illness can be appropriately responding to, unless (...)
    Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  11. The Cost of Closure: Logical Realism, Anti-Exceptionalism, and Theoretical Equivalence.Michaela M. McSweeney - 2021 - Synthese 199:12795–12817.
    Philosophers of science often assume that logically equivalent theories are theoretically equivalent. I argue that two theses, anti-exceptionalism about logic (which says, roughly, that logic is not a priori, that it is revisable, and that it is not special or set apart from other human inquiry) and logical realism (which says, roughly, that differences in logic reflect genuine metaphysical differences in the world), make trouble for both this commitment and the closely related commitment to theories being closed under logical consequence. (...)
    Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  12. The Metaphysical Basis of Logic.Michaela McSweeney - 2016 - Dissertation, Princeton University
  13.  64
    An Introduction to Metametaphysics by Tuomas E. Tahko: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. v + 258, £19.99. [REVIEW]Michaela Markham McSweeney - 2017 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (4):832-833.
    Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark