Metaphysical Indeterminacy workshop: schedule

Update on the upcoming workshop for the Metaphysical Indeterminacy project.  The schedule will be:

Wed 13th June:
1.15-1.30pm: Registration in the philosophy foyer
1.30-3pm: Cian Dorr (Oxford): Semantic Plasticity
3-3.15pm: Break
3.15-4.45pm: Carrie Jenkins (UBC): Justification Magnets and Indeterminacy

Thur 14th June:
9.30-11am: Daniel Nolan (ANU): Indeterminacy and Essence
11-11.15am: Break
11.15am-12.45pm: Patrick Greenough (St Andrews): Evans' Argument

All the talks will be in BG36 in the philosophy department.

Aesthetics job

Leeds is advertising a one-year lecturer job in aesthetics.  Details, including how to apply, are here.  Leeds is one of the best places in the world for aesthetics: with Matthew Kieran, Aaron Meskin and Andrew McGonigal on faculty, we are rated in group 1 in the most recent Leiter report.

Indeterminacy workshop

The 4th (of 6) workshop for the Leeds based Metaphysical Indeterminacy project will take place on the afternoon of Wed 13th June and morning of Thurs 14th.  The speakers are:

Cian Dorr (Oxford): Semantic Plasticity

Patrick Greenough (St Andrews): Evans' Argument

Carrie Jenkins (UBC): Justification Magnets and Indeterminacy

Daniel Nolan (ANU): Indeterminacy and Essence


This is part of a 3 year project on Metaphysical Indeterminacy ran by myself, Elizabeth Barnes and Robbie Williams, and is funded by the AHRC.  Attendance is free, but please let me know if you would like to attend.  (E-mail me at r.p.cameron followed by that symbol then leeds.ac.uk.)

McTaggart paper

I've posted a new paper: 'McTaggart and Modal McTaggart: presentism and actualism to the rescue?'

Here's the abstract:

McTaggart aims to cause trouble for views on which there is a privileged present but it changes what time it is. The modal analogue of his argument aims to cause trouble for views on which there is privileged actuality but it’s contingent which world is actual. Prima facie, the arguments work against views which are realist about other times and worlds, but not against presentist or actualism. But this has been challenged in both directions. Nick JJ Smith argues that the temporal problem still afflicts the presentist: if he’s right, the modal analogue afflicts the actualist as well. Phillip Bricker argues that the modal problem doesn’t afflict the modal realist with privileged actuality: if he’s right, the temporal analogue doesn’t afflict the A-theoretic eternalist. I argue they are both wrong: there is a serious problem for eternalism with A-theory and for modal realism with absolute actuality, but there is no problem for the presentist or actualist.

Comments welcome!

New Leeds hires: update

Just an update on the post below: unfortunately Paulina Sliwa is no longer such as to have accepted our job, so we will only be welcoming Paolo Santorio and Matt Smith to the department.

3 new Leeds philosophers!

I'm delighted to announce three new hires at Leeds: Paolo Santorio, Paulina Sliwa, and Matthew Smith.

Paolo received his PhD from MIT in 2011 and is currently a postdoc at the ANU. He works on the philosophy of language, mind and epistemology, with some interests in metaethics, and his paper 'Reference and Monstrosity' is forthcoming in The Philosophical Review.

Paulina is currently finishing up her PhD at MIT. She works on ethics and epistemology, and on their intersection. Her paper 'In Defense of Moral Testimony' is forthcoming in Philosophical Studies.

Matthew Smith received his PhD from UNC Chapel Hill in 2004 and currently works at Yale. He works on moral and political philosophy, and has a bunch of papers in places like Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Philosophers' Imprint, Philosophical Studies, etc.

These are three outstanding philosophers, and will make a great contribution to our Centre for Metaphysics and Mind and our Centre for Ethics and Metaethics.

Metaphysical Mayhem!

I've been asked to post the following:

Metaphysical Mayhem is back! Rutgers University will be hosting a 5-day summer school for graduate students May 14-18, 2012. John Hawthorne, Katherine Hawley, Ted Sider, Jonathan Schaffer, and Dean Zimmerman will lead the seminars on a variety of topics in metaphysics, including: natural properties, composition as identity, grounding, metaphysical explanation, and stuff like that...

For more information, see:

http://fas-philosophy.rutgers.edu/mbenton/mayhem.html

Chair in Philosophy and Relgion at Leeds!

Leeds is advertising for a chair in philosophy and religion - see the advert pasted below.

Chair in Philosophy and Religion

Faculty of Arts
School of Humanities
Reference: 0995/5
Closing Date: Friday 23rd March 2012

This Chair is a part of a major strategic investment by the University to achieve an ambitious improvement in academic performance and enhanced student experience.

From August of this year, the present School of Humanities will become the new unitary School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science, bringing together the subject areas of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies and the History of Science. Building on established research excellence, and committed to providing a world-class standard of student education, the School is investing in a significant number of new posts aligned to its strategic commitment to ensuring its place amongst the top-ranked Schools internationally. The creation of this Chair reflects that ambition, alongside recognition of the potential to enhance existing research and teaching strengths through cross-disciplinary collaborative leadership and activity.

Philosophy at Leeds is one of the highest ranked research units in the UK, with an internationally-recognised world-leading status in key areas, while Theology and Religious Studies is an international leader in the study of religion and public life, and the History of Science is one of the foremost units of its kind in the UK, with an impressive international profile. In this context, this post offers an exciting opportunity for an individual to exercise a leading role in enhancing collaborative activity and achievement, while developing their own expertise and career in a School committed to world-leading research and student education. The School is open to applications from candidates with expertise in philosophy of religion, religion and science, and other areas that can build on existing and developing cross-disciplinary strengths in the School, such as religion and ethics, religion and aesthetics and religion and metaphysics. The person appointed will report to the Head of School and deliver research-led education that contributes to an exceptional student experience, top quality research outputs that contribute to impact and innovation, and expect to take on a significant leadership role in the organisation in education and/or research.

Preliminary enquiries about the post should be directed to our retained consultancy firm, Perrett Laver on +44 (0)207 340 6200.

To download further particulars about the role please visit www.perrettlaver.com, quoting reference number 0995/5.

Salary

The salary, which is negotiable, will be within the Professorial range - minimum £59,302 p.a.

For further details and for information on how to apply, please read the complete job description for this role

Oxford Studies in Metaphysics Younger Scholar Prize

I've been asked to post the following notice about the

Oxford Studies in Metaphysics Younger Scholar Prize

THE

Sponsored by the Ammonius Foundation (http://www.ammonius.org/) and administered by the editorial board of Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, the 2012 Younger Scholar Prize annual essay competition is open to scholars who are within ten years of receiving a Ph.D. or students who are currently enrolled in a graduate program. (Independent scholars should enquire of the editor to determine eligibility.) The award is $8,000. Winning essays will appear in Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, so submissions must not be under review elsewhere.

Essays should generally be no longer than 10,000 words; longer essays may be considered, but authors must seek prior approval. To be eligible for the 2012 prize, submissions must be electronically submitted by 30 January 2012 (paper submissions are no longer accepted). Refereeing will be blind; authors should omit remarks and references that might disclose their identities. Receipt of submissions will be acknowledged by e-mail. The winner is determined by a committee of members of the editorial board of Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, and will be announced in early March. At the author’s request, the board will simultaneously consider entries in the prize competition as submissions for Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, independently of the prize.

Previous winners of the Younger Scholar Prize are:

Thomas Hofweber, “Inexpressible Properties and Propositions”, Vol. 2;

Matthew McGrath, “Four-Dimensionalism and the Puzzles of Coincidence”, Vol. 3;

Cody Gilmore, “Time Travel, Coinciding Objects, and Persistence”, Vol. 3;

Stephan Leuenberger, “Ceteris Absentibus Physicalism”, Vol. 4;

Jeffrey Sanford Russell, “The Structure of Gunk: Adventures in the Ontology of Space”, Vol. 4;

Bradford Skow, “Extrinsic Temporal Metrics”, Vol. 5;

Jason Turner, “Ontological Nihilism”, Vol. 6;

Rachael Briggs and Graeme A. Forbes, “The Real Truth About the Unreal Future”, Vol. 7;

Shamik Dasgupta, “Absolutism vs Comparativism about Quantities”, forthcoming, Vol. 8.

Enquiries should be addressed to Dean Zimmerman:

dwzimmer@rci.rutgers.edu

Parthood, CAI and grounding

I've posted a new paper: 'Parts generate the whole, but they are not identical to it'. The paper argues that the view that wholes are grounded (at least in part) by their parts is better than the view that wholes are their parts (composition as identity), because it does as well or better at solving certain puzzles concerning parthood, and has the advantage of not having counter-intuitive essentialist consequences. Any comments welcome!

Three jobs at Leeds

We are advertising three continuing lecturer jobs at Leeds, in philosophy of language, epistemology, and value.

(These jobs are roughly equivalent to tenured assistants professorships, in US terms. And feel free to apply for more than one: if you do language and epistemology, e.g., then put in two separate applications, one for each job.)

Further details:

1. Lecturer in Value Philosophy Job reference: ARTHM0010

The School seeks to hire a Lecturer in of Philosophy of Value, broadly construed to include (e.g.) normative ethics, metaethics, and political philosophy.

The position will incorporate undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, some thesis supervision, and some non-teaching administrative duties. With a research record and teaching experience commensurate with career stage, the successful candidate should have completed or submitted a PhD by the beginning of the appointment.

The successful candidate will have the ability to make an outstanding contribution to the research activities of the Centre for Ethics and Metaethics, to the research life of the department in general, and to Philosophy’s REF 2014 submission.

Post must commence no later than 1 September 2012 (or sooner if required to do so in discussion with the School).

Candidates are encouraged to apply for more than one Philosophy position where appropriate.

We particularly welcome applications from candidates belonging to groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in philosophy, including but not limited to women and ethnic minorities.

For more information on Philosophy at the University of Leeds see http://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/info/20048/philosophy

University Grade 7 (£32,751 – £35,788) or University Grade 8 (£36,862 - £44,016)

Informal enquiries may be made to Professor Graeme Gooday Tel +44 (0)113 343 3274, messages Tel +44 (0)113 343 3260,

Email: g.j.n.gooday@leeds.ac.uk

Closing date 18 November 2011

Interviews are expected to be held in February 2012

2. Lecturer in Epistemology Job Reference: ARTHM0009

The School seeks to hire a Lecturer in Epistemology, broadly construed to include (e.g.) specialists in the history of the subject and candidates whose research engages with issues in philosophy of science.

The position will incorporate undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, some thesis supervision, and some non-teaching administrative duties. With a research record and teaching experience commensurate with career stage, the successful candidate should have completed or submitted a PhD by the beginning of the appointment.

The successful candidate will have the ability to make an outstanding contribution to the research life of the department, and to Philosophy’s REF 2014 submission.

Post must commence no later than 1 September 2012 (or sooner if required to do so in discussion with the School).

Candidates are encouraged to apply for more than one Philosophy position where appropriate.

We particularly welcome applications from candidates belonging to groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in philosophy, including but not limited to women and ethnic minorities.

For more information on Philosophy at the University of Leeds see http://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/info/20048/philosophy

University Grade 7 (£32,751 – £35,788) or University Grade 8 (£36,862 - £44,016)

Informal enquiries may be made to Professor Graeme Gooday Tel +44 (0)113 343 3274, messages Tel +44 (0)113 343 3260,

Email: g.j.n.gooday@leeds.ac.uk

Closing date 18 November 2011

Interviews are expected to be held in February 2012

3. Lecturer in Philosophy of Language Job Reference: ARTHM0011

The School seeks to hire a Lecturer in the Philosophy of Language, broadly construed to include (e.g.) specialists in the history of the subject.

The position will incorporate undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, some thesis supervision, and some non-teaching administrative duties. With a research record and teaching experience commensurate with career stage, the successful candidate should have completed or submitted a PhD by the beginning of the appointment.

The successful candidate will have the ability to make an outstanding contribution to the research life of the department, and to Philosophy’s REF 2014 submission.

Post must commence no later than 1 September 2012 (or sooner if required to do so in discussion with the School).

Candidates are encouraged to apply for more than one Philosophy position where appropriate.

We particularly welcome applications from candidates belonging to groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in philosophy, including but not limited to women and ethnic minorities.

For more information on Philosophy at the University of Leeds see http://www.leeds.ac.uk/arts/info/20048/philosophy

University Grade 7 (£32,751 – £35,788) or University Grade 8 (£36,862 - £44,016)

Informal enquiries may be made to Professor Graeme Gooday Tel +44 (0)113 343 3274, messages Tel +44 (0)113 343 3260

Email: g.j.n.gooday@leeds.ac.uk

Closing date 18 November 2011

Interviews are expected to be held in February 2012

Indeterminacy workshop

The 2nd workshop for the Leeds Metaphysical Indeterminacy Project will be held on September 8-9 2011 at the University of Leeds.

Speakers and titles include:

* Katherine Hawley (St Andrews) 'A Problem of the Many for Universals' (joint work with Alexander Bird)
* Benj Hellie (Toronto) 'Treating the future as open'
* Nick JJ Smith (Sydney) 'Many kinds of indeterminacy; one kind of credence'
* Jessica Wilson (Toronto) 'Indeterminacy in the World'

The workshop will start around midday on Thursday, and finish mid-afternoon Friday. Thanks to funding from the AHRC, there is no registration fee; but if you'd like to attend, please contact Robert Williams (j.r.g.williams@leeds.ac.uk) so we can ensure we have enough space.

The workshop is the second of six sponsored by the AHRC as part of the 3-year Metaphysical Indeterminacy project at Leeds. Further details can be found at the project homepage.

Open future (again)

Elizabeth and I have posted a draft of a new paper on the open future: available here. Comments welcome!

Fictional Realism, Nominalism, and Indeterminate Identity

I’ve posted a new paper: How to be a nominalist and a fictional realist. Here are the Cliff notes.

In my musical works paper, I argued that there are true claims proclaiming the existence of, and properties of, musical works, but that there weren’t really any musical works, because such claims were made true by an ontology that didn’t admit such things. In this paper, I attempt to tell a similar story for fictional characters. It’s literally true that the fictional character Bilbo Baggins exists, and it’s literally that he is a Hobbit according to the fiction The Lords of the Rings. But these claims can be made true without admitting fictional characters, or fictions, into our ontology. What makes them true, I suggest, are our acts of interpreting the fiction. Thus we can account for these truths with a nominalistically acceptable ontology (assuming, as I do, that there is in general a nominalistically acceptable account of the mental).

I also argue that the resulting view solves various puzzle cases concerning fictional characters. The most salient being Anthony Everett’s argument that fictional realism leads to untenable indeterminacy in identity. Everett argues that there are fictions in which it is indeterminate whether A is identical to B. The fictional realist believes in the fictional characters A and B. Whether the fictional characters are in reality identical is determined by whether they are identical according to the fiction to which they belong. So since it’s indeterminate whether they are identical in the fiction, it’s indeterminate in reality whether the fictional characters are identical. Reductio of fictional realist, given Evans’ argument against indeterminate identity.

I attempt to solve this puzzle by locating the source of the indeterminacy to indeterminacy in what fictional character is referred to, thus avoiding conflict with Evans’ conclusion (which is, as Lewis noted, directed only at indeterminate identity de re, not at indeterminacy in identity statements). Roughly, the idea is that when the fiction attempts to make an indeterminate identity, we are forced to interpret the fiction both ways. Given the above account, this results in there being two fictions, and two sets of fictional characters associated with each fiction, and it will as a result be indeterminate which fiction and which characters we refer to. In which case, the statement of identity will be indeterminate, but there will be no indeterminacy of identity de re.

Further details in the paper, of course; comments welcome.

'In virtue of' and propositions

Like many metaphysicians, I think the world is structured. Some truths hold true in virtue of others; some things exist in virtue of other things; some truths are made true by things. I think that there’s only one relation here, and it is the in virtue of relation, that holds between true propositions. For A to exist in virtue of B (i.e. for A to be ontologically dependent on B) is for the proposition [A exists] to be true in virtue of the proposition [B exists]; for the proposition P to be made true by A is for P to be true in virtue of the proposition [A exists].

Sometimes I hear the objection that this assumes that propositions are themselves fundamental constituents of reality. This objection is misplaced, for the view does not assume that. I can’t really see why one would think it did, but I’ve heard it enough times that I think it’s worth spelling out why I don’t think it does. If I’m just confused, I’d like to hear why!

Suppose you have an in virtue of chain that terminates in the proposition P. All that is entailed by this is that what P says to be the case is fundamentally the case; but that P exists may well be true in virtue of something else, and so P may itself be a derivative entity, despite its content being a fundamental truth.

Here is a toy example, just to illustrate the consistency. Suppose for every proposition, p, that p exists is true in virtue of the fact that it is possible for someone to entertain the content of p. So P might be true in virtue of Q, which is itself fundamental. But the proposition [Q exists] needn’t be fundamental. On the toy proposal, [Q exists] is true in virtue of [Possibly, someone entertains the content of Q]. Of course, now I’ve invoked another proposition, call it R; so if it is to be a derivative entity I need to invoke a new instance of the in virtue of relation. [R exists] in virtue of [Possibly, someone entertains the content of R]. And now we have another new proposition, so need a new instance of the relation; and so on, and so on. We generate an infinite sequence of in virtue of relations. But this is not, I think, a vicious regress. The success of an instance of the in virtue of relation never depends on the success of the instance of the relation it ‘generates’. P obtains in virtue of Q, and that generates a new instance: [Q exists] in virtue of R. But the success of ‘P obtains in virtue of Q’ doesn’t depend on the success of ‘[Q exists] in virtue of R’, for it doesn’t matter to P’s being grounded in Q whether or not Q is fundamental. That Q is not a fundamental existent is nice, but it’s irrelevant to Q’s ability to be the relata of the in virtue of relation. So the fact that there is an infinite sequence of in virtue of instances is, I think, unworrying.

Now, I don’t particularly recommend that account of what grounds the facts concerning the existence of propositions, but it’s clearly just a placeholder for a better account. So I think taking propositions to be the relata of the in virtue of relation simply has no consequences for whether or not propositions are fundamental constituents of the world.

Indeterminacy workshop, update.

The schedule is now finalised for the first metaphysical indeterminacy workshop, and follows, with paper titles. Again, let me know if you'd like to come.

Fri, Jan 21

1.00-1.15: Arrival and Registration
1.15-2.45: Antony Eagle (Oxford), The Open Future
2.45-3.00: Break
3.00-4.30: Agustin Rayo (MIT), Metaphysical Indeterminacy and the Contours of Logical Space

Sat, Jan 22

10.00-11.30: Carrie Jenkins (Nottingham), Indeterminacy and Analyticity: Blaming Semantics and Blaming the World
11.30-1.30: Lunch
1.30-3.00: Patrick Greenough (St Andrews), Truthmaker Gluts.
3.00: Conference Closes

All talks will be in G23, Baines wing. (Enter the university via the main entrance at the top of Parkinson steps, and there will be signs from there.)

Metaphysical Indeterminacy workshop

The first workshop of the AHRC funded project on Metaphysical Indeterminacy that Elizabeth, Robbie and I run will be held in Leeds on the 21st and 22nd of January. The speakers are

Antony Eagle (Oxford)
Patrick Greenough (St Andrews)
Carrie Jenkins (Nottingham)
Agustin Rayo (MIT)

The workshop will start at 1pm on Jan 21st and end at 2pm on the 22nd. Attendance is free, but if you are planning on coming please e-mail me (r.p.cameron@leeds.ac.uk) and let me know. We'd love to see you there!

Motivating Attitudes De Dicto and De Se

According to the Property Theory of content, the contents of our beliefs, desires, etc. aren't propositions, but properties. The contents of de se, or irreducibly first-personal, beliefs are properties we self-ascribe; if I believe that I myself am the messy shopper, I self-ascribe the property of being the messy shopper. If I merely believe de dicto (or even de re) that Jason is the messy shopper, then what I believe is the property of being such that Jason is the messy shopper. If I'm suffering from selective amnesia and have forgotten who I am, I may believe the latter without believing the former.

I like the property theory. I'd like to believe it. I've even defended it against objections. But I'm worried that it's motivations are going to over-generate. The property theory can be thought of as taking thoughts best expressed with one indexical expression -- "I" -- and inserting a slot into the content of this thought for the bit associated with that expression. (E.g., "I am the messy shopper" expresses the content ____ is the messy shopper.) I'm worried the argument that gets us to add in this slot is going to drive us to add in other slots as well.

Consider what I take to be the strongest case for the property theory: Lewis's ("Attitudes De Dicto and De Se", 1979) case of the two gods. Zeus lives at the top of the mountain; Poseidon lives at the bottom of the deepest ocean. They both know all the true propositions. But neither knows who he is. Zeus knows that Zeus is at the top of the tallest mountain; but he doesn't know that he is at the top of the tallest mountain. Since he knows all the true propositions (Lewis argues), and since if he did know that he was at the top of the mountain he'd have a (new) true belief, whatever content Zeus fails to be belief-related to must not be a proposition. But properties: those could do the job. Zeus could believe all the propositions but not believe the property being on top of the mountain.

Properties aren't the only way to handle Lewis's two-gods case. We could instead have belief as a triadic relation between, roughly, a believer, a proposition believed, and a way of presenting that proposition to oneself. Then Zeus might believe the proposition that Zeus is on top of the mountain under one mode of presentation, but not under another, first-personal, mode. Why prefer the property theory to this one? Neil Feit (Beliefs About the Self, 2008) argues (inter alia) that the property theory is just more streamlined, more elegant, than the triadic theory. We'll come back to this in a mo.

Here's the case that's worrying me. We have one god, who is sitting in front of two ghostly spheres -- call them Bo and Luke. They're intrinsic duplicates and, gosh, wouldn't you know it, they're occupying the exact same region right now. But one of them is going to move here in a minute.

Beings like us will have a hard time ostending one of the co-located spheres. But that's no problem for a god! So this god ostends one of them and says, "I wonder if that one is going to be the one that moves in a minute."

It looks like we can repeat the Lewis-style worries here. Our curious god -- call her Daisy -- might well know that Bo is going to move in a minute, but not know whether she is ostending Bo or Luke. Indeed, it looks like she might know all propositions, but still not know whether that sphere is going to move in a minute. So -- by parity of reasoning -- if Lewis's gods case drives us to add a slot in for irreducible "I"-thoughts, shouldn't the Bo and Luke case drive us to add in a slot for irreducibly demonstrative thoughts? But I take it this would be a disaster (once we see the trick, it's a good bet this will get out of hand pretty soon), so we should resist drawing the property-theory lesson from Lewis's two gods case.

I expect the property theorist to respond: "If we're already property theorists, we can find a property that Daisy doesn't believe: the property of ostending Bo. Once she comes to know that property, since she also knows that Bo will move in a minute, she will be in a cognitive state that she is not in now --- and it's one that can serve the role of 'knowing that that sphere will move in a minute'".

But the simplest version of this won't work. Suppose Daisy wonders, "Will it be that sphere or that one which moves in a minute?", respectively ostending Bo and Luke in the process. Even if she knows that she has ostended Bo during her wondering, this won't improve her cognitive state (because she has also ostended Luke). So the property theorist will have to resort to a more linguistically fine-grained property for Daisy to believe, one along the lines of "the property of having first ostended Bo and then ostended Luke", or something like that.

I don't have any argument the property theorist can't make this move work. I rather suspect he can. What I want to point out now is that the property theorist is now relying on properties that seem to be close to the triadic theorist's modes of presenting a proposition. That is: there will need to be some sort of quasi-syntactical specification of the thought that Daisy is having, so that Daisy can learn how parts of this thought are related to the world (e.g., that this part is related to Bo, and that one is related to Luke). This isn't the same thing as the triadic theorist's view by a long shot; but it makes use of many of the same sorts of resources.

But once we're going down this line as property theorists to deal with Daisy's ignorance, what happens to the objection to the triadic theorist's treatment of Zeus's ignorance? The triadic theorist, in essence, says that Zeus doesn't know his mental tokens of "I" pick out Zeus; the property theorist (on the envisaged response) says that Daisy doesn't know that her (particular) mental tokens of "that" pick out Bo and Luke, respectively. If we're going down this line anyway, why not be triadic theorists from the get-go? Maybe the triadic theory is ugly, but if the property theory has to partake of this same ugliness, then there's no argument from ugliness in favor of properties over modes of presentation. And the property theory in fact looks worse, because the triadic theorist can treat what seem like similar phenomena -- indexical ignorance -- in a similar fashion, whereas the property theorist treats some cases of indexical ignorance very differently than others.

AHRC studentship on metaphysical indeterminacy.

Elizabeth, Robbie and I have received a grant from the AHRC for a three year project on metaphysical indeterminacy. We are very excited about this! Part of this includes a PhD studentship. This will be an excellent opportunity, as the PhD student attached to the project will benefit from contact with the excellent group of international and UK philosophers we've got signed on to be involved! Unfortunately, there's a very short time until applications are due. Application details follow.

AHRC Project Doctoral Studentship, Metaphysical Indeterminacy

The Department of Philosophy at the University of Leeds invites applications for an AHRC-funded doctoral studentship, tenable from October 2010.

The award will be held as part of the AHRC-funded project ‘Metaphysical Indeterminacy’. The successful applicant will engage in research on a topic in the philosophy of indeterminacy, such as the metaphysics of indeterminacy, the logic or philosophy of language of vagueness, etc. The research undertaken by the award holder will contribute to the larger project, directed by Drs Elizabeth Barnes, Ross Cameron and Robert Williams. The chosen candidate will benefit from contact with national and international experts in metaphysics, the philosophy of logic and language and related fields through the programme of international visitors, seminars and workshops funded by the project.

Studentship Information

The studentship is tenable for up to 3 years (full-time) from 1 October 2010. Renewal of the studentship each year is subject to satisfactory academic progress.

AHRC regulations require that applicants must meet UK residency criteria or be ordinarily resident in the EU. EU candidates are normally eligible for a fees-only award, unless they have been ordinarily resident in the UK for 3 years immediately preceding the date of the award. Applicants should normally have, or be studying for, a Master’s degree in Philosophy. Further details concerning eligibility are available via the AHRC website. (PDF link)

Full awards cover academic fees at the standard UK rate and a maintenance grant for full-time study.

Applications

The closing date for applications is Friday 27th August 2010. You should also arrange for two academic references to be sent to us by this date.

Applications should be made using the standard postgraduate research degree application form, which is available for download (Word doc link). The following documents should be submitted with your application: 500 word PhD proposal; a copy of your degree transcripts (or a transcript of your marks to date if you are currently completing a degree); a sample of written work, consisting of a philosophical essay on a question of your choice, not less than 3000 words in length; CV.

All applications and references should be sent to Jenneke Stevens, Postgraduate Secretary, Department of Philosophy, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, email: J.M.Stevens@leeds.ac.uk, tel: +44 113 343 3263.

Intending applicants should contact Dr Ross Cameron (r.p.cameron@leeds.ac.uk) for information about the studentship.

Lewisian realism and modal reduction

I’ve posted a draft of a new paper that, among other things, defends Lewis against the charge that he needs to employ primitive modality in order for his modal realism to be successful, thus undermining his claims to reduction. One thing I argue is that Lewis’s objectors fail to adequately distinguish two tasks: giving an account of what possibility is, and giving an account of the extent of possibility. The tasks are crucially different and, in my opinion, neither requires for its success the meeting of the other. In particular, an account of what possibility is can stay silent on the extent of what is possible.

So consider the Lycan/Shalkowski objection that Lewis needs a modal understanding of ‘world’ to ensure that there is the correct correspondence between worlds and possibilities, necessary for the material adequacy of Lewis’s account of possibility as truth at a world. Lycan says that Lewis needs ‘world’ to mean ‘possible world’ to rule out the inclusion of impossible worlds in Lewis’s ontology. Shalkowski says Lewis needs the notion of a world to be modal to ensure that the space of worlds is complete: that there are no worlds missing.

I think that’s wrong. What ensures that there are no impossible worlds is Lewis’s account of what possibility is. To be possible just is to be true at a world, so there’s simply no question of there being an impossible world for Lewis. Whatever worlds there happen to be, those worlds will all be possible and none of them impossible, because that’s just what possibility is. Similarly, there’s no question of there being a world missing – of there being a possible circumstance with no corresponding world. But what accomplishes this is not a modal understanding of ‘world’ but, again, Lewis’s account of what possibility is.

It just falls out from Lewis’s analysis that there’s no impossible world, and no possible circumstance unrepresented by a world. Now, here’s what doesn’t fall out from the analysis: that there’s no world with a round square as a part, or that there’s a world with a talking donkey as a part. But contra what Lycan and Shalkowski think, this doesn’t mean that Lewis’s analysis leaves it open that there are impossible worlds or not worlds enough for possibility. If it turns out that there’s a world containing round squares then this is not for it to turn out that there’s an impossible world, according to Lewis’s analysis – it’s for it to turn out that round squares are possible after all! Likewise, mutatis mutandis, if it turns out that there’s no world containing a talking donkey.

Now, Lycan and Shalkowski might complain that any analysis of modality that says that round squares are possible and talking donkeys impossible is not acceptable. Well maybe that’s right. But Lewis’s analysis of course doesn’t say this: it just doesn’t settle that round square are impossible or talking donkeys possible. But that’s fine: the account of what possibility is needn’t settle these claims about the extent of possibility. To demand that Lewis’s analysis settle these facts is to demand too much of analysis: it’s to confuse the two tasks that should be kept separate.

You might think that we need to be able to acquire warrant for thinking that there are no worlds with round squares and that there are worlds with talking donkeys if Lewis’s analysis is to be warranted in the first place. Well, again, that’s fine: Lewis has given us an argument for thinking that the space of worlds is like this. (Namely, that the posit that it is so is theoretically beneficial.) But it’s nothing about the meaning of ‘world’ or the nature of worlds that settles that the space of worlds is so, and nor need it be, since an account of what possibility is needn’t entail an account of the extent of possibility.

I think a similar thing is going on in Divers and Melia’s objection to Lewisian realism. Their argument is as follows. They assume that it’s possible for there to be alien natural properties, and so Lewis’s principle of recombination doesn’t give us a complete account of what worlds there are. Now, it seems that if there could be alien natural properties, there should be no finite bound on the number of possible alien natural properties out there. It seems ad hoc to say there are exactly 17, or a billion, alien natural properties in the multiverse; and so it seems that if we accept the possibility of alien properties in the first place, we should hold that for any finite natural number n, there are at least n alien properties to be found across the space of worlds. But once this is granted, argue Divers and Melia, there is no way to give in non-modal terms a complete account of what worlds there are. For we can’t just say that there are infinitely many alien natural properties spread across the worlds; or that for any finite n there is a world where n distinct alien natural properties are instantiated. Why not? Well, to satisfy those tenets there has to be, across the space of worlds, a denumerable sequence of alien natural properties P1, P2, . . ., Pn. Now, let S be the set of all the worlds that there are. S satisfies both those tenets, of course; but so does the set S* which is the subset of S containing all the members of S except those worlds where, say, P1 is instantiated. Because with P1 missing, there are still of course infinitely many alien properties left; so any tenet you laid down to tell you that there were infinitely many alien natural properties out there in the space of worlds won’t be able to discriminate between it being P1, P2, . . ., Pn that exist across the worlds or merely P2, . . ., Pn that exist. And so there is no tenet you can lay down that will completely yield all the worlds that there are. Unless, of course, we say something like ‘All the possible alien natural properties are instantiated somewhere across the space worlds’. And so the only way to completely say what worlds there are is to invoke primitive modality.

I think Divers and Melia’s argument that the Lewisian is not going to be able to give a complete account of the space of worlds in non-modal terms is pretty convincing. But unlike them, I see no reason to think this casts doubt on the reductive ambitions of the theory. Why should we demand that the Lewisian be able to give a complete non-modal account of what worlds there are? Given the Lewisian analysis, that’s to demand a non-modal account of the space of possibilities. But why should we demand this? To say what it is to be possible is one thing, to say what is possible another. Maybe no complete account of the space of possibility can be given: that should lead us only to epistemic humility, not to abandon a reductive account of what it is to be possible.

The paper goes into these issues in more detail, as well as making some methodological remarks about how to assess whether something can appropriately be included in a reductive basis. Comments on any of it would be welcome.