Oxford Studies in Metaphysics [6] 9780199603046

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OXFORD STUDIES IN METAPHYSICS Editorial Advisory Board

OXFORD STUDIES IN METAPHYSICS

David Chalmers (Australasian National University) Andrew Cortens (Boise State University) Tamar Szabo Gendler (Yale University)

Volume 6

Sally Haslanger (MITJ John Hawthorne (Oxford University) Mark Heller (Syracuse University) Hud Hudson (Western Washington University) Kathrin Koslicki (Tufts University) E. J. Lowe (University of Durham) Brian McLaughlin (Rutgers University) Trenton Merricks (University of Virginia) Kevin Mulligan (Universite de Geneve) Theodore Sider (New York University)

Edited by Karen Bennett and Dean W. Zimmerman

Timothy Williamson (Oxford University)

Managing Editor Matthew Benton (Rutgers University)

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York

PREFACE . . d d. t d t the timely publication Oxford Studies in Metaphysics is e ica e o . . ,. k m· metaphysics broadly construed. The sub1ect is of new wor , ' . d 1 en to include not only perennially central t~p1cs (e.g: mo a ~ak t logy and mereology) but also metaphysical questions that ity, :; eowithln other subfields (e.g. philosophy of mind, philosop~y em ·~nee and hilosophy of religion). Eac~ volume al~o contams of so b, the ~inner of the Oxford Studies m Metaphysics Younger an essay Y . · hin Scholar Prize, an annual award described wit . D.W.Z.

©The several contributors 2011 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above

You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Ponclicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by MPG Books Group, Bodmin and King's Lynn ISBN 97&-0-19-960303-9 (Hbk.) 97&-0-19--960304-6 (Pbk.) 13579108642

New Brunswick, NJ

CONTENTS The Oxford Studies in Metaphysics: Younger Scholar Prize Announcement

ix

MINIMIZING ONTOLOGICAL COMMITMENTS 1 Ontological Nihilism Jason Turner 2 Truthmaking for Presentists Ross P. Cameron

3

55

METAPHYSICAL VAGUENESS 3 A Theory of Metaphysical Indeterminacy Elizabeth Barnes and/. Robert G. Williams 4 Being Metaphysically Unsettled: Barnes and Williams on Metaphysical Indeterminacy and Vagueness Matti Eklund

103

149

5 Response to Eklund Elizabeth Barnes and f. Robert G. Williams

173

6 Metaphysical Indeterminacy and Vague Existence Richard Woodward

183

MEREOLOGY AND LOCATION 7 Mereological Harmony Gabriel Uzquiano

199

8 Parthood and Location Raul Saucedo

225

PERSONAL IDENTITY 9 Extemalism and Brain Transplants Rory Madden

Index

287

317

THE OXFORD STUDIES IN METAPHYSICS YOUNGER SCHOLAR PRIZE Sponsored by the Ammonius Foundation* and administered by the editorial board of Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, this annual essay competition is open to scholars who are within ten years of receiving a Ph.D. or students who are currently emolled in a graduate program. (Independent scholars should enquire of the editors 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 by providing the editors with an abstract and word count by 1 November. To be eligible for next year's prize, submissions must be electronically submitted by 30 January (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;

' The Ammonius Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to the revival of systematic philosophy and traditional metaphysics. Information about the Foundation's other initiatives may be found at a and 111 which

18 I Jason Tltrner

s_peakers of L2 utter p. This talk ought to be understood dispositionally: to say that you and I utter in just the same circumstances is to say that our dispositions are such that, for any circumstance C, I am disposed to utter in C iff you are disposed to utter in C. If we don't understand (*) in this way, it will prove too much. Imagine two communities that differ linguistically only in that one uses 'green' and one uses 'grue'. The green speakers are just like us, except they have never read Goodman 1979/1983 and never ent~rt~i~ed the predi;ates 'grue' and 'bleen'. The 'grue'-speakers are JUSt like the green -ones, except (a), they have never entertained a predica_te that works the way 'green' does, and (b) although this commun~ty calls things 'grue' exactly when the 'green'-speaking c_ommunitr call s them 'green', ~hey have different linguistic intention~. The _grue -speakers fully mtend, when they encounter greenlookmg things for the first time after the set future date, to not call th~m 'grue' anymore. And they fully intend to call blue-looking things encountered for the first time after this date 'grue'.16 . ~nfortunat~l~, both the 'green'- and the 'grue'-speaking commumties are annihilated by an asteroid strike before the future date. So when it comes to actual tokens of 'green' and 'grue' uttered, the two comm~ties agree entirely. (This isn't guaranteed: the 'grue'speakers nught say things like 'emeralds observed now are grue, but emeralds observed after the special fuhire date won't be'. But their linguistic dispositions don't guarantee that they ever in fact say such things; let's suppose they never do.) If(*) i.s understood just about what speakers in fact say, it will tell us that 'grue' and 'green' in these communities' respective mouths have the same inte~retation. This looks implausible. Forhmately, though,(*) will not license thi~ result if it is understood as talking about the way speake~s are_ disposed to use the expression across a wide range of possible orcurnstances; the 'green'-speakers are disposed to call green things 'green' in circumstances after the envisaged future date, and the 'grue'-speakers are not.17 1

Ontological Nihilism I 19 A second observation: (*) will only se~m plausible if _'interpre/ ta ti.on m· the consequent is understood m . a coarse-gramed th way, intensionally equivalent interpretat10ns count as e same t h sot a .. . . . , . etati·on · Imagine two commumhes which differ on1y m one s mterpr · 'triangular' whenever the other would use 'trilateral'. We usmg · th d t ld shou e Xpect these· communities together to satisfy e antece en, 0 f ( ) but it is at least contestable that, in some sense, we don t *t 'to say that 'triangular' means the same thing as 'trilateral'. wan . t1 t H owever, we do want to say that these two express10ns are a .eas intensionally equivalent-that they at least apply to the same things in the same possible circumstances. We ought to understand(*) so that it says nothing more than this. is

1

16

Since they_ are othe rw_ise just like their 'green'-speaking counterparts, they mtend to say things hke this sapphire is both blue and grue' after the future date. But they have not yet introduced a term to use for green things observed after this date. 17 0 ne caveat: we should not be concerned with the speakers' dispositions to utter sentences contammg both disputed words. For instance, we shouldn't demand that (*l's antecedent not be satisfied in the above 'blue' /'eulb' case simply because the .

1

4.1.3. (*) and Quiet Nihilism

(*), of course, makes trouble for Quiet Nihilism. Consider the first-order Quiet language the Nihilist will use to paraphrase the first-order target language. It has all the same predicates and truthftmctional connectives as our first-order language, bu~ whereas :Ve use the existential quantifier '3', which means 'there is som~thing that..:, he uses his 'schmexistential' quantifier, 'schm3', which ~e says means 'there schmis something that. .. '. But he grants that his predicates and truth-functional connectives mean w~at ours do, and recommends using 'schm3' in all and only the crrcumstances 'eulb'-speaker is disposed to assert 'eulb things are not blue' and you, at least.after serious reflection, are not disposed to assert 'eulb things are not blue'. The question is whether, setting aside the way the speakers think these terms interact, we should mterpret them the same wav· (*) is supposed to give us a guide for determmmg whether speakers' assertion~ of this sort are plausible, and as such it should not be overly sensitive to these assertions themselves. Cf. §4.1.3. 1s A third observation: 'circumstances' and 'interpretation' will both have t?.be understood in a fairly specific way if we are to make room. tor context-~ns1tive expressions. In particular, two speakers 'being in t!1e same orcumsta~ces should be understood as entailing their being in isomorphic contexts (so that if Jotu: truly says 'I am ti·red' , Bill can only count as being in the same circumstance . . 1f 1t , is h one Id in which Bill is tired). And two expressions 'having the same interpretation s ou be understood as their having the same character, as opposed to the same co~tent (in Kaplan's (1989) terms). But our focus here is on a narrower, context-1nsens1tive class of languages, so we can ignore these details in what follows. Thanks here to Ted Sider. 1

20 I Jason Turner

ir~ which we are disposed to use '3'. So (*) tells us that 'schm3' . h1s mouth means what '3' does in ours. m . ~ould the Quiet Nihilist defuse the appeal to (*) b h. ms1stence th t ' h 3' d , '. y IS mere . . a sc m oe~n t mean the same thing as '3' i :> I doubt 1t S E . . c oes. uppose "ustace ms1sted vehementlv that 'eulb' d"d n:ean the same as 'blue' in our mouths. It i; then as thou' h ':~ stipulates the followina· g a· •

c

(S1)

'Eulb' app:ies t~ exactly those things ordinary people would call blue under ordinary conditions.

(52)

~~ulb' is not_ interpreted the same way as (is not intenSIOnally eqmvalent to) 'blue'.

It is not at all clear th t th . If there . a ese constraints are jointly satisfiable. . rs a property B that applies to exactly those things that ordinary people would call 'blue' d d" . , . . un er or mary crrcumstances an ideal mterpreter will be pressured to interpret 'blue' as me . ' B When Eust b anmg . . . ace comes y and makes stipulation (Sl), the ideal interpreter will have no choice but to interpret 'eulb' as B B t then she will have no w t ti f ( . . u 'bl ' . ay o sa s y 52) without re-interpreting ue as somethmg other than B. No ideal interpreter would . ~~1st~ce that sort of control over the interpretation of everyone e~;: ue -any reasonable principle of charity will h h k Eust tl ave er ma e " ace, ra 1er t11an the rest of us speak falsely So . f ensure (Sl)' .f ' · , mso ar as she . s. s sahs action, she will have good reason to leave (52) unsatisfied.

What goes for Eustace goes for the Quiet Nihilist· h . . . that t · avmg ms1sted sen ences sucl1 as (10) are true in exactly those situations where we assert (9), he cannot also insist that 'schm3' ha d"ff ing th '3' I f s a I erent meanan ·. nso ar as we grant his first insistence, we have good reason to thmk that 'schm3' (. . . 'th . ' f means is mtens1onally equivalent to) ere is a ter all.

4.1.4. (*) and charity arguments

~Y. ~rgument against Quiet Nihilism bears some superficial sim1 anties to some other interpretative arguments that h"l (~.g.,_Eli H~rsch (2002, 2005, 2007)) have run in other c~s:so~~~~~:~ p 1ys1cal dispute. These 'charity' arguments nm more or less as

Ontological Nihilism I 21 follows: party A insists that every one of party B's sentences

ne: Begin with F, and introduce a new language F ,\ as tollows: 1t has all the same primitive predicates and sentential connectives as F, and it retains the feature-placing functor '.!1'. These express10ns are to be interpreted in the same way as they are in F. But F ,\.does not have the other four predicate functors; instead, it has variables and the abstraction operator',\' from §3.2. Step Two:. Introduce another language, F 8. F 8 is just like F ,\ except that, 111stead of having the '.!1' functor and ',\', it has one sentential variable-binding operator '8'. All of the expressions that _F ,\and F 8 share are to be interpreted the same way, and '8' is to be interpreted as 'L1X. 34 Step Three: We appeal to (*) from §4.1.1. If L1 and L? are languages that differ only in that L 1 has a term a where L h~s a term 2 {3, this principle says: (*)

If ev~ry term (other than a and fJ) is interpreted the same :Vay 111 Li as it is in Lz, and if the speakers of L1 utter tf>a mall and only the circumstances in which speakers of L 2 utter s, then a and f3 have the same interpretation also.

Now consider the target language, T, that the Functorese Nihilist

wan~s to paraphrase. It has all the same predicates as F 8: F uses

for s~mple predicates the predicates of T, and F 8 inherits its simple pred1ca:es from F. Furthermore, these predicates are to be interpreted ~the same way in T and F 8, for the same reasons. Also, T and F i5. share the same truth-functional connectives, which are also to be mterpreted in the same way. The only expressions that T ~nd F 8_ differ about are '8' and '3', and the Nihilist will say that .p 8 is true 111 exactly the cases where we say that ,1.. is true. So b ( ) '8'. F8 . . 'f'3 y m 1s mterpreted the same way as '3' is in T. We finish the argument with the following observations. We know that '~x' in Tis interpreted as 'there is something that is an x such that.·· · So the appeal to(*) in Step Three tells us that '8x' in F 8 mus t also be interpreted as 'there is something that is an x such ~h~t · · · · But, by the construction of Step Two, we know that '8x' '.s mte~~eted in F 8 as '.!1,\x' from F ,\. And we also know that ',\x' 111 F ,\is interpreted as 'is an x such that ... '. So '.!1' in F ,\must be I

*I

1

34

More precisely, (open or closed) sentences of the form rox' are to be interpreted as r l'l>.x •.

interpreted as 'there is something that. .. '. B~t by the c?nstruction of Step One, 'L1' in F has the same interpretat10n as 'L1' m F ,\;.thus, ,;:..'in Fis interpreted as 'there is something that. .. '. Hence, FIS not ontologically innocent after all; its supposedly innocent expression ;:..'is a quantifier proper in disguise. 1

6.3.2. An objection It is tempting to think that the(*) Argument proves too much and

so can't be right. The main idea nms something like this: We all agreed back in §5 that when we attach '11' to a oneplaced predicate A we got an expression that meant rlt is A-ing '· And we all agreed that 'It is A-ing' did not mean, and did not entail, '3xA