In On the Plurality of Worlds (Lewis 1986), David Lewis imposes a condition on realist theories of modality which he calls ‘plenitude’. Lewis apparently assigns this condition considerable importance, and uses it to motivate his Humean principle of recombination, but he never says exactly what plenitude amounts to. This chapter first sets aside some obvious ways of reconstructing the plenitude criterion which do not fit with the textual evidence. An objection to modal realism due to John Divers and Joseph Melia (...) (Divers and Melia 2002) is diagnosed as equivocating between an overly-demanding plenitude constraint and a weaker constraint which fails to establish their conclusion. An alternative deflationary interpretation of the plenitude condition has it following from an application of standard theoretical virtues to a modal realist’s total theory; Lewis’ correspondence provides new evidence in support of this interpretation. The deflationary plenitude criterion also has broader application, beyond Lewisian modal realism. (shrink)

This paper discusses the relation between Crispin Wright’s alethic pluralism and my global expressivism. I argue that on many topics Wright’s own view counts as expressivism in my sense, but that truth itself is a striking exception. Unlike me, Wright never seems to countenance an expressivist account of truth, though the materials needed are available to him in his approaches to other topics.

In this essay, the tension that Benacerraf identifies for theories of mathematical truth is used as the vehicle for arguing against a particular desideratum for semantic theories. More specifically, I place in question the desideratum that a semantic theory, provided for some area of discourse, should run in parallel with the semantic theory holding for the rest of the language. The importance of this desideratum is also made clear by means of tracing out the subtle implications of its rejection.

The followers of Wilfrid Sellars are often divided into “right” and “left” Sellarsians, according to whether they believe, in Mark Lance's words, that “linguistic roles constitutive of meaning and captured by dot quoted words are ‘normative all the way down.’” The present article anatomizes this division and argues that it is not easy to give it a nontrivial sense. In particular, the article argues that it is not really possible to construe it as a controversy related to ontology, and goes (...) on to argue that it is also not easy to construe it as one concerning the translatability of the normative idiom into the non-normative one. The conclusion is that the only coherent interpretation of this disagreement is as a disagreement about the possibility and desirability of assuming a standpoint “inside” our linguistic practices. (shrink)

The normative character of meaning creates deep problems for the attempt to give a reductive explanation of the constitution of meaning. I identify and critically examine an increasingly popular Carnap-style position, which I call Internalized Meaning Factualism (versions of which I argue are defended by, e.g., Robert Brandom, Paul Horwich and Huw Price), that promises to solve the problems. According to this position, the problem of meaning can be solved by prohibiting an external perspective on meaning constituting properties. The idea (...) is that if we stick to a perspective on meaning that is internal to meaning discourse, then we can preserve the normativity of meaning and yet locate meaning in the natural world. I develop a generic motivation for this position, but argue that, since this motivation is consistent with the Ramsey–Carnap–Lewis–Jackson reductionist strategy, internalized meaning factualism is unstable. The problems about the normativity of meaning can therefore not be sidestepped in this way. (shrink)

In “Taking Taniwha seriously,” Justine Kingsbury proposes a way for taniwha pūrākau—traditional narratives about taniwha—to be taken seriously by non-Māori, which is one step towards respecting te ao Māori—the Māori world view. Taniwha are powerful water creatures who act deliberately to protect and sometimes punish humans. So characterised, there is an obvious obstacle to those who wish to respect te ao Māori but who are sceptical about the existence of supernatural entities. Kingsbury proposes a way to take taniwha discourse seriously, (...) but not literally. I agree that her view is realist, and that it overcomes the obstacle noted above. I argue in this paper that her approach ought to be considered an instance of what I call neutral realism, and that when we characterise it this way, we can see precisely how it enables the sort of intercultural respect that she seeks. (shrink)

Metaphysics seeks an account of fundamental reality as it is independent of any observer or point of view. As such, one problem it faces is that any such account is necessarily created by some observer from some point of view. Does this mean that metaphysics is thereby inherently impossible? Or inherently incomplete? I argue that it is possible and it can aim at completeness, but it must acknowledge the contributions made by the human perspective on reality, human cognition, and features (...) of the conceptual and linguistic representations in which it is couched. The idea that we can discover metaphysical insights by investigating concepts and language has had a remarkably tenacious grip on the field of metaphysics. I offer a diagnosis of how this grip took hold and an argument that it should be loosened. I also propose a means of pursuing metaphysical investigation that does not rely on an enquiry into language and that can yield fruitful results. (shrink)

The article presents a brief reconstruction of naturalized epistemology, understood as a methodological approach. Three emblematic positions within naturalized epistemology are distinguished: rejection of apriorism inepistemology, favoring the use of the results of empirical science; attribution of an instrumental normativity to epistemology; and the thesis of the empirical assessability of the epistemic norms or principles. The text addresses the way in which, historically, these features are presented in the foundational works of Quine and Laudan. Furthermore, it studies how this project (...) is applied by three authors: Howard Sankey, who links naturalism to the debate of epistemic relativism; and Louise Antony and Elizabeth Anderson, who make use of these ideas as a foundation for feminist epistemology. Through these “applications”, it is possible to appreciate that naturalizedepistemology does not lead to the elimination of normative aspects, as was feared by early critics of Quine. It is also possible to appreciate that the approach of Sankey is naturalized because it is empirically informed, but it still depends on a priori arguments. On the contrary, appropriations by feminist epistemology carry out the naturalization project in a deeper sense, that is, they introduce a set of epistemological premises that are themselves empirical. (shrink)

Philosophers of biology claim that function talk is consistent with naturalism. Yet recent work in biology places new pressure on this claim. An increasing number of biologists propose that the existence of functions depends on the organisation of systems. While systems are part of the domain studied by physics, they are capable of interacting with this domain through organising principles. This is to say that a full account of biological function requires teleology. Does naturalism preclude reference to teleological causes? Or (...) are organised systems precisely a naturalised form of teleology? In this paper I suggest that the biology of organised systems reveals several contradictions in the main philosophical conceptions of naturalism. To integrate organised systems with naturalism’s basic assumptions—that there is no theory-independent view for metaphysics, and that nature is intelligible—I propose an idealist solution. (shrink)