Why the Canberra plan won’t help you do serious metaphysics

Synthese 195 (11):4865-4882 (2018)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Jackson argues that conceptual analysis plays a modest, albeit crucial, role in ‘serious metaphysics’: roughly, the project of demystifying phenomena we take to be mysterious by locating them in the natural world. This defence of conceptual analysis is associated with ‘the Canberra Plan’, a philosophical methodology that has its roots in the works of both Lewis :427–446, 1970, Australas J Philos 50:249–258, 1972) and Jackson. There is, however, a distinction to be drawn between conceptual analysis, as it is typically employed in the Canberra plan, and a version of it defended by Jackson himself. In this paper, I elucidate this distinction, and employ examples from the history of science to argue the use of the former, but not the latter, incurs certain problems of conceptual change. Moreover, I also argue neither can be used to undertake serious metaphysics—the former because of the aforementioned problems, and the latter due to the machinery it employs to solve them.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Causation and the canberra plan.David Liebesman - 2011 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 92 (2):232-242.
The Canberra Plan Neglects Ground.Ned Block - 2015 - In Terence Horgan, Marcelo Sabates & David Sosa (eds.), Qualia and Mental Causation in a Physical World: Themes from the Philosophy of Jaegwon Kim,. Cambridge University Press. pp. 105-133.
Platitudes in mathematics.Thomas Donaldson - 2015 - Synthese 192 (6):1799-1820.
Introducing the Canberra Plan.David Braddon-Mitchell & Robert Nola - 2009 - In David Braddon-Mitchell & Robert Nola (eds.), Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism. MIT Press. pp. 1--20.
Concepts and conceptual analysis.Stephen Laurence & Eric Margolis - 2003 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (2):253-282.
Concepts, analysis, generics and the canberra plan.Mark Johnston & Sarah-Jane Leslie - 2012 - Philosophical Perspectives 26 (1):113-171.
Mathematics and conceptual analysis.Antony Eagle - 2008 - Synthese 161 (1):67–88.
Is semantics in the plan?Peter Menzies & Huw Price - 2009 - In David Braddon-Mitchell & Robert Nola (eds.), Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism. Cambridge: MIT Press. pp. 159--82.
The Canberra Plan.David Braddon-Mitchell & Robert Nola (eds.) - 2001 - Oxford University Press.

Analytics

Added to PP
2017-05-23

Downloads
70 (#211,377)

6 months
3 (#439,232)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Raamy Majeed
University of Manchester

References found in this work

The Two-Dimensional Argument Against Materialism.David Chalmers - 2009 - In Brian P. McLaughlin & Sven Walter (eds.), Oxford Handbook to the Philosophy of Mind. Oxford University Press.
Psychophysical and theoretical identifications.David K. Lewis - 1972 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (3):249-258.

View all 38 references / Add more references