We discuss the one–many problem as it appears in the Philebus and find that it is not restricted to the usually understood problem about the identity of universals across particulars that instantiate them (the Hylomorphic Dispersal Problem). In fact some of the most interesting aspects of the problem occur purely with respect to the relationship between Forms. We argue that contemporary metaphysicians may draw from the Philebus at least three different one–many relationships between universals themselves: instantiation, subkind and part, and (...) thereby construct three new ‘problems of the one and the many’ (an Eidetic Dispersal Problem, a Genus–Species Problem, and an Eidetic Combination Problem), which are as problematic as the version generally discussed. We then argue that this taxonomy sheds new and interesting light on certain discussions of higher-order universals in recent Australian analytic philosophy. (shrink)

The transformation of universities from public institutions to transnational business enterprises has met with less resistance in Australia than elsewhere. Yet this transformation undermines the founding principles of Australian democracy. This democracy emerged in opposition to the classical form of free market liberalism that the neo-liberals have revived. The logical unfolding of social liberalism in Australia underpinned the development of both the system of wage fixing and the idea of public education as conditions for democracy. The lack of resistance (...) to the destruction of democracy, as it was originally understood in Australia, by successive neoliberal governments has been due largely to the decadent state of Australian universities. These had come to be dominated by a crude form of empiricist utilitarianism, making Australia peculiarly vulnerable to the ideologues of global free markets and the power of transnational corporations who have sought to transform language to equate the dominance of all facets of life by markets as a defence of democracy. Only through a recovery of the philosophical tradition upon which Australia was founded and the development of this tradition through process metaphysics, it is argued, can genuine democracy and Australia’s public institutions, be defended. (shrink)

David Malet Armstrong has been one of the most influential contemporary metaphysicians working in the analytic tradition and surely the greatest 20th century Australian philosopher. His main merit is to have reestablished metaphysics as a respectable branch of philosophy placing it at the centre of the philosophical debate, and giving it the status of an authoritative and competent interlocutor of both rational and empirical sciences. By means of a rigorously argumentative approach and a sharp prose, Armstrong has built (...) a whole metaphysical system, that is, a comprehensive and unified picture of the fundamental structure of the world. The various chapters of the book address the key issues concerning Armstrong' view about the problem of universals, the nature of states of affairs, the ontological ground of possibility, nomic necessity, and dispositions, the truthmaker theory, and the theory of mind. This volume aims to celebrate Armstrong’s memory bringing new understanding, and hopefully stimulating more work, on his philosophy, with the conviction that it constitutes an invaluable heritage for contemporary research in metaphysics. (shrink)

_Stranger Cities_ explores the nature of Australia’s distinctive urban civilization with its portal ontology, axial metaphysics, ambidextrous style of thinking, architectonic spirit, and happy phlegmatic outlook. This classic ethos is offset by various choleric and melancholic strands of Australian romanticism.

This chapter by Fisher continues the theme of the relation between Armstrong and Lewis, only Fisher casts the net far wider. He begins by arguing that there were at least two different lines of influence from early twentieth-century behaviourism to the identity theory: one through logical positivism and the other through ordinary language philosophy, the latter involving Place and Smart, and Lewis and Armstrong. It was Armstrong and Lewis who were to have a profound influence on subsequent developments in analytic (...) philosophy, both methodologically and in metaphysics, and it is for this reason that Fisher devotes the rest of his chapter to tracing the origins of their theories of mind and the manner in which the emphases and methodologies deployed in developing their respective theories became the hallmarks of their wider impact on analytic philosophy. (shrink)

It seems that more often than not, refugees and asylum seekers are associated with the notion of ‘limbo’. This terminology is used to illustrate situations in which people are unable to access systems that would alleviate their ‘standstill’ lives. In other words, when it is said that people are in limbo, it is understood they have a sense of hopelessness. Specifically, in the media, at least three examples of ‘limbo’ are often used: limbo as a physical space, limbo as a (...) type of legal conflict or legal irreconcilability and metaphysical limbo or the type of limbo that exists in one’s mind. Unfortunately, the refugee experience is so commonly associated with the idea of limbo that it appears to be the central space that refugees ‘belong’—presumably, due to the inaccessible or unpreventable nature of their predicament, they are unable to escape their life in limbo. However, it is important to understand that limbo does not simply ‘exist’. It is something that is created. In the case of Australia, refugee limbos appear as certain types due to the restrictive nature of the Government’s laws and policies. This article explores the usage of the term ‘limbo’ in the media in order to draw attention to its overwhelming presence and map specific types of discourse and ideologies. Further, it is shown that limbo should not be considered something which is out of our control or something inherent in the refugee experience but instead, is a tool used by governments to restrict refugee access to the border and systems of protection. (shrink)

This chapter is about the influence of Alexander on John Anderson. It begins with an account of Alexander’s Australian heritage as one way to understand his egalitarian leanings towards all finite things in the universe so as not to privilege mind over everything else, as idealists did. A comparative analysis of Anderson’s metaphysics in reaction to Alexander’s system is provided, with detailed commentary on Anderson’s lectures, both published and unpublished. Finally, an explanation is given as to why Alexander (...) and Anderson’s empiricism fell out of favour, which gives some insights into how to place them in the history of twentieth-century philosophy. (shrink)

In the light of Markus’s notion of the decent society, this contribution examines the challenges facing public intellectuals in Australia’s contemporary political public sphere. It observes, firstly, that Australia has a distinctly Benthamite political culture that listens more to bureaucratic solutions than to metaphysics, history and arguments grounded in human rights. It explains, secondly, how public opinion gives voice to underlying norms and should thus be treated as the starting point for intellectual activism. Thirdly, the article looks into confusion (...) on the criteria for political deliberation in contemporary Australia. Consideration is then given to the growing constraints imposed on public intellectuals through various new forms of censorship and closure. The conclusion uses the gathering debates on adjustment to climate change to illustrate how public intellectual activism can break new ground. (shrink)

This book is an expanded version of the John Locke lectures delivered at Oxford in 1995 by one of the leading Australian philosophers. Its principal aim is to provide a defense of conceptual analysis against the familiar attacks of W. V. Quine and his followers, and to show that it is an indispensable method of philosophical inquiry. Being suspicious of abstract metaphilosophical declarations, Jackson builds his case for conceptual analysis upon detailed discussions of particular metaphysical and ethical doctrines, such (...) as physicalism, the primary quality view of color, and cognitivism and descriptivism concerning moral discourse. Hence the book is as much an original metaphilosophical study, as an important contribution to analytical metaphysics and ethics. (shrink)

Woolcock, Peter G Review of: Social humanism: A new metaphysics, by Brian Ellis, Routledge, New York, 2012. $120.

This two volume works provides a comprehensive history of philosophy in Australia and New Zealand. Volume one provides a chronological history, with one chapter devoted to the early years in which idealism dominated Australasian philosophy, and then chapters that cover each of the decades from the second world war. Volume two provides a thematic history, with treatment of most of the major areas to which Australasian philosophers have made significant contributions.

Australian Aborigine Oodgeroo Noonuccal/Kath Walker (1920–1993), having had only a primary school education, came to be awarded four honorary doctorates. An acknowledged poet, she was the first Australian Aborigine woman to have become a published author. Aiming to improve the status of the Aborigine, she became a political leader, and in her writings, made important distinctions between racial integration and assimilation and between just laws and equal rights. She retells Aborigine legends for the purpose of bringing understanding to (...) Aborigine metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, religion, and socio-politics. Aboriginal philosophy rests on the principle that humanity is one with the universe. Humanity’s task is to preserve the earth, a task which, in view of current climate change, is in need of attention. Aborigine philosophy for her also meant developing habits of sharing, of tolerance, and of acquiring the skill of “deep listening and quiet still awareness.” Among many honors, the United States awarded her a Fulbright Scholarship and the United Kingdom awarded her Member of the Order of the British Empire. Her poetry has been acclaimed and set to music; she herself has been the subject of dramatic performances, but only here is she being acknowledged as philosopher. (shrink)

The work of the Australian philosopher Alexander Boyce Gibson provides an illuminating example of a philosopher engaging with idealist thought throughout his career, and after the apparent demise of British Hegelianism. Boyce Gibson was thought of as an idealist by his contemporaries, but preferred to refer to himself as a personalist, or an empiricist of sorts. His work ranged widely, but was concentrated on the philosophy of religion, which he aligned closely with metaphysics. The paper traces his work (...) and influences, including his responses to Alexander, Collingwood, Macmurray and Hartshorne. It focuses on his philosophy of religion and metaphysics, which has been portrayed by Sell as a litmus test for assessing idealist thought. (shrink)

Through a close study of T. Yunkaporta's 2019’s Sand Talk, this article explores fractal thinking and the pattern of creation in Indigenous cosmology; the role of custodianship in respectful interaction between living systems; alternative Indigenous understandings of nonlinearity, time, and transience; the process-panpsychism and animism present in Indigenous perceptions of cosmos as living Country, illustrated in the Dreaming and Turnaround creation event; the role of embodied cognition and haptic and situated knowledge in Indigenous science; Indigenous holistic reasoning and the mind-body (...) connection; the process-relational metaphysic embedded in ritual and yarning practice; the knowledge encoded in place-based totemic mythology, lore, and ritual; and Indigenous understandings of complex systems as adaptive, self-organizing, and patterned. This article does not offer a process reading of Indigenous thought but rather demonstrates the significant contribution to process metaphysics that may be provided by an Aboriginal Australian perspective. Yunkaporta's text carves out a language of resistance to the McDonaldization of Indigenous research. While historic scholarly engagement with Aboriginal culture has overemphasized content, Yunkaporta demonstrates how this has occurred to the exclusion of the processes of Indigenous knowledge transmission and creation. Yet a process view requires engagement with the how, not only with the what. Such knowledge transmission is discerned in daily lived relationships among land, spirit, and people—binding epistemology to participation in a specific landscape embedded within a living culture. Place-making for Indigenous knowledges requires exploring how Indigenous ways of valuing, knowing, and being, shaped by cultural activities on Country, offer new understandings for Western metaphysics. (shrink)

This is the revised version of an invited keynote lecture delivered at the "1st Australian Computing and Philosophy Conference". The paper is divided into two parts. The first part defends an informational approach to structural realism. It does so in three steps. First, it is shown that, within the debate about structural realism, epistemic and ontic structural realism are reconcilable. It follows that a version of OSR is defensible from a structuralist-friendly position. Second, it is argued that a version (...) of OSR is also plausible, because not all relata are logically prior to relations. Third, it is shown that a version of OSR is also applicable to both sub-observable and observable entities, by developing its ontology of structural objects in terms of informational objects. The outcome is informational structural realism, a version of OSR supporting the ontological commitment to a view of the world as the totality of informational objects dynamically interacting with each other. The paper has been discussed by several colleagues and, in the second half, ten objections that have been moved to the proposal are answered in order to clarify it further. (shrink)

Jackson says that the form of physicalism that I recommend, with certain emendations he believes are necessary, turns out to be none other than the “Australian” type-type identity theory of J.J.C. Smart and others. About this, too, I have no serious disagreement, although Jackson’s claim appears to depend, at least in part, on a certain chosen reading of the texts involved. In fact, one point of similarity may be worth noting. As I take it, one special feature of the (...) “Australian” type identity theory is the claim that mental-physical identities are contingent, not necessary. Suppose M has a single physical realizer, P. On my account, the statement that M = P is not metaphysically or logically necessary. It is contingent since the statement that P realizes M is contingent. This is so because for P to realize M is for it to fulfill the causal specification that defines M, and what causal relations P actually enters into is a question that depends on the laws prevailing in a given world. Thus, P may be a realizer of M in this world but perhaps not in another in which different laws hold; in some worlds M may have no realizers at all. None of this is in violation of the idea that identities are necessary. For, according to me, if M has realizers, M is a functional property defined by a causal specification. This means that “M” is not a rigid designator, though it is, as we might call it, “nomologically rigid” or “semi-rigid”. (shrink)

Jackson says that the form of physicalism that I recommend, with certain emendations he believes are necessary, turns out to be none other than the “Australian” type-type identity theory of J.J.C. Smart and others. About this, too, I have no serious disagreement, although Jackson’s claim appears to depend, at least in part, on a certain chosen reading of the texts involved. In fact, one point of similarity may be worth noting. As I take it, one special feature of the (...) “Australian” type identity theory is the claim that mental-physical identities are contingent, not necessary. Suppose M has a single physical realizer, P. On my account, the statement that M = P is not metaphysically or logically necessary. It is contingent since the statement that P realizes M is contingent. This is so because for P to realize M is for it to fulfill the causal specification that defines M, and what causal relations P actually enters into is a question that depends on the laws prevailing in a given world. Thus, P may be a realizer of M in this world but perhaps not in another in which different laws hold; in some worlds M may have no realizers at all. None of this is in violation of the idea that identities are necessary. For, according to me, if M has realizers, M is a functional property defined by a causal specification. This means that “M” is not a rigid designator, though it is, as we might call it, “nomologically rigid” or “semi-rigid”. (shrink)

The article discusses the position of the Australian philosopher David Armstrong on the problem of the ontological status of the laws of nature. Through a clarification of Armstrong’s understanding of naturalism, physicalism, and factualism, the general essence of his metaphysical project is summarized. Then article presents his theory of the laws of nature, which is a kind of nomological realism: his version of the nomolog­ical argument is examined; his general grounds for rejecting the regularity theories, which is classical for (...) the naturalistic approach, are clarified; and the role of abduction in Arm­strong’s theory is demonstrated. The relation of nomic necessity, which is the key concept of his theory, is discussed in detail: its status as a second-order universal is explained; the terms of this relation, namely the types of states of affairs that constitute some special kind of universals, are distinguished; the essence of the nomic connection assumed by this relation is clarified through Armstrong’s theory of causality. Armstrong’s critique of regularity theories of laws of nature and the advantages of his nomological realism over them are discussed: cases where regularity is not law are considered; cases where there are laws that are not related to regularities, and cases where law and regularity seem to coincide, but there is reason to believe that they are different, these are the cases that appear to be most important. Finally, drawing on his own argumentation, the advan­tages of Armstrong’s theory over the best systems approach are justified: the problem of subjectivism and the threat of anti-realism inherent in coherentist approaches are ex­amined; the highly counterintuitive dependence of the existence of some laws on the ex­istence of others is pointed out; and the danger of actual contradictions within our ontol­ogy is demonstrated. (shrink)

Jackson says that the form of physicalism that I recommend, with certain emendations he believes are necessary, turns out to be none other than the “Australian” type-type identity theory of J.J.C. Smart and others. About this, too, I have no serious disagreement, although Jackson’s claim appears to depend, at least in part, on a certain chosen reading of the texts involved. In fact, one point of similarity may be worth noting. As I take it, one special feature of the (...) “Australian” type identity theory is the claim that mental-physical identities are contingent, not necessary. Suppose M has a single physical realizer, P. On my account, the statement that M = P is not metaphysically or logically necessary. It is contingent since the statement that P realizes M is contingent. This is so because for P to realize M is for it to fulfill the causal specification that defines M, and what causal relations P actually enters into is a question that depends on the laws prevailing in a given world. Thus, P may be a realizer of M in this world but perhaps not in another in which different laws hold; in some worlds M may have no realizers at all. None of this is in violation of the idea that identities are necessary. For, according to me, if M has realizers, M is a functional property defined by a causal specification. This means that “M” is not a rigid designator, though it is, as we might call it, “nomologically rigid” or “semi-rigid”. (shrink)

What would the world be like if we no longer needed meaning? Australian sociologist Michael Casey's revealing work charts the collapse of the metaphysical world and the innate human need for meaning. With the decline of Christianity and the demise of secular universalism in the west, the meaning and value of metaphysical culture has been replaced by an entirely new post-metaphysical world. In Meaninglessness, Casey revisits the social theory of Nietzsche, Freud, and Rorty, in order to conceive how this (...) post-metaphysical culture may take shape in the third millennium. Framing questions of enduring significance to contemporary social and political theory in a new methodological light, this work will appeal to scholars and general readers interested in sociology, post-modernism, cultural studies, political theory, and philosophy. (shrink)

What would the world be like if we no longer needed meaning? Australian sociologist Michael Casey's revealing work charts the collapse of the metaphysical world and the innate human need for meaning. With the decline of Christianity and the demise of secular universalism in the west, the meaning and value of metaphysical culture has been replaced by an entirely new post-metaphysical world. In Meaninglessness, Casey revisits the social theory of Nietzsche, Freud, and Rorty, in order to conceive how this (...) post-metaphysical culture may take shape in the third millennium. Framing questions of enduring significance to contemporary social and political theory in a new methodological light, this work will appeal to scholars and general readers interested in sociology, post-modernism, cultural studies, political theory, and philosophy. (shrink)

Early analytic philosophers like Carnap, Wittgenstein and Ryle regarded ontology as a branch of metaphysics that is either trivial or meaningless. But at present it is generally assumed that philosophy can make substantial discoveries about what kinds of things exist and about the essence of these kinds. My paper challenges this ontological turn. The currently predominant conceptions of the subject, at any rate, do not license the idea that ontology can provide distinctively philosophical insights into the constituents of reality. (...) I distinguish four main sources of analytic ontology—Strawson's descriptive metaphysics, Kripke's realist semantics, the Austro-Australian truth-maker principle, Quine's naturalistic conception of ontology—and indicate briefly why the first three do not rehabilitate ontology. In the remainder, I concentrate on the most influential and promising position. Quinean ontology seeks to bring out and reduce the ontological commitments of our best scientific theories through logical paraphrase. Against this programme, I argue that Quine's conception of ontological commitment is inadequate, and that his logical paraphrase cannot contribute to the exploration of reality, but at most to the clarification of our conceptual framework. (shrink)

David Lewis's untimely death on 14 October 2001 deprived the philosophical community of one of the outstanding philosophers of the 20th century. As many obituaries remarked, Lewis has an undeniable place in the history of analytical philosophy. His work defines much of the current agenda in metaphysics, philosophical logic, and the philosophy of mind and language. This volume, an expanded edition of a special issue of the Australasian Journal of Philosophy, covers many of the topics for which Lewis was (...) well known, including possible worlds, counterpart theory, vagueness, knowledge, probability, essence, fiction, laws, conditionals, desire and belief, and truth. Many of the papers are by very established philosophers; others are by younger scholars including many he taught. The volume also includes Lewis's Jack Smart Lecture at the Australian National University, "How Many Lives has Schrodinger's Cat?," published here for the first time. Lewisian Themes will be an invaluable resource for anyone studying Lewis's work and a major contribution to the many topics that he mastered. (shrink)