Are All Primitives Created Equal?

Abstract

Primitives are both important and unavoidable, and which set of primitives we endorse will greatly shape our theories and how those theories provide solutions to the problems that we take to be important. After introducing the notion of a primitive posit, I discuss the different kinds of primitives that we might posit. Following Cowling (2013), I distinguish between ontological and ideological primitives, and, following Benovsky (2013), between functional and content views of primitives. I then propose that these two distinctions cut across each other leading to four types of primitive posits. I then argue that theoretical virtues should be taken to be metatheoretical ideological primitives. I close with some reflections on the global nature of comparing sets of primitives. J. T. M. Miller is a philosopher based at Trinity College, Dublin. His primary areas of research are metaphysics and philosophy of language. He is the author of several papers on topics in fundamental ontology, categorial ontology, and the nature of language and its relationship to human cognition. He is co-editing the forthcoming Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics.

Metaphysics as the ‘Science of the Possible’

“…x Though, see Jackson (1998, this volume) and Bealer (1998) for more detailed discussions of metaphysics as conceptual analysis. xi By 'general principles' here, I mean what elsewhere has been labelled 'ideology' (see Cowling 2013, Miller 2018b). xii For a more in depth discussion of modal epistemology, see Roca-Royes (this volume) and Vaidya (2015).…”