Causal grounds for negative truths

Stenwall, Robin

doi:10.1007/s11098-016-0841-x

Cited by 18 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…To go about this task, I will need an account of causation in terms of facts and fundamental grounds. Since I've presented the details of such a theory elsewhere (Stenwall 2010(Stenwall , 2017 and the aim of the discussion is not to say what causation is, but to provide a solution to the exclusion problem, the presentation of my preferred view of causation will be brief.…”

Section: Grounding Physicalism and The Exclusion Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…the view that there cannot be grounding without necessitation. My own view is that the orthodoxy is false (Stenwall 2016(Stenwall , 2017, and thus that there are non-vacuous counterfactuals whose antecedents state a physical fact, but that they are all false in the absence of the mental facts they ground. I will not argue this point further.…”

Section: Two Potential Concernsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A grounding physicalist solution to the causal exclusion problem

Stenwall

2020

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Remember how Kim (Philos Perspect 3:77-108, 1989, in: Heil and Mele (eds) Mental causation, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993b) used to argue against non-reductive physicalism to the effect that it cannot accommodate the causal efficacy of the mental? The argument was that if physicalists accept the causal closure of the physical, they are faced with an exclusion problem. In the original version of the argument, the dependence holding between the mental and the physical was cashed out in terms of supervenience. Due to the work or Fine (Philos Perspect 8:1-16, 1994) and others, we have since come to realize that modal notions are not well-suited to perform the work of properly characterizing dependence. As a consequence of this, an increasingly larger community of contemporary metaphysicians prefer to spell out mental-physical dependence in terms of a non-causal and non-reductive notion called grounding, which is intended to target a particular sort of metaphysical relation that takes us from ontologically less fundamental features of the world to that which is more fundamental. In this paper I join forces with those who think that this shift in focus is on the right track. More specifically, I will argue that the grounding physicalist can solve the exclusion problem in a way that is preferable to the supervenience-based nonreductive physicalist solution, as well as in a way that is compatible with the externalist picture of the mental.

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Section: Grounding Physicalism and The Exclusion Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Two Potential Concernsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A grounding physicalist solution to the causal exclusion problem

Stenwall

2020

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A Theory of Truthmaking

Asay

2020

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In the Introduction, I explained why we should take truthmaking seriously. One important moral to be drawn from that discussion is that the idea of truthmaking is alive and well in philosophy, even if sometimes left implicit. It is not just self-identified truthmaker theorists, then, who deploy the notion of truthmaking. However, it is truthmaker theorists who believe that framing metaphysical questions in terms of truthmaking is a useful way of defending and objecting to metaphysical positions. In fact, this is how I conceive of what it is to be a truthmaker theorist. To be a truthmaker theorist is not to accept any particular metaphysical doctrine; as we shall see, nearly every thesis under discussion within truthmaker theory is contentious. Rather, it is to adopt a methodology, to confront metaphysical questions with the tools and resources of truthmaker theory.  As a result, taking truthmaking seriously does not require taking on the most controversial commitments that have long been associated with it, such as the doctrine that all truths require truthmakers, or that entities such as facts or states of affairs exist. Those are positions that one may ultimately stake out, but they are not compulsory.But what form should such truthmaking arguments take? What kind of theory should truthmaker theorists endeavor to produce? What assumptions are truthmaker theorists allowed to hold when exploring their inquiries? These sorts of questions raise methodological issues for truthmaker theorists, and are of the first importance when developing comprehensive theories of truthmaking. Those who make casual appeals to the notion of truthmaking will also benefit from some reflection on truthmaker methodology, as it is easy to fall into tempting assumptions about truthmaking that are ultimately optional. Hence I could not disagree more with the very first sentence of Dodd (): "To be a truthmaker theorist is to commit oneself to a principle stating that the members of a certain class of true propositions have truthmakers" ().

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Introduction

2020

A Theory of Truthmaking

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Causal grounds for negative truths

Cited by 18 publications

References 26 publications

A grounding physicalist solution to the causal exclusion problem

A grounding physicalist solution to the causal exclusion problem

A Theory of Truthmaking

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