Debunking Rationalist Defenses of Common-Sense Ontology: An Empirical Approach

Abstract

Debunking arguments typically attempt to show that a set of beliefs or other intensional mental states (e.g., intuitions) bear no appropriate explanatory connection to the facts they purport to be about. That is, a debunking argument will attempt to show that beliefs about p are not held because of the facts about p. Such beliefs, if true, would then only be accidentally so. Thus, their causal origins constitute an undermining defeater. Debunking arguments arise in various philosophical domains, targeting beliefs about morality, the existence of God, logic, and others. They have also arisen in material-object metaphysics, often aimed at debunking common-sense ontology. And while most of these arguments feature appeals to 'biological and cultural contingencies' that are ostensibly responsible for our beliefs about which kinds of objects exist, few (if any) of them take a serious look at what those contingencies might actually be. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to remedy this by providing empirical substantiation for a key premise in these debunking arguments by examining data from cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and developmental psychology that support a 'debunking explanation' of our common-sense beliefs and intuitions about which objects exist. Second, to argue that such data also undermines a particular kind of rationalist defense of common-sense ontology, sometimes employed as a response to the debunking threat.

Un-debunking Ordinary Objects with the Help of Predictive Processing

“…Cognitive-science-based attempts at debunking ordinary objects focus on mechanisms of perception. In particular, they focus on the processes by which the cognitive system structures the raw manifold of sensory signals into perceptual representations of stable units like cats, chairs, or pizzas (Goldman [1987], [1993]; Osborne [2016]). For this strategy to be fully successful, one presumably needs to assume that because our beliefs about which objects exist ultimately originate from perceptual experience, debunking object perception automatically debunks corresponding beliefs.…”

“…These are the processes that structure raw data streams registered by the senses into perceptual representations of unified objects. I will start (in Section 2) by discussing existing attempts at debunking ordinary objects which point to the purported fact that the processes behind object perception are disconnected from how the world is really structured (Goldman [1987], [1993]; Osborne [2016]). I will try to show that these arguments are inconclusive and leave the question about the reality of ordinary objects wide open.…”

Mereological Nihilism and Personal Ontology

“…There is little doubt that humans have an innate tendency to believe in composite objects (for details, see Osborne 2016). Is there any reason to think those cognitive faculties by which we acquire such beliefs are reliable?…”

Cognitive Metaphysics

“…As Paul (2010a) argues, insights from the cognitive sciences may lead to refinements of metaphysical intuitions, because subtle unnoticed psychological biases in the conceptual analysis may thus be detected. Osborne (2016) argues that empirical findings will have a destructive impact on common-sense ontology and thus will be of benefit in debunking strategies in metaphysics. I will argue that cognitive studies may undermine particular metaphysical doctrines arrived at by means of conceptual analysis and help us achieve a better understanding of many metaphysical issues and puzzles.…”

“… 27 Osborne (2016 , 205) argues that the brain uses heuristics that yield imperfect and incomplete information about the objects in the world, e.g., in solving inverse optics problem, i.e., in the reconstruction of a 3D-interpretation from 2D visual input. …”