Ontology and Alternative Languages

Hirsch, Eli

doi:10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199732111.003.0012

Cited by 42 publications

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“…I will now carefully compare these four views, and in a way that is different from considerations put forward by McCall & Lowe (2003), Miller (2005) and Hirsch (2008), we will see that some of these traditional enemies (namely, the perdurantist worm view and the various endurantist theories) actually are very much alike, and that some alleged points of substantive dispute fall prey to closer scrutiny.…”

Section: Perdurantism Versus Endurantismmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…As a consequence, it becomes difficult to motivate the decision to choose one side over the other. There are also moderate anti-realists, such as Hirsch (2005Hirsch ( , 2007Hirsch ( , 2008, who claim that many metaphysical debates are merely verbal disputes where the disputants seem to be saying different things but in fact they are making the same claims only formulated in different ways, or different "alternative" languages. In Benovsky (2008), I have argued that a kind of this moderate anti-realism applies to the debate between the bundle theory and the substratum theory.…”

Section: Introduction Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, I shall have a close look at one metaphysical debate that has been the target and center of interest for many of those who work on meta-metaphysics, namely the problem of how objects persist through time: the endurantism versus perdurantism controversy. McCall & Lowe (2003), Miller (2005) and Hirsch (2008) have all argued, for different reasons and in different ways, that this debate is a good example of a merely verbal one, where two allegedly competing views are in fact translatable one into each other -they end up, contrary to appearances, to be equivalent. In my closer look at this debate, I will conclude that this is correct, but only to some extent, and that there does remain room for substantive disagreement.…”

Section: Introduction Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Endurance, Perdurance and Metaontology

Benovsky

2011

Sats

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The recent debate in metaontology gave rise to several types of (more or less classical) answers to questions about "equivalences" between metaphysical theories and to the question whether metaphysical disputes are substantive or merely verbal (i.e. various versions of realism, strong anti-realism, moderate anti-realism, or epistemicism). In this paper, I will do two things. First, I shall have a close look at one metaphysical debate that has been the target and center of interest of many meta-metaphysicians, namely the problem of how material objects persist through time: the endurantism versus perdurantism controversy. It has been argued that this debate is a good example of a merely verbal one, where two allegedly competing views are in fact translatable one into each other -they end up, contrary to appearances, to be equivalent. In my closer look at this debate, I will conclude that this is correct, but only to some extent, and that there does remain room for substantive disagreement.Secondly, and stemming from my considerations about the persistence debate, I will defend a metaontological view that emphasizes that when asking the question "Are metaphysical debates substantive or verbal?", the correct answer is "It depends." Some debates are substantive, some debates are merely verbal, and sometimes it is true that a problem or a question can be formulated in equally good frameworks where there is no fact of the matter as to which one is correct or where we just cannot know it. Furthermore, importantly, as my examination of the persistence debate will show, there is room for the view that a debate is largely merely verbal but not entirely and that some parts of it are substantive, and decidable by philosophical methods. It is possible, and it is the case with respect to the persistence debate, that inside a debate some points are merely verbal while other are places of substantive disagreement. A moral of this is that, at the end of the day, the best way to do meta-metaphysics is to do first-level metaphysics.

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Section: Perdurantism Versus Endurantismmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Introduction Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introduction Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Endurance, Perdurance and Metaontology

Benovsky

2011

Sats

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“…Hirsch (2009) is commendably blunt: 'I do not understand Carnap's explanation of why ontological issues reduce to linguistic choices. ' (2009, p. 231).…”

Section: Linguistic Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carnap’s epistemological critique of metaphysics

Bradley

2017

Synthese

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Many who take a dismissive attitude towards metaphysics trace their view back to Carnap's 'Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology' (1950a). But the reason Carnap takes a dismissive attitude to metaphysics is a matter of controversy. I will argue that no reason is given in 'Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology', and this is because his reason for rejecting metaphysical debates was given in 'Pseudo-Problems in Philosophy ' (1928). The argument there assumes verificationism, but I will argue that his argument survives the rejection of verificationism. The root of his argument is the claim that metaphysical statements cannot be justified; the point is epistemic, not semantic. I will argue that this remains a powerful challenge to metaphysics that has yet to be adequately answered.

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“…Arguments in favor of a metaphysical dispute being verbal are sometimes based on the claim that the di↵erent positions in the dispute just come down to the use of di↵erent, intertranslatable ways of speaking, e.g., in Hirsch (2009). In the present case, the equivalence theorem indicates that such arguments cannot be given for the position that the dispute between contingentism and necessitism or actualism and possibilism is merely verbal, since it shows that statements made by proponents of the two positions are in fact not intertranslatable -at least not in the languages considered here.…”

Section: Necessitism Possibilism and Verbal Disputesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modal Ontology and Generalized Quantifiers

Fritz

2012

J Philos Logic

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Timothy Williamson has argued that in the debate on modal ontology, the familiar distinction between actualism and possibilism should be replaced by a distinction between positions he calls contingentism and necessitism. He has also argued in favor of necessitism, using results on quantified modal logic with plurally interpreted second-order quantifiers showing that necessitists can draw distinctions contingentists cannot draw. Some of these results are similar to well-known results on the relative expressivity of quantified modal logics with so-called inner and outer quantifiers. The present paper deals with these issues in the context of quantified modal logics with generalized quantifiers. Its main aim is to establish two results for such a logic: Firstly, contingentists can draw the distinctions necessitists can draw if and only if the logic with inner quantifiers is at least as expressive as the logic with outer quantifiers, and necessitists can draw the distinctions contingentists can draw if and only if the logic with outer quantifiers is at least as expressive as the logic with inner quantifiers. Secondly, the former two items are the case if and only if all of the generalized quantifiers are first-order definable, and the latter two items are the case if and only if first-order logic with these generalized quantifiers relativizes. Logic and OntologyIn this first section, the philosophical and technical background is reviewed and the necessary formal definitions are stated. I start with the distinctions between actualism and possibilism and between contingentism and necessitism, as well as the argument for necessitism given in Williamson (2010). I then describe generalized quantifiers, quantified modal logic, and the class of logics resulting from adding generalized quantifiers to quantified modal logic. The second section will be devoted to the statement and proof of the central theorem of the paper, which I call the equivalence theorem. The third section will concern the philosophical relevance of the result, and the fourth section will give a concluding summary. Modal OntologyA central question in the metaphysics of modality is an ontological question. It is often put thus: Are there objects that are possible but not actual? This ⇤ Forthcoming in the Journal of Philosophical Logic. The final publication is available at

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Ontology and Alternative Languages

Cited by 42 publications

References 0 publications

Endurance, Perdurance and Metaontology

Endurance, Perdurance and Metaontology

Carnap’s epistemological critique of metaphysics

Modal Ontology and Generalized Quantifiers

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