Sociologizing metaphysics and mind: A pragmatist point of view on the methodology of the social sciences

There are realist philosophers and social scientists who believe in the indispensability of social ontology. However, we argue that certain pragmatist outlines for inquiry open more fruitful roads to empirical research than such ontologizing perspectives. The pragmatist conceptual tools in a Darwinian vein—concepts like action, habit, coping and community—are in a particularly stark contrast with, for instance, the Searlean and Chomskian metaphysics of human being. In particular, we bring Searle’s realist philosophy of society and mind under critical survey in this paper and contrast it with a pragmatist, sociologizing approach. Drawing from Dewey, James, and recent antirepresentationalism, we propose for research work a methodological relationalism of its own kind, altogether detached from the ontologies of society and mind.

Individualism and the metaphysics of actions

I examine an intuitive property of folk-psychological explanations I call self-sufficiency. I argue that individualism cannot honor this property and work toward distilling an account of psychological explanation that does honor it, given some fairly standard assumptions. In doing so, my preference for an Externalist individuation of intentional state will emerge unambiguously. The assumptions I rely on are fairly standard but not uncontroversial. Yet not always do I attempt to defend them from objections. My goal is an account of folk psychology consistent with our every-day practices rather than the deduction of an idealized psychology from first principles. I conclude with some applications offered as evidence that the goal was achieved.     

The metaphysics of quantity

A formal theory of quantity T _Q is presented which is realist, Platonist, and syntactically second-order (while logically elementary), in contrast with the existing formal theories of quantity developed within the theory of measurement, which are empiricist, nominalist, and syntactically first-order (while logically non-elementary). T _Q is shown to be formally and empirically adequate as a theory of quantity, and is argued to be scientifically superior to the existing first-order theories of quantity in that it does not depend upon empirically unsupported assumptions concerning existence of physical objects (e.g. that any two actual objects have an actual sum). The theory T _Q supports and illustrates a form of naturalistic Platonism, for which claims concerning the existence and properties of universals form part of natural science, and the distinction between accidental generalizations and laws of nature has a basis in the second-order structure of the world.     

The metaphysics of groups

If you are a realist about groups (e.g. religious institutions, football teams, the Mafia etc.) there are three main theories of what to identify groups with. I offer reasons for thinking that two of those theories (groups as sui generis entities and groups as mereological fusions) fail to meet important desiderata. The third option is to identify groups with sets, which meets all of the desiderata if only we take care over which sets they are identified with. I then canvass some possible objections to that third theory, and explain how to avoid them.     

The metaphysics of intersectionality

Philosophical Studies - This paper develops and articulates a metaphysics of intersectionality, the idea that multiple axes of social oppression cross-cut each other. Though intersectionality is...     

The metaphysics of rule-following

This paper proposes a causal–dispositional account of rule-following as it occurs in reasoning and intentional agency. It defends this view against Kripke’s (Wittgenstein on rules and private language, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1982) objection to dispositional accounts of rule-following, and it proposes a solution to the problem of deviant causal chains. In the first part, I will outline the causal–dispositional approach. In the second part, I will follow Martin and Heil’s (Philos Perspect 12:283–312, 1998) realist response to Kripke’s challenge. I will propose an account that distinguishes between two kinds of rule-conformity and two kinds of rule-following, and I will defend the realist approach against two challenges that have recently been raised by Handfield and Bird (Philos Stud 140:285–298, 2008). In the third part, I will turn to the problem of deviant causal chains, and I will propose a new solution that is partly based on the realist account of rule-following.     

The rationality of metaphysics

In this paper, it is argued that metaphysics, conceived as an inquiry into the ultimate nature of mind-independent reality, is a rationally indispensable intellectual discipline, with the a priori science of formal ontology at its heart. It is maintained that formal ontology, properly understood, is not a mere exercise in conceptual analysis, because its primary objective is a normative one, being nothing less than the attempt to grasp adequately the essences of things, both actual and possible, with a view to understanding as far as we can the fundamental structure of reality as a whole. Accordingly, it is urged, the deliverances of formal ontology have a modal and epistemic status akin to those of other a priori sciences, such as mathematics and logic, rather than constituting rivals to the claims of the empirical sciences, such as physics.     

Serious metaphysics and the vindication of reductions

What would be sufficient to show of some apparently higher-level property that it is ‘nothing over and above’ some complex configuration of more basic properties? This paper defends a new method for justifying reductions by demonstrating its comparative advantages over two methods recently defended in the literature. Unlike its rivals, what I’ll call “the semantic method” makes a reduction’s truth epistemically transparent without relying on conceptual analyses.