Contingentism in Metaphysics
Dec 19-20, The University of Sydney Refectory, Main Quad.
Are there any contingent metaphysical truths? If so, what are they?
How should we determine which metaphysical claims we should expect to
be modally contingent, and which modally necessary? The topic of
Baboons is unlikely to arise, but the question of whether, if Baboons
made metaphysical claims, they ought to expect those claims to be
necessary or contingent will.
This conference follows “persons by convention” to be held at the
University of Sydney 16-18 Dec. For details see the persons by
convention website.
Timetable:
Dec 19
9.00 - 10.30 Jonathan Schaffer (ANU)
commentary by Raamy Majeed (USyd
The Laws of Metaphysics and the Limits of Possibility
What is the modal status of metaphysical disputes? I will argue that
metaphysical necessity is a restricted modality. This will enable me
to defend the 'intermediate' view that the paradigmatic metaphysical
disputes concern metaphysical necessities but conceptual
contingencies. I will conclude by considering some questions about
what is metaphysically but not conceptually necessary.
10.30 - 11.00 Morning Tea
11.00 - 12.30 Kristie Miller (USyd)
commentary by Dan Haggard (USyd)
Properties in a Contingentist’s Domain
The notion that it might be contingent whether or not properties are
Aristotelian immanent universals, Platonic universals, tropes, or
sets of particulars related by primitive similarity relations, is a
relatively new and controversial one. Call this property
contingentism. This paper is an attempt to make sense of property
contingentism.
12.30 - 2.00 Lunch
2.00 - 3.30 Neil McKinnon (Monash)
commentary by Sam Barron (USyd)
Modality and the Metaphysics of Time
I will discuss three views in the metaphysics of time, namely,
presentism, the growing universe, and eternalism. The bulk of the
paper involves looking at each of these views in turn. In each case,
the most commonly deployed philosophical objections will be examined,
and I will ask whether they show that the view in question is
necessarily false. Thereafter, I ask if Kripke/Putnam-style arguments
can be deployed to show that whichever view turns out to actually
true, is necessarily true. Aside from the question of modal status in
the philosophy of time, I suggest a new way for the presentist to
think about what is involved when we say that something is non-
present, and a new response to the `no change' objection to eternalism.
3.30 - 4.00 Afternoon Tea
4.00 - 5.30 John Bigelow (Monash)
commentary by Aisling Crean (ANU)
Mereology, and my favourite things
Quine's epistemology works by roughly "inference to the best
explanation". I think pure mathematics does not work by inference to
the best explanation: but I will explore the hypothesis that
metaphysics does. Under this epistemology, it is an open question
whether some of "the best explanations" will turn out to be ones that
include the postulation that some truths are necessary, analytic, and
a priori. I will take mereology as an example. Mereology, as
articulated by Quine and Goodman and Lenard, is very neat. I will not
question the principle that whenever there are some things, then
there is something that has all those things as parts. I will,
however, explore the question whether there might be explanatory
muscles behind the thesis that distinct things might have all their
parts in common (eg. "a ship" and "an aggregate of planks"). I will
argue that Quine's own epistemology might undermine both his
mereology and his hostility to modality, essentialism, analyticity,
and the a priori.
Dec 20
9.00 - 10.30 Denis Robinson (Auckland)
commentary by Pete Evans (Usyd)
Looking through a small window into the fog (reflections on logical
space and metaphysical methods)
Some well known metaphysical theses are overtly contingent, for
instance various contingent supervenience theses. They require some
empirical support, yet their philosophical appraisal may involve
largely a prioristic reasoning. Though contingent they may have
metaphysically necessary entailments as consequences. Though true
with respect to all possible worlds they only non-trivially constrain
some of them: they concern metaphysical issues which are overtly
Metaphysically Local because involving features not found in all
possible worlds.
Thus Metaphysical Necessity is a necessary but not sufficient
condition for a doctrine having Metaphysical Generality (i.e. non-
trivially constraining all possible worlds). The most interesting
Contingentism versus Necessitarianism debates will concern what
purport to be such doctrines (though they will not be if
Contingentism is true of them).
I am sceptical about how much of what is discussed in metaphysics has
Metaphysical Generality, and also sceptical about how we could know
if it does. I will mention some reasons for thinking our modal
epistemology is unlikely to let us see far into modal space, and
reflect on the possibility that spatio-temporal structure as we know
it is a feature which lacks Metaphysical Generality.
10.30 - 11.00 Morning Tea
11.00 - 12.30 David Braddon-Mitchell (USyd)
commentary by David Rowe (Monash)
The Role of Contingency in Metaphysics.
I argue that the conditions under which distinctively metaphysical
claims could be contingent are unlikely to be fulfilled, and if
fulfilled would come at the cost of our having no reason to hold
that any particular metaphysical claim was true. On the other hand,
meta-metaphysical views which make sense of why we should prefer one
metaphysics over another will tend to metaphysically deflationary.
Either they will involve the a priori elimination of incoherent views
allied to a hyperintensional account of concept individuation, or
else they will be a choice between metaphysically equivalent theories
based on how close in meaning the key terms are to natural language
usage. One further possibility remains, and which makes sense of some
key cases such as the mind-body problem, and Humean supervenience.
One might think that metaphysics is not a subject matter, it a
method. In particular it might using a priori methods to rule out a
priori objections to testable, empirical hypotheses.
12.30 - 2.00 Lunch
2.00 - 3.30 David Chalmers (ANU) (TBA)
commentary by John Cusbert (ANU).
3.30 - 4.00 Afternoon Tea
4.00 - 5.30 Metaphysics Panel (Ben Blumsen, Mark Jago, Ben Phillips)
Dr. Kristie Miller
University of Sydney Research Fellow
School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry and
The Centre for Time
The University of Sydney
Sydney Australia
Room 411, A 18
[email protected]
[email protected]
Ph: 02 93569663
http://homepage.mac.com/centre.for.time/KristieMiller/Kristie/Home%
20Page.html
Dr. Kristie Miller
University of Sydney Research Fellow
School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry and
The Centre for Time
The University of Sydney
Sydney Australia
Room 411, A 18
[email protected]
[email protected]
Ph: 02 93569663
http://homepage.mac.com/centre.for.time/KristieMiller/Kristie/Home%
20Page.html
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